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[Dec 30, 2019] Sanders probably understands the situation but still is pandering to MIC, while Warren sounds like a regular neocon, another Kagan

Notable quotes:
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
Dec 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or neoprogressivism for short.

Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot ones too.

Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American and Western European progressive values.

"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win."

A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis" which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally -- is at stake."

Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."

The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped as an "authoritarian Internationale."

Cold War Calling

Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and middle classes.

"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use" policy.

And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world."

Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."

The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."

Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and supporter."

Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared xenophobia."

Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."

The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."

Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.

Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.

By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another.

Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align with the West."

George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy.

True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little sense.

Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake.

Echoes of Neoconservatism

The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S., according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and refuge."

Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake the world in the American self-image.

"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."

Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for Trump.

Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among six-in-ten Americans in 2016.

Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11 failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S. foreign policy.

But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.

One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids can't afford to go to college?"

The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?

FDR's Good Neighbor Policy

The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And stability requires balance.

In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root. This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.

It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."

Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security interests are at stake."

A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy," said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a World of neighbors."

What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in the domestic affairs of neighboring states."

These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.

James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.

[Dec 29, 2019] People you are voting for actually serve as representatives of MIC, not you: House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria

Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

yaridanjo , 21 minutes ago link

Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!

Reality_checkers , 18 minutes ago link

MIGA!

yaridanjo , 11 minutes ago link

You can find here who the warmongers in congress are:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2019/h560

the warmongers voted 'yea' to get their bribes from the Rothschild Banking Cartel!

[Dec 28, 2019] Senior OPCW Official Busted Leaked Email Exposes Orders To Delete All Traces Of Dissent On Douma

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power. ..."
"... This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids. ..."
"... Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets. ..."
"... Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. ..."
"... Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us. ..."
"... If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press. ..."
"... Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup? ..."
"... The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense. ..."
"... And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal. ..."
"... According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this." ..."
"... New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded. ..."
Dec 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Senior OPCW Official Busted: Leaked Email Exposes Orders To "Delete All Traces" Of Dissent On Douma by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/28/2019 - 10:30 0 SHARES

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation, revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the fact-finding mission.

RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk

-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019

"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:

" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"

According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than dropped.

"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.

It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018 over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.

AP file image.

Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the minutes).

Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQN

-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019

The purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims."

More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."

According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure ."

The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".

* * *

See full details at Wikileaks.org


JohnFrodo , 28 minutes ago link

pity the human pawns at the center of this mess.

africoman , 38 minutes ago link

There has been a Newsweek reporter who quite over editorial block of this OPCW case here also another interview by Grayzone

https://youtu.be/qqK8KgxuCPI

The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed except being a misdirected na

ponyboy99 , 40 minutes ago link

If you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar drinking Blatz.

ponyboy99 , 47 minutes ago link

If you go thru life assuming every single thing is a farce and a lie (Roddy Piper) these events can not only be explained, they can be predicted.

Ace006 , 57 minutes ago link

SOMEbody's got to ensure the intergrity of the Documents Registry Archive

Weihan , 58 minutes ago link

The globalist deep-state's reach is legendary.

Nothing , 1 hour ago link

yes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?

Greed is King , 36 minutes ago link

That`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.

And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.

africoman , 16 minutes ago link

It's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks

I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on false flag

I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as retribution etc

Thordoom , 1 hour ago link

This organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.

British elite is the worst of all.

DCFusor , 1 hour ago link

Your military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).

They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite some time.

I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the clown in chief's tie is.

St. TwinkleToes , 1 hour ago link

Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.

This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.

veritas semper vinces , 2 hours ago link

Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.

holgerdanske , 1 hour ago link

It was May that insisted on this attack. Remember the "poison" attack and the evil Russians?

lwilland1012 , 3 hours ago link

Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is being set, we might as well not have any.

ken , 1 hour ago link

Well, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going forward....?

WorkingClassMan , 3 hours ago link

Everybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on behalf of Isn'treal.

The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.

turkey george palmer , 3 hours ago link

Only official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain

adonisdemilo , 3 hours ago link

Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us.

johnnycanuck , 3 hours ago link

It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".

Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.

And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep secret from the world.

If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press.

https://johnmenadue.com/robert-fisk-the-evidence-we-were-never-meant-to-see-about-the-douma-gas-attack-counterpunch-27-may-2019/

5fingerdiscount , 3 hours ago link

Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup?

Helg Saracen , 3 hours ago link

The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.

And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.

carbonmutant , 4 hours ago link

You gotta wonder how much the deep state has deleted about their interference in Trump's administration...

dogbert8 , 4 hours ago link

Pretty much everyone with a brain realizes this all was a lie; only the M5M and the DC swamp continue to pretend it wasn't.

Joiningupthedots , 4 hours ago link

Who really made the order though?

ClickNLook , 3 hours ago link

Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW needs to be interrogated to find out.

Condor_0000 , 4 hours ago link

Newsweek Reporter Quits After Editors Block Coverage of OPCW Syria Scandal

December 19, 2019

Aaron Mate

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/19/newsweek-reporter-quits-after-editors-block-coverage-of-opcw-syria-scandal/

According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this."

New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded.

This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure, suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.

[Dec 25, 2019] Escobar You Say You Want A (Russian) Revolution by Pepe Escobar

Dec 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,

O nce in a blue moon an indispensable book comes out making a clear case for sanity in what is now a post-MAD world. That's the responsibility carried by " The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs ," by Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press), arguably the most important book of 2019.

Martyanov is the total package -- and he comes with extra special attributes as a top-flight Russian military analyst, born in Baku in those Back in the U.S.S.R. days, living and working in the U.S., and writing and blogging in English.

Right from the start, Martyanov wastes no time destroying not only Fukuyama's and Huntington's ravings but especially Graham Allison's childish and meaningless Thucydides Trap argument -- as if the power equation between the U.S. and China in the 21stcentury could be easily interpreted in parallel to Athens and Sparta slouching towards the Peloponnesian War over 2,400 years ago. What next? Xi Jinping as the new Genghis Khan?

(By the way, the best current essay on Thucydides is in Italian, by Luciano Canfora (" Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L'Esilio" ). No Trap. Martyanov visibly relishes defining the Trap as a "figment of the imagination" of people who "have a very vague understanding of real warfare in the 21st century." No wonder Xi explicitly said the Trap does not exist.)

Martyanov had already detailed in his splendid, previous book, "Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning," how "American lack of historic experience with continental warfare" ended up "planting the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the American military mythology of the 20thand 21stcenturies which is foundational to the American decline, due to hubris and detachment of reality." Throughout the book, he unceasingly provides solid evidence about the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a possible, future war against real armies (not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's), air forces, air defenses and naval power.

Do the Math

One of the key takeaways is the failure of U.S. mathematical models: and readers of the book do need to digest quite a few mathematical equations. The key point is that this failure led the U.S. "on a continuous downward spiral of diminishing military capabilities against the nation [Russia] she thought she defeated in the Cold War."

In the U.S., Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) was introduced by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the former head of Net Assessment at the Pentagon and the de facto inventor of the "pivot to Asia" concept. Yet Martyanov tells us that RMA actually started as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution), introduced by Soviet military theoreticians back in the 1970s.

One of the staples of RMA concerns nations capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles, a.k.a. TLAMs. As it stands, only the U.S., Russia, China and France can do it. And there are only two global systems providing satellite guidance to cruise missiles: the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. Neither China's BeiDou nor the European Galileo qualify – yet – as global GPS systems.

Then there's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW). The term itself was coined by the late Admiral Arthur Cebrowski in 1998 in an article he co-wrote with John Garstka's titled, "Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origin and Future."

Deploying his mathematical equations, Martyanov soon tells us that "the era of subsonic anti-shipping missiles is over." NATO, that brain-dead organism (copyright Emmanuel Macron) now has to face the supersonic Russian P-800 Onyx and the Kalibr-class M54 in a "highly hostile Electronic Warfare environment." Every developed modern military today applies Net-Centric Warfare (NCW), developed by the Pentagon in the 1990s.

Rendering of a future combat systems network. (soldiersmediacenter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Martyanov mentions in his new book something that I learned on my visit to Donbass in March 2015: how NCW principles, "based on Russia's C4ISR capabilities made available by the Russian military to numerically inferior armed forces of the Donbass Republics (LDNR), were used to devastating effect both at the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, when attacking the cumbersome Soviet-era Ukrainian Armed Forces military."

No Escape From the Kinzhal

Martyanov provides ample information on Russia's latest missile – the hypersonic Mach-10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal, recently tested in the Arctic.

Crucially, as he explains, "no existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of shooting [it] down even in the case of the detection of this missile." Kinzhal has a range of 2,000 km, which leaves its carriers, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M, "invulnerable to the only defense a U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount – carrier fighter aircraft." These fighters simply don't have the range.

The Kinzhal was one of the weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin's game-changing March 1, 2018 speech at the Federal Assembly. That's the day, Martyanov stresses, when the real RMA arrived, and "changed completely the face of peer-peer warfare, competition and global power balance dramatically."

Top Pentagon officials such as General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have admitted on the record there are "no existing countermeasures" against, for instance, the hypersonic, Mach 27 glide vehicle Avangard (which renders anti-ballistic missile systems useless), telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee the only way out would be "a nuclear deterrent." There are also no existing counter-measures against anti-shipping missiles such as the Zircon and Kinzhal.

Any military analyst knows very well how the Kinzhal destroyed a land target the size of a Toyota Corolla in Syria after being launched 1,000 km away in adverse weather conditions. The corollary is the stuff of NATO nightmares: NATO's command and control installations in Europe are de facto indefensible.

Martyanov gets straight to the point: "The introduction of hypersonic weapons surely pours some serious cold water on the American obsession with securing the North American continent from retaliatory strikes."

Kh-47M2 Kinzhal; 2018 Moscow Victory Day Parade. (Kremilin via Wikimedia Commons)

Martyanov is thus unforgiving on U.S. policymakers who "lack the necessary tool-kit for grasping the unfolding geostrategic reality in which the real revolution in military affairs had dramatically downgraded the always inflated American military capabilities and continues to redefine U.S. geopolitical status away from its self-declared hegemony."

And it gets worse: "Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation [Martyanov's italics] on the U.S. proper." Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree Chinese, as paraded recently -- "are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic systems and destroying the United States," no matter what crude propaganda the Pentagon is peddling.

In February 2019, Moscow announced the completion of tests of a nuclear-powered engine for the Petrel cruise missile. This is a subsonic cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that can remain in air for quite a long time, covering intercontinental distances, and able to attack from the most unexpected directions. Martyanov mischievously characterizes the Petrel as "a vengeance weapon in case some among American decision-makers who may help precipitate a new world war might try to hide from the effects of what they have unleashed in the relative safety of the Southern Hemisphere."

Hybrid War Gone Berserk

A section of the book expands on China's military progress, and the fruits of the Russia-China strategic partnership, such as Beijing buying $3 billion-worth of S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missiles -- "ideally suited to deal with the exact type of strike assets the United States would use in case of a conventional conflict with China."

Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic, October 2019. (YouTube screenshot)

Because of the timing, the analysis does not even take into consideration the arsenal presented in early October at the Beijing parade celebrating the 70thanniversary of the People's Republic.

That includes, among other things, the "carrier-killer" DF-21D, designed to hit warships at sea at a range of up to 1,500 km; the intermediate range "Guam Killer" DF-26; the DF-17 hypersonic missile; and the long-range submarine-launched and ship-launched YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missiles. Not to mention the DF-41 ICBM – the backbone of China's nuclear deterrent, capable of reaching the U.S. mainland carrying multiple warheads.

Martyanov could not escape addressing the RAND Corporation, whose reason to exist is to relentlessly push for more money for the Pentagon – blaming Russia for "hybrid war" (an American invention) even as it moans about the U.S.'s incapacity of defeating Russia in each and every war game. RAND's war games pitting the U.S. and allies against Russia and China invariably ended in a "catastrophe" for the "finest fighting force in the world."

Martyanov also addresses the S-500s, capable of reaching AWACS planes and possibly even capable of intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. The S-500 and its latest middle-range state of the art air-defense system S-350 Vityaz will be operational in 2020.

His key takeway: "There is no parity between Russia and the United States in such fields as air-defense, hypersonic weapons and, in general, missile development, to name just a few fields – the United States lags behind in these fields, not just in years but in generations [italics mine]."

All across the Global South, scores of nations are very much aware that the U.S. economic "order" – rather disorder – is on the brink of collapse. In contrast, a cooperative, connected, rule-based, foreign relations between sovereign nations model is being advanced in Eurasia – symbolized by the merging of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB (the BRICS bank).

The key guarantors of the new model are Russia and China. And Beijing and Moscow harbor no illusion whatsoever about the toxic dynamics in Washington. My recent conversations with top analysts in Kazakhstan last month and in Moscow last week once again stressed the futility of negotiating with people described – with overlapping shades of sarcasm – as exceptionalist fanatics. Russia, China and many corners of Eurasia have figured out there are no possible, meaningful deals with a nation bent on breaking every deal.

Indispensable? No: Vulnerable

Martyanov cannot but evoke Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, after the unilateral Washington abandonment of the INF treaty, clearing the way for U.S. deployment of intermediate and close range missiles stationed in Europe and pointed at Russia:

"Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons against those regions from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions hosting the centers where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us."

Translation: American Invulnerability is over – for good.

In the short term, things can always get worse. At his traditional, year-end presser in Moscow, lasting almost four and a half hours, Putin stated that Russia is more than ready to "simply renew the existing New START agreement", which is bound to expire in early 2021: "They [the U.S.] can send us the agreement tomorrow, or we can sign and send it to Washington." And yet, "so far our proposals have been left unanswered. If the New START ceases to exist, nothing in the world will hold back an arms race. I believe this is bad."

"Bad" is quite the euphemism. Martyanov prefers to stress how "most of the American elites, at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance" even as the real RMA "blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water."

Martyanov is one of the very few analysts – always from different parts of Eurasia -- who have warned about the danger of the U.S. "accidentally stumbling" into a war against Russia, China, or both which is impossible to be won conventionally, "let alone through the nightmare of a global nuclear catastrophe."

Is that enough to instill at least a modicum of sense into those who lord over that massive cash cow, the industrial-military-security complex? Don't count on it.

* * *

Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is " 2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .

[Dec 25, 2019] Trump military Keynesianism

Notable quotes:
"... My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country ..."
"... Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down. ..."
Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen December 23, 2019 at 8:12 pm

My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country .

Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ba63OVl1MHw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines that sustain life and communities.

Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 9:50 pm
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts. Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.
yalensis December 24, 2019 at 4:33 am
Many American communities also depend on the Military-Industrial Complex to educate their children. I personally know several families who had children enlist in the military in order to get a free college education; one that their families could otherwise not afford. The parents put their kids in the army and navy, and then just cross their fingers and hope they won't be deployed to a war zone.
The system is actually perfect. The odds of any one of these young people actually getting killed in a war, is actually quite low. The vast majority get a good education with lots of perks, all expenses paid including housing, they do their time, and never see a bullet. All at the taxpayers expense.

[Dec 25, 2019] Who is a military hero and how is not

Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:19 pm

"Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he's been able to convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical narrative that US war veterans are heroes."

("glorified hired thug" LOL!!!)

"I'm not saying to be mean to veterans, and I'm not saying veterans are bad people, in fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible. Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it's the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It's time to grow up and stop pretending otherwise."

Damn!!!! Caitlin is Spot F'n On !!!

BTW Notice how these war 'heroes' seem to bear a striking family resemblance.
Who does that pix of Crenshaw bring to mind??? LOL!!! Weird huh!!!

So we go to THEIR homeland as if they had come here to our homeland-which they haven't.

Maybe that's what Dan would have said if he were a straightforward truthful kinda guy which of course he isn't.

https://www.checkpointasia.net/stop-telling-veterans-that-they-are-heroes/

Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:32 pm
Be careful. Playing upon her military service is a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's gravitas and authenticity. It's quite true that she uses it to argue against regime-change wars, but a position that military records only mean you served as a dupe for war profiteers and enabled their plundering will not do her any good at all, and Caitlin has set it up so there is little wiggle room for intentions.

[Dec 23, 2019] When Hillary Clinton Pitched the Iraq War to CodePink by Charles Davis and Medea Benjamin

Notable quotes:
"... no reason to believe she'd be any less a hawk than she was as a senator, when she backed George W. Bush's war in Iraq, or as secretary of state, when she encouraged President Barack Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If her nomination is as sure a thing as people say, then antiwar organizing needs to start right away. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... it's something that might have been called neocon, ..."
"... Charles Davis is a writer in Los Angeles. His work has been published by outlets such as Al Jazeera, The New Republic, and Salon. Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights organization Global Exchange. She is also the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. ..."
Apr 23, 2015 | FPIF
Announcing her latest campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton declared she was entering the race to be the champion for "everyday Americans." As a lawmaker and diplomat, however, Clinton has long championed military campaigns that have killed scores of "everyday" people abroad, from Iraq to Yemen.

As commander-in-chief, there's no reason to believe she'd be any less a hawk than she was as a senator, when she backed George W. Bush's war in Iraq, or as secretary of state, when she encouraged President Barack Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If her nomination is as sure a thing as people say, then antiwar organizing needs to start right away.

Hillary's already won the support of those who continually agitate for war. "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy," Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, told The New York Times last summer.

"If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue," he said, "it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else."

We're going to call it what it is: More of the same sort of murderous policies that destroyed Iraq, destabilized Libya, killed women and children with cluster bombs and drones in Yemen, and legitimized the undermining of democracy in Honduras. There's little chance the Republicans will nominate someone better, but given Clinton's record as a senator and secretary of state - the latter giving us a very good idea of how she would approach foreign affairs once in office - it will be hard for them to find anyone much worse.

We know that Clinton is no reliable friend of peace. Today she supports diplomacy with Iran, but back in 2009, as secretary of state, she was adamant that the U.S. keep open the option of attacking the Islamic Republic over never-proven allegations it was seeking nuclear weapons. (In fact, Israel is the region's only nuclear power.)

Her attempts to portray herself as an ally of those who are pro-peace, as a sort of reluctant imperialist, is the same sort of co-opting distortion that has helped quiet opposition to President Obama's hawkish agenda. If anything, Hillary is even more militaristic than the ostensibly reluctant warrior she's campaigning to replace. Still, that hasn't stopped her from trying to be all things to all people - even people like us.

Indeed, in March 2003, Clinton did something she'll probably never willingly do again: She met with CODEPINK to explain her support for the Iraq war. "I like pink tulips around this time of the year," she began. They "kind of remind ya that there may be a spring. Well, you guys look like a big bunch of big tulips!" It got progressively more awkward after that. "I admire your willingness to speak out on behalf of the women and children of Iraq," said Clinton, but "There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm's way and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm and I have absolutely no belief that he will."

We thought the easiest way to prevent harming the women, children, and other living things in Iraq was to stop a war of aggression, ostensibly over weapons of mass destruction that UN inspectors on the ground couldn't find and which were, in fact, never found - because they didn't exist. Clinton, however, was steadfast: "If Saddam were serious about disarming he would have been much more forthcoming," she claimed. "The very difficult question for all of us is how does one bring about the disarmament of someone with such a proven track record of a commitment, if not an obsession, with weapons of mass destruction?"

Her answer: Destroying Iraq by dropping millions of U.S.-made WMDs, including bombs with depleted uranium that have more than doubled the country's pre-2003 rate of cancer. Speaking to the women of CODEPINK, Clinton even explicitly defended George W. Bush's unilateralism, citing her husband's go-it-alone intervention in Kosovo back in the 1990s.

In 2011, when the Arab Spring came to Libya, Clinton was the Obama administration's most forceful advocate for going above and beyond a no-fly zone to depose Muammar Gaddafi, whose U.S.-trained security forces were killing Libyans with the help of weapons and equipment provided by his erstwhile allies in the United States, Britain, and France.

She even out-hawked Robert Gates, the defense secretary first appointed by George W. Bush who was less than enthusiastic about going to war. When Libyan rebels carried out an extrajudicial execution of their country's former dictator, her response was sociopathic: "We came, we saw, he died," she said, smiling and laughing. That sent a message that the United States would look the other way at crimes committed by allies against its official enemies; indeed, it was the same policy of tolerance for friends' war crimes that arguably led Gaddafi to believe he could get away with killing anyone he labeled "al-Qaeda."

Libya was part of a pattern for Clinton. On Afghanistan, she advocated a repeat of the surge in Iraq, encouraging President Obama to more than double the number of troops there. Her State Department also provided cover for the expansion of the not-so-covert drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen. Clinton's top legal adviser, Harold Koh, exploited his pre-government reputation as an advocate for human rights to declare in a 2010 speech that not only did the government have the right to detain people without charge at Guantanamo Bay, but it can kill them with unmanned aerial vehicles anywhere in the world.

Clinton practiced "soft power" diplomacy too, of course: After Honduran forces trained at the U.S. School of the Americas carried out a coup against elected president Manuel Zelaya, Clinton's State Department immediately got to work on legitimizing the regime that seized power. As commentator Mark Weisbrot observes, she even said as much in her book, Hard Choices: "In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico," wrote Clinton. "We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot."

The subsequent "free and fair" election would end up being between two candidates who supported a coup opposed by most "everyday people" in Honduras, now one of the most violent, drug-war ravaged countries in the world. Clinton has also called for deporting child refugees fleeing that violence. In Honduras, as elsewhere, it seems it's not the lives of "everyday people" that are of chief concern to politicians like Clinton.

When Barack Obama became president, the anti-war movement became his first casualty - followed by a group of Pakistanis droned to death three days after his inauguration. We should never lose hope that we can bring about positive change, but actually changing the world for the better requires being aware that whoever sits in the White House come January 2017 is not going to be our friend.

Charles Davis is a writer in Los Angeles. His work has been published by outlets such as Al Jazeera, The New Republic, and Salon. Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights organization Global Exchange. She is also the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

[Dec 23, 2019] The Afghanistan Papers - TTG - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Dec 23, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The President of the USofA has no power to turn this ship around. The seat of power is no longer residing in the hands of civilian/political actors prime ministers or presidents though they may be.

Candidate Trump indicated very early on that he intended to withdraw from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he soon succumbed to his advisors and generals advice of increasing troop strength in 2017 as part of a surge strategy. This makes him no better or worse than his two predecessors who succumbed to the same kind of advice.

However Trump has recently restarted negotiations with the Taliban and has renewed his pledged to remove several thousand troops. "We're going down to 8,600 [from the 12,000 and 13,000 US troops now there] and then we make a determination from there as to what happens," Trump told Fox last August. "We're bringing it down." Of course the drawdown will be seen by the neocons as a unilateral concession to the Taliban. That shouldn't phase Trump. I think he plans to reannounce this withdrawal next month. DoD officials have said that the smaller US military presence will be largely focused on counterterrorism operations against groups like al Qaeda and IS, and that the military's ability to train and advise local Afghan forces will be reduced considerably. Sounds like they're still looking for a reason to stay.

Trump can break the cycle. He holds no ideological conviction for staying in Afghanistan. If he could get over his BDS (Bezos derangement syndrome), he could seize this Washington Post series, or at least the SIGAR lessons learned reports, and trumpet them through his twitter feed and helicopter talks. I believe he alone can generate a public cry for getting the hell out of Afghanistan and carry through with that action no matter how much his generals scream about it. But without a loud public outcry, especially from his base, Trump has no incentive to break the cycle. So all you deplorables better start hootin' and hollerin'. Hopefully enough SJWs will join you to pump up the volume.

TTG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/


Mathias Alexander , 23 December 2019 at 04:37 AM

If someone wanted to destabilize China,Russia and Central Asia the parts of Afghanistan America controls might be usefull for that.
JMH , 23 December 2019 at 07:11 AM
Excellent, right up to the last sentence. SJWs are mere tools of people like George Soros and have zero anti-war agenda nor do they care about America's manufacturing base ect.. In fact, many are chomping at the bit to join, what was once termed in the SST comments, the LGBTQ-C4ISR sect. I refer you to mayor Pete's exchange with Tulsi on the matter; he even invoked our sacred honor as a reason to stay the course in Afghanistan.
Eric Newhill -> The Twisted Genius ... , 23 December 2019 at 03:38 PM
TTG,
It's a shrinking cohort. For some of these types, their TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is actually causing them to side with the CIA and military. Enemy of my enemy.....and since there's no draft, they have no skin in that game.
Serge , 23 December 2019 at 07:35 AM
For the past 2-3 years many generals and politicians have been using the threat of ISKP as the new bogeyman for staying in Afghanistan. This threat is not wholly unfounded, a disproportionately large number of US airstrikes since 2015-2016 have been against ISKP in Nangarhar(remember the MOAB?) rather than against the Taliban. If my memory serves me correctly ISKP was responsible for every single US casualty in 2016-2017. In the past two months however ISKP has been collapsing in its erstwhile stronghold of Nangarhar, surrendering to the ANA rather than fall into the hands of the Taliba,à la Jowzjan in summer 2018. I was very surprised by the number of foreign fighters and their families to come out of there. We have the Taliban to thank for these two collapses.
turcopolier , 23 December 2019 at 11:59 AM
TTG

IMO American "exceptionalism" doomed our effort in Afghanistan Very few of us are set up mentally to accept the notion that other peoples are legitimately different from us and that they don't want to be like us and do things our way. I attribute this deformation on our part to the puritan heritage that you much admire. In your case your recent immigrant past seems to have immunized you from this deformation. As SF men we rightly fear and dread the attitudes of The Big Army, but, truth be told, it is we who are the outlier freaks in the context of American culture with its steamroller approach to just about everything.

The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 23 December 2019 at 01:40 PM
Ah yes, all that shining city on the hill stuff biting us in the ass once again. Like the Puritans, we seem to believe we alone are His chosen people and are utterly shocked that all others don't see this. In truth, Jesus probably sees our self righteous selves and our pilgrim forefathers much as he saw the Pharisees... a bunch of douche nozzles.

[Dec 23, 2019] When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable by Daniel R. DePetris

Notable quotes:
"... Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal. ..."
Dec 23, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable?

Even after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, our elites are still determined to escape without blame. CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 06: Chairman of the KKR Global Institute David Howell Petraeus attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

Almost two weeks after the Washington Post 's Craig Whitlock published his six-part series on the trials, tribulations, and blunders of Washington's 19-year-long social science experiment in Afghanistan, those involved in the war effort are desperately pointing fingers as to who is to blame. An alternative narrative has emerged among this crop of elite policymakers, military officers, and advisers that while American policy in Afghanistan has been horrible, the people responsible for it really did believe it would all work out in the end. Call it the "we were stupid" defense.

There were no lies or myths propagated by senior U.S. officials, we are told, just honest assessments that later proved to be wrong. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who has advised U.S. commanders on Afghanistan war policy, wrote that "no, there has not been a campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal." Former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who led CENTCOM during part of the war effort, called the Post 's reporting "not really news" and was mystified that the unpublished interviews from the U.S. special inspector general were generating such shock. Others have faulted the Post for publishing the material to begin with, claiming that public disclosure would scare future witnesses from cooperating and threaten other fact-finding inquiries (the fact that the newspaper was legally permitted to publish the transcripts after winning a court case against the government is apparently irrelevant in the minds of those making this argument).

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

All of these claims and counter-claims should be seen for what they truly are: the flailings of a policymaking class so arrogant and unaccountable that it can't see straight. That they're blaming the outrage engendered by the Afghanistan Papers on anything other than themselves is Exhibit A that our narcissistic policy elite is cocooned in their own reality.

Analysts have been pouring over the Afghanistan interview transcripts for over a week in order to determine how the war went wrong. Some of the main lessons learned have long been evident. The decision to impose a top-down democratic political order on a country that operated on a system of patronage and tribal systems from the bottom-up was bound to be problematic. Throwing tens of billions of dollars of reconstruction assistance into a nation that had no experience managing that kind of money -- or spending it properly -- helped fuel the very nationwide corruption Washington would come to regret. Paying off warlords to fight the Taliban and keep order while pressuring those very same warlords into following the rules was contradictory. The mistakes go on and on and on: as Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said, "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."

One of the most salient findings about this ghastly two-decade-long misadventure surfaced after the Afghanistan Papers were released: the commentariat will stop at nothing to absolve themselves of the slightest responsibility for the disaster they supported. The outright refusal of the pundit class to own up to its errors is as disturbing as it is infuriating. And even when they do acknowledge that errors were committed, they tend to minimize their own role in those mistakes, explaining them away as unfortunate consequences of fixed withdrawal deadlines, inter-agency tussling, Afghanistan's poor foundational state, or the inability of the Afghans to capitalize on the opportunities Washington provided them. Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal.

It's always somebody else's fault.

Whether out of arrogance, ego, or fear of not being taken seriously in Washington's foreign policy discussions, the architects of the war refuse to admit even the most obvious mistakes. Instead they duck and weave like a quarterback escaping a full-on defensive rush, attempting yet again to fool the American public.

But the public has nothing to apologize for. It is those who are making excuses who have exercised disastrous judgment on Afghanistan. And they owe the country an apology.

Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to The American Conservative.

[Dec 22, 2019] It turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news" worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined

Dec 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Roger Casement , 2 hours ago link

It turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news" worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined.

For Soetoro to turn this $hit loose on us exposes his truly sinister intent. Here you all are, thinking the bull$hit on TV is remotely relevant other than exposing the gangsters who direct it and rob us to pay for it against our will.

All these High Crimes on Pelosi and Schumer's watch.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/employee-speech-and-whistleblowers/military-may-be-engaged-illegal-psychological

https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness was shut down in 2003 by Congress after dinosaur exposed mass surveillance abuses establishing "Total Information Awareness" over all US citizens. The program was continued in overt defiance of Congress through Trillions in black funding.

https://epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/

https://fas.org/irp/crs/RL31730.pdf

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/u-s-never-really-ended-creepy-total-information-awareness-program/

https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Total-Information-Awareness

https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-total-informatio-awareness/

https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_Foreign_Propaganda_and_Disinformation_Act

hoffstetter , 2 hours ago link

Or you could just point to the massive expansion of debt and reduction of freedoms signed by Trump last night while the whole government was telling you "nothing up my sleeve!"

[Dec 21, 2019] Government Warmongering Criminals Where Are They Now

Notable quotes:
"... The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington? ..."
"... A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. ..."
"... If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01. ..."
"... The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." ..."
"... "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." ..."
"... senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds ..."
"... One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry. ..."
Jul 08, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

The United States already has by far the per capita largest prison population of any developed country but I am probably one of the few Americans who on this Independence Day would like to see a lot more people in prison, mostly drawn from politicians and senior bureaucrats who have long believed that their status makes them untouchable, giving them license to steal and even to kill. The sad fact is that while whistleblowers have been imprisoned for revealing government criminality, no one in the federal bureaucracy has ever actually been punished for the crimes of torture, kidnapping and assassination committed during the George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama presidencies.

Why is accountability important? After the Second World War, the victorious allies believed it was important to establish responsibility for the crimes that had been committed by officials of the Axis powers. The judges at the Nuremberg Trials called the initiation of a war of aggression the ultimate war crime because it inevitably unleashed so many other evils. Ten leading Nazis were executed at Nuremberg and ninety-three Japanese officials at similar trials staged in Asia, including several guilty of waterboarding. Those who were not executed for being complicit in the actual launching of war were tried for torture of both military personnel and civilians and crimes against humanity, including the mass killing of civilians as well as of soldiers who had surrendered or been captured.

No matter how one tries to avoid making comparisons between 1939 and 2015, the American invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression, precisely the type of conflict that the framework of accountability provided by Nuremberg was supposed to prevent in the years after 1946. High level US government officials knew that Iraq represented no threat to the United States but they nevertheless described an imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein in the most graphic terms, replete with weapons of mass destruction, armed drones flying across the Atlantic, terrorists being unleashed against the homeland, and mushroom clouds on the horizon. The precedent of Iraq, even though it was an abject failure, has led to further military action against Libya and Syria to bring about "regime change" as well as a continuing conflict in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the US has been waging a largely secret "long war" against terrorists employing torture and secret prisons. The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington?

Many Americans would now consider the leading figures in the Bush Administration aided and abetted by many enablers in congress from both political parties to be unindicted war criminals. Together they ignited a global conflict that is still running strong fourteen years later with a tally of more than 7,000 dead Americans and a minimum of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Somalis and Syrians.

War breeds more war, due largely to the fact that guilty parties in Washington who piggyback on the prevailing narrative move onward and upward, rewarded in this life even if not necessarily so in the hereafter. A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. Though not 100% accurate as I know at least a couple of honorable former senior officials who wound up teaching, it would seem to be a generalization that has considerable validity. The implication is that many senior government officials ascend to their positions based on being accommodating and "political" rather than being honest and they continue to do the same when they switch over to corporate America or the equally corrupted world of academia.

I thought of my friend's comment when I turned on the television a week ago to be confronted by the serious, somewhat intense gaze of Michael Morell, warning about the danger that ISIS will strike the US over the Fourth of July weekend. Morell, a former senior CIA official, is in the terror business. He had no evidence whatsoever that terrorists were planning an attack and should have realized that maneuvering the United States into constantly going on alert based on empty threats is precisely what militant groups tend to do.

When not fronting as a handsomely paid national security consultant for the CBS television network Morell is employed by Beacon Global Strategies as a Senior Counselor, presumably warning well-heeled clients to watch out for terrorists. His lifestyle and substantial emoluments depend on people being afraid of terrorism so they will turn to an expert like him and ask serious questions that he will answer in a serious way suggesting that Islamic militants could potentially bring about some kind of global apocalypse.

Morell, a torture apologist, also has a book out that he wants to sell, positing somewhat ridiculously that he and his former employer had been fighting The Great War of Our Time against Islamic terrorists, something comparable to the World Wars of the past century, hence the title. Morell needs to take some valium and relax. He would also benefit from a little introspection regarding the bad guys versus good guys narrative that he is peddling. His credentials as a warrior are somewhat suspect in any event as he never did any military service and his combat in the world of intelligence consisted largely of sitting behind a desk in Washington and providing briefings to George W. Bush and Barack Obama in which he presumably told them what they wanted to hear.

Morell is one of a host of pundits who are successful in selling the military-industrial-lobbyist-congressional-intelligence community line of BS on the war on terror. Throw in the neocons as the in-your-face agents provocateurs who provide instant intellectual and media credibility for developments and you have large groups of engaged individuals with good access who are on the receiving end of the seemingly unending cash pipeline that began with 9/11. Frances Townsend, who was the Bush Homeland Security adviser and who is now a consultant with CNN, is another such creature as is Michael Chertoff, formerly Director of the Department of Homeland Security, who has successfully marketed his defective airport scanners to his former employer.

But the guys and gals who are out feathering their own nests are at least comprehensible given our predatory capitalist system of government. More to the point, the gang that ordered or carried out torture and assassination are the ones who should be doing some hard time in the slammer but instead they too are riding the gravy train and cashing in. To name only a few of those who knew about the torture and ordered it carried out I would cite George Tenet, James Pavitt, Cofer Black and Jose Rodriguez from the intelligence community. The assassination program meanwhile is accredited to John Brennan, currently CIA Director, during his tenure as Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor. And then there are Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon together with John Yoo at Justice and Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice at the White House, all of whom outright lied, dissimulated and conspired their way to bring about a war of aggression against Iraq.

There are plenty of nameless others who were "only carrying out orders" and who should be included in any reckoning of America's crimes over the past fifteen years, particularly if one also considers the illegal NSA spying program headed by Michael Hayden, who defended the practice and has also referred to those who oppose enhanced interrogation torture as "interrogation deniers." And then there are Presidents Bush and Obama who certainly knew what was going on in the name of the American people as well as John Brennan, who was involved in both the torture and renditions programs as well as the more recent assassinations by drone.

So where are they now? Living in obscurity ashamed of what they did? Hardly. Not only have they not been vilified or marginalized, they have, in most cases, been rewarded. George W. Bush lives in Dallas near his Presidential Library and eponymous Think (sic) Tank. Cheney lives in semi-retirement in McLean Virginia with a multi-million dollar waterfront weekend retreat in St. Michaels Maryland, not too far from Donald Rumsfeld's similar digs.

George Tenet, the CIA Director notorious for his "slam-dunk" comment, a man who cooked the intelligence to make the Iraq war possible to curry favor with the White House, has generously remunerated positions on the boards of Allen & Company merchant bank, QinetiQ, and L-1 Identity Solutions. He sold his memoir At the Center of the Storm, which has been described as a "self-justifying apologia," in 2007 for a reported advance of $4 million. His book, ironically, admits that the US invaded Iraq for no good reason.

James Pavitt, who was the point man responsible for the "enhanced interrogation" program as Tenet's Deputy Director for Operations, is currently a principal with The Scowcroft Group and also serves on several boards. Cofer Black, who headed the Counter-Terrorism Center, which actually carried out renditions and "enhanced interrogations," was vice chairman of Blackwater Worldwide (now called Xe) and chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, a Blackwater spin-off. He is now vice president of Blackbird Technologies, a defense and intelligence contractor. Rodriguez, who succeeded Black and in 2005 illegally destroyed video tapes made of Agency interrogations to avoid possible repercussions, is a senior vice president with Edge Consulting, a defense contractor currently owned by IBM that is located in Virginia.

John Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley while Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of mushroom clouds and is widely regarded as the worst National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in history, has returned to Stanford University. She is a professor at the Graduate School of Business and a director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy as well as a fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is occasionally spoken of as either a possible GOP presidential candidate or as a future Commissioner of the National Football League. Her interaction with students is limited, but when challenged on her record she has responded that it was a difficult situation post 9/11, something that everyone understands, though few would have come to her conclusion that attacking Iraq might be a good way to destroy al-Qaeda.

Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense, is seen by many as the "intellectual" driving force behind the invasion of Iraq. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and advises Jeb Bush on foreign policy. A bid to reward Wolfie for his zeal by giving him a huge golden parachute as President of the World Bank at a salary of $391,000 tax free failed when, after 23 months in the position, he was ousted over promoting a subordinate with whom he was having an affair. His chief deputy at the Pentagon Doug Feith left the Defense Department to take up a visiting professorship at the school of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, which was subsequently not renewed. He is reported to be again practicing law and thinking deep thoughts about his hero Edmund Burke, who no doubt would have been appalled to make Feith's acquaintance. Feith is a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute and the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies. His memoir War and Decision did not make the best seller list and is now available used on Amazon for $.01 plus shipping. If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01.

The over-rewarding of former officials who have in reality done great harm to the United States and its interests might well seem inexplicable, but it is all part of a style of bureaucracy that cannot admit failure and truly believes that all its actions are ipso facto legitimate because the executive and its minions can do no wrong. It is also a symptom of the classic American character flaw that all things are of necessity measured by money. Does anyone remember the ancient Roman symbol of republican virtue Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm after being named Dictator in order to defeat Rome's enemies? He then handed power back to the Senate before returning to his plowing after the job was done. The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." George Washington was America's Cincinnatus and it is not a coincidence that officers of the continental army founded the Cincinnati Society, the nation's oldest patriotic organization, in 1783. It is also reported that Edward Snowden used the alias "Cincinnatus."

Lord Acton once observed that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." More recently essayist Edward Abbey put it in an American context, noting "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." That senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds is a fault that is perhaps not unique to the United States but it is nevertheless unacceptable. Handing out a couple of exemplary prison sentences for the caste that believes itself untouchable would be a good place to start. An opportunity was missed with David Petraeus, who was fined and avoided jail time, and it will be interesting to see how the Dennis Hastert case develops. Hastert will no doubt be slapped on the wrist for the crime of moving around his own money while the corruption that was the source of that money, both as a legislator and lobbyist, will be ignored. As will his molestation of at least one and possibly several young boys. One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry.

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

[Dec 21, 2019] Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

ChuckOrloski says:

March 12, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."

Hi AnonfromTN.

Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli "dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.

They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.

What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.

Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!

Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland" law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.

AnonFromTN , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski I can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery. As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally, desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and severely punish those who expose these crimes.

I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash. Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.

[Dec 21, 2019] Syria Accuses US Of Stealing Over 40 Tons Of Its Gold by Eric Zuesse

Mar 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2019 - 23:55 240 SHARES Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, "Gold deal between United States and Daesh" (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,

Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].

Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."

ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.

The US Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn't even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the US had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the US was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria ) to overthrow Syria's secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015 . The US Government's excuse was "This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike." They pretended it was out of compassion -- not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS's success in taking over territory in Syria. (And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the US rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump's predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama's coup in Ukraine had replaced . It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters -- people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, US-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.) America's line was: Russia just isn't as 'compassionate' as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" . Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.

The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.

Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined "Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight" and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).

Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined "Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, "Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the US

In September 2016 a UK official "FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's Government.

On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US military website "Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined "WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, "Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.

On 30 November 2015 Israel's business-news daily Globes News Service bannered "Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report" , and reported:

An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.

After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria's secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family , who are the US Government's main international ally .

On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial US ally trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 US-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey's Government so as to impose an outright US stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS's most crucial international backer . Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran . (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined "Turkish President's daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members" . On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined "Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil" ; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS's fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the US operation against Syrians -- theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, "US Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider" , and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the US and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria's oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq's Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria's Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the US and all of its allies.

The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014 : It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport" near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, "Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked, "A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland ( Obama's detail-person overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.

On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined "In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves" and reported that there is "virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it's just 1%" of before the coup. Four days later, bannered "Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: 'There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault'" . From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.

The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :

"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."

The US had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva's report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the US Government's central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world's largest embassy, which is America's embassy in Baghdad.

Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."

Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled "Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.

In December 2017, CAR headlined "Weapons of the Islamic State" and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.

That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining "Russian TV Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?

So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.

This is today's form of imperialism.

Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland. That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world." For example, as RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd, about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors' many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on the take.

The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.

On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered "IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara" , and simply assumed that it's false -- but provided no evidence to back their speculation up -- and they closed by asserting "The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria." Why do people even subscribe to such 'news'-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that's based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?

Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined "Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).

[Dec 21, 2019] The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom

Notable quotes:
"... Erster General-Quartiermeister ..."
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
Jun 13, 2018 | www.unz.com

In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term, but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.

Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called defense contractors, and the " emergency men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits, promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course, that's part of the problem.

Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this: in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation, they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and departing after a couple years to make way for someone else to give it a try.

... ... ...

Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white, that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.

Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity. No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.


Anon [323] Disclaimer , June 7, 2018 at 9:57 pm GMT

"The United States of Amnesia."

That's actually a universal condition.

unseated , June 7, 2018 at 11:00 pm GMT
@Andrei Martyanov

1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified, especially relative to population.

2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.

c matt , June 8, 2018 at 1:18 pm GMT
"Enough! Stop this madness!"

The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the JFK treatment, who knows.

No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people get what they want, good and hard.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , June 8, 2018 at 2:08 pm GMT
@c matt

Yes.

I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to until the Empire collapses.

Carlton Meyer , Website June 8, 2018 at 4:02 pm GMT
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of governments:

Controversy

On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.

In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in 1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]

In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.

In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.

In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until 1970.[18]

At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]

Mike P , June 8, 2018 at 4:33 pm GMT

No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.

I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public, always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what is wrong with the U.S. today.

As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving – they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia. Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.

TG , June 8, 2018 at 7:44 pm GMT
An interesting and thoughtful piece.

I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence."

This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.

So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't like the status quo.

After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.

No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are simply being ignored.

Left Gatekeeper Dispatch , June 8, 2018 at 9:10 pm GMT
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap? You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/tribute-to-the-last-honorable-us-senator-the-story-of-paul-wellstones-suspected-assassination-2/5643200

Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge. CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison CIA SIS or GTFO.

James Kabala , June 9, 2018 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene may be the best final scene in the history of movies.

exiled off mainstreet , June 10, 2018 at 1:15 am GMT
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the yankee system of permanent war.
smellyoilandgas , June 13, 2018 at 4:48 am GMT
@TG

While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.

Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.

I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and Pharaohs because they are global.

Mr. Anon , June 13, 2018 at 4:49 am GMT
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit today.

I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.

MarkinPNW , June 13, 2018 at 5:49 am GMT
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human, and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.

Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.

But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.

animalogic , June 13, 2018 at 8:14 am GMT
@Mike P

Good points Mike P.

Author says: "strategy has ceased to exist".

In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals, within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive – ie it's not a "good" strategy)

The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan, at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq: Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya: who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate them regardless.

Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the 1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right" people)

Tom Welsh , June 13, 2018 at 10:05 am GMT
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception'.

- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)

annamaria , June 13, 2018 at 2:06 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so they are likely to stick with Washington .

Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar world."

The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.

[Dec 21, 2019] William Astore on War as Art and Advertising – Antiwar.com Blog

Notable quotes:
"... A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it. ..."
"... My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us. ..."
"... Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again. ..."
Jul 12, 2017 | www.antiwar.com

Consider this article a work of speculation; a jumble of ideas thrown at a blank canvas.

A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it.

For example, America's overseas wars today are both abstractions and distractions. They're also somewhat surreal to most Americans, living as we do in comparative safety and material luxury (when compared to most other peoples of the world). Abstraction and surrealism: two art styles that may say something vital about America's wars.

If some aspects of America's wars are surreal and others abstract, if reports of those wars are often impressionistic and often blurred beyond recognition, this points to, I think, the highly stylized representations of war that are submitted for our consideration. What we don't get very often is realism. Recall how the Bush/Cheney administration forbade photos of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of all the war reporting you've seen on U.S. TV and Cable networks, and ask how many times you saw severed American limbs and dead bodies on a battlefield. (On occasion, dead bodies of the enemy are shown, usually briefly and abstractly, with no human backstory.)

Of course, there's no "real" way to showcase the brutal reality of war, short of bringing a person to the front and having them face fire in combat -- a level of "participatory" art that sane people would likely seek to avoid. What we get, as spectators (which is what we're told to remain in America), is an impression of combat. Here and there, a surreal report. An abstract news clip. Blown up buildings become exercises in neo-Cubism; melted buildings and weapons become Daliesque displays. Severed limbs (of the enemy) are exercises in the grotesque. For the vast majority of Americans, what's lacking is raw immediacy and gut-wrenching reality.

Again, we are spectators, not participants. And our responses are often as stylized and limited as the representations are. As Rebecca Gordon put it from a different angle at TomDispatch.com , when it comes to America's wars, are we participating in reality or merely watching reality TV? And why are so many so prone to confuse or conflate the two?

Art, of course, isn't the only lens through which we can see and interpret America's wars. Advertising, especially hyperbole, is also quite revealing. Thus the US military has been sold, whether by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, as "the world's finest military in history" or WFMH, an acronym I just made up, and which should perhaps come with a copyright or trademark symbol after it. It's classic advertising hyperbole. It's salesmanship in place of reality.

So, when other peoples beat our WFMH, we should do what Americans do best: sue them for copyright infringement. Our legions of lawyers will most certainly beat their cadres of counsels. After all, under Bush/Cheney, our lawyers tortured logic and the law to support torture itself. Talk about surrealism!

My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us.

As I said, this is me throwing ideas at the canvas of my computer screen. Do they make any sense to you? Feel free to pick up your own brush and compose away in the comments section.

P.S. Danger, Will Robinson. I've never taken an art theory class or studied advertising closely.

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.

Jim Savell , 19 hours ago

Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again.

[Dec 21, 2019] Since the turn of the century, the US has dumped trillions of dollars into wars

Notable quotes:
"... It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. ..."
Apr 06, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc, April 05, 2017 at 10:16 AM
"Dimon Warns 'Something Is Wrong' With the U.S."

Do you agree with Jamie Dimon assessment of the USA?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/dimon-still-optimistic-warns-something-is-wrong-with-u-s

"Dimon Warns 'Something Is Wrong' With the U.S."

by Laura J Keller...April 4, 2017

"JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has two big pronouncements as the Trump administration starts reshaping the government: "The United States of America is truly an exceptional country," and "it is clear that something is wrong."

Dimon, leader of world's most valuable bank and a counselor to the new president, used his 45-page annual letter to shareholders on Tuesday to list ways America is stronger than ever -- before jumping into a much longer list of self-inflicted problems that he said was "upsetting" to write.

Here's the start: Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has dumped trillions of dollars into wars, piled huge debt onto students, forced legions of foreigners to leave after getting advanced degrees, driven millions of Americans out of the workplace with felonies for sometimes minor offenses and hobbled the housing market with hastily crafted layers of rules.

Dimon, who sits on Donald Trump's business forum aimed at boosting job growth, is renowned for his optimism and has been voicing support this year for parts of the president's business agenda. In February, Dimon predicted the U.S. would have a bright economic future if the new administration carries out plans to overhaul taxes, rein in rules and boost infrastructure investment. In an interview last month, he credited Trump with boosting consumer and business confidence in growth, and reawakening "animal spirits."

But on Tuesday, reasons for concern kept coming. Labor market participation is low, Dimon wrote. Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive.

" It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. "...

pgl -> im1dc... , April 05, 2017 at 10:16 AM
I meant my last comment to be a reply. No - there is a lot that Dimon said that I cannot agree with.
pgl , April 05, 2017 at 10:49 AM
"Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive."

Let's unpack his list. The 4th (last) sentence is his hope that his bank can back to the unregulated regime that brought us the Great Recession. His 3rd sentence is a call for more tax cuts for the rich.

We may like his first 2 sentences here but who is going to pay for this? Not Jamie Dimon. See sentence #3.

DrDick -> pgl... , April 05, 2017 at 11:18 AM
He also seems to falsely imply that the people associated with capital actually have functioning brains.

[Dec 21, 2019] In places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the United States is deepening its involvement in wars while diplomacy becomes largely an afterthought

Mar 31, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
anne , March 30, 2017 at 12:47 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/world/middleeast/us-war-footprint-grows-in-middle-east.html

March 29, 2017

U.S. War Footprint Grows, With No Endgame in Sight
By BEN HUBBARD and MICHAEL R. GORDON

In places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the United States is deepening its involvement in wars while diplomacy becomes largely an afterthought.

ilsm -> anne... , March 30, 2017 at 01:51 PM
14 years as if US were going strong on Hanoi in '79!

Putin is a Tibetan Buddhist compared to Obama and so forth

mulp -> anne... , March 30, 2017 at 04:30 PM
Well, sending US troops is a US jobs program.

Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more demand for labor produced goods.

[Dec 20, 2019] War Denialism and Endless War by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
Dec 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:

Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE #Syria under heading of "endless war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war. Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw

-- Robert Satloff (@robsatloff) December 15, 2019

War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts have started rejecting endless war, the war's defenders have often chosen to pretend that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.

The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. I made this point back in the spring of 2016 :

Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.

The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else.


chris chuba3 days ago

It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.

We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to use the Saudis against Iran.

It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.

SilverSpoon3 days ago
"War is the health of the State"

And our state has been very healthy indeed in recent decades.

Ray Joseph Cormier3 days ago • edited
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired 58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development.
Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

http://rayjc.com/2011/09/04...

Lee Green3 days ago
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or "drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?

Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well, the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.

[Dec 20, 2019] Angry Bear " The oncoming generational UK and US political tsunamis

Dec 20, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
  1. likbez , December 20, 2019 5:20 pm

    > alliances like NATO, and ultimately the loss of our democracy

    Changes might be coming, but Republicans and Clinton faction of Dems are now fully prepared to resist those changes tooth and nail.

    Neoliberal Dems just invented the template for deposing or, at least, paralyzing any future antiwar president. Via vote of non-confidence mechanism, which essentially what House impeachment "investigation" was about.

    You can always find another Fiona Hill, or Alexander Vindman or a half-dozen State Department neocon hawks (where in some cases it was unclear who is their real employee ) , or find another jingoistic and complexly detached from reality professor like Karlan, to support this action. Neocons feed from threat inflation. And money from MIC doesn't smell.

    The problems with the current impeachment goes far deeper then Trump. It is a change of the constitutional system converting it closer to the UK model.

[Dec 20, 2019] Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone

Dec 20, 2019 | www.amazon.com

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? Since this deceptively simple question first came into my mind, I haven't been able to shake it. We think we understand the word, but what are we really referring to when we talk about a system in which the people rule themselves?

The word democracy is all around us, invoked in almost every conceivable context: government, business, technology, education, and media. At the same time, its meaning, taken as self-evident, is rarely given much serious consideration. Though the headlines tell us democracy is in "crisis," we don't have a clear conception of what it is that is at risk. The significance of the democratic ideal, as well as its practical substance, is surprisingly elusive.

For most of my life, the word democracy didn't hold much appeal. I was of course never against democracy per se, but words such as justice , equality , freedom , solidarity , socialism , and revolution resonated more deeply. Democracy struck me as mealy-mouthed, even debased. That idealistic anarchists and authoritarian leaders are equally inclined to claim "democracy" as their own only demonstrated its lack of depth. North Korea does, after all, call itself a "Democratic People's Republic," and Iraq was invaded by the U.S. Army in the name of bringing democracy to the Middle East. But today I no longer see the opportunistic use of the word as a sign of the idea's vapidity. Those powers co-opt the concept of democracy because they realize that it represents a profound threat to the established order, a threat they desperately hope to contain.

After making a documentary film, What Is Democracy? , I now understand the concept's disorienting vagueness and protean character as a source of strength; I have come to accept, and even appreciate, that there is no single definition I can stand behind that feels unconditionally conclusive. Though the practice has extensive global roots, the word democracy comes to us from ancient Greece, and it conveys a seemingly simple idea: the people ( demos ) rule or hold power ( kratos ). Democracy is the promise of the people ruling, but a promise that can never be wholly fulfilled because its implications and scope keep changing. Over centuries our conceptions of democracy have expanded and evolved, with democracy becoming more inclusive and robust in many ways, yet who counts as the people, how they rule, and where they do so remain eternally up for debate. Democracy destabilizes its own legitimacy and purpose by design, subjecting its core components to continual examination and scrutiny.

Perfect democracy, I've come to believe, may not in fact exist and never will, but that doesn't mean we can't make progress toward it, or that what there is of it can't disappear. For this reason, I am more convinced than ever that the questions of what democracy is -- and, more important, what it could be -- are ones we must perpetually ask.

Right now, many who question democracy do so out of disillusionment, fear, and outrage. Democracy may not exist, yet it still manages to disappoint. Political gridlock, corruption, unaccountable representatives, and the lack of meaningful alternatives incense people across the ideological spectrum; their anger simmers at dehumanizing bureaucracy, blatant hypocrisy, and lack of voice. Leaders are not accountable and voters rightly feel their choices are limited, all while the rich keep getting richer and regular people scramble to survive. In advanced democracies around the world, a growing number of people aren't even bothering to vote -- a right many people fought and died for fairly recently. Most Americans will say that they live in a democracy, but few will say that they trust the government, while the state generally inspires negative reactions, ranging from frustration to contempt and suspicion. The situation calls to mind Jean-Jacques Rousseau's observation from The Social Contract : "In a well-ordered city every man flies to the assemblies; under a bad government no one cares to stir a step to get to them. As soon as any man says of the State What does it matter to me? the State may be given up for lost." 1

A cauldron of causes generates an atmosphere of corrosive cynicism, social fragmentation, and unease, with blame too often directed downward at the most vulnerable populations. And it's not just in the United States. Consider the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union, the decision known as Brexit; the resurgence of right-wing populism across Europe; coups and reactionary electoral victories in Brazil; and the rise of fascism in India. Plato's warning about democracy devolving into tyranny rings chillingly prophetic. The promise of self-rule risks becoming not a promise but a curse, a self-destructive motor pushing toward destinations more volatile, divided, despotic, and mean.

But this book isn't about the pitfalls of popular sovereignty, though it certainly has its perils. Nor is it about the shortcomings of current liberal democratic political systems or the ways they have been corrupted by money and power -- though they have been. That's a story that has been told before, and while it will be the backdrop to my inquiry it is not the focus. This book, instead, is an invitation to think about the word democracy from various angles, looking back through history and reflecting on the philosophy and practice of self-rule in hopes that a more contemplative view will shed useful light on our present predicament. My goal is not to negate the sense of alarm nor deter people from action but to remind us that we are part of a long, complex, and still-unfolding chronicle, whatever the day's headlines might be or whoever governs the country.

Taking a more theoretical approach to democracy's winding, thorny path and inherently paradoxical nature can also provide solace and reassurance. Ruling ourselves has never been straightforward and never will be. Ever vexing and unpredictable, democracy is a process that involves endless reassessment and renewal, not an endpoint we reach before taking a rest (leaving us with a finished system to tweak at the margins). As such, this book is my admittedly unorthodox, idiosyncratic call to democratize society from the bottom to the top. It is also an expression of my belief that we cannot re think democracy if we haven't really thought about it in the first place.

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? Since this deceptively simple question first came into my mind, I haven't been able to shake it. We think we understand the word, but what are we really referring to when we talk about a system in which the people rule themselves?

The word democracy is all around us, invoked in almost every conceivable context: government, business, technology, education, and media. At the same time, its meaning, taken as self-evident, is rarely given much serious consideration. Though the headlines tell us democracy is in "crisis," we don't have a clear conception of what it is that is at risk. The significance of the democratic ideal, as well as its practical substance, is surprisingly elusive.

For most of my life, the word democracy didn't hold much appeal. I was of course never against democracy per se, but words such as justice , equality , freedom , solidarity , socialism , and revolution resonated more deeply. Democracy struck me as mealy-mouthed, even debased. That idealistic anarchists and authoritarian leaders are equally inclined to claim "democracy" as their own only demonstrated its lack of depth. North Korea does, after all, call itself a "Democratic People's Republic," and Iraq was invaded by the U.S. Army in the name of bringing democracy to the Middle East. But today I no longer see the opportunistic use of the word as a sign of the idea's vapidity. Those powers co-opt the concept of democracy because they realize that it represents a profound threat to the established order, a threat they desperately hope to contain.

After making a documentary film, What Is Democracy? , I now understand the concept's disorienting vagueness and protean character as a source of strength; I have come to accept, and even appreciate, that there is no single definition I can stand behind that feels unconditionally conclusive. Though the practice has extensive global roots, the word democracy comes to us from ancient Greece, and it conveys a seemingly simple idea: the people ( demos ) rule or hold power ( kratos ). Democracy is the promise of the people ruling, but a promise that can never be wholly fulfilled because its implications and scope keep changing. Over centuries our conceptions of democracy have expanded and evolved, with democracy becoming more inclusive and robust in many ways, yet who counts as the people, how they rule, and where they do so remain eternally up for debate. Democracy destabilizes its own legitimacy and purpose by design, subjecting its core components to continual examination and scrutiny.

Perfect democracy, I've come to believe, may not in fact exist and never will, but that doesn't mean we can't make progress toward it, or that what there is of it can't disappear. For this reason, I am more convinced than ever that the questions of what democracy is -- and, more important, what it could be -- are ones we must perpetually ask.

Right now, many who question democracy do so out of disillusionment, fear, and outrage. Democracy may not exist, yet it still manages to disappoint. Political gridlock, corruption, unaccountable representatives, and the lack of meaningful alternatives incense people across the ideological spectrum; their anger simmers at dehumanizing bureaucracy, blatant hypocrisy, and lack of voice. Leaders are not accountable and voters rightly feel their choices are limited, all while the rich keep getting richer and regular people scramble to survive. In advanced democracies around the world, a growing number of people aren't even bothering to vote -- a right many people fought and died for fairly recently. Most Americans will say that they live in a democracy, but few will say that they trust the government, while the state generally inspires negative reactions, ranging from frustration to contempt and suspicion. The situation calls to mind Jean-Jacques Rousseau's observation from The Social Contract : "In a well-ordered city every man flies to the assemblies; under a bad government no one cares to stir a step to get to them. As soon as any man says of the State What does it matter to me? the State may be given up for lost." 1

A cauldron of causes generates an atmosphere of corrosive cynicism, social fragmentation, and unease, with blame too often directed downward at the most vulnerable populations. And it's not just in the United States. Consider the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union, the decision known as Brexit; the resurgence of right-wing populism across Europe; coups and reactionary electoral victories in Brazil; and the rise of fascism in India. Plato's warning about democracy devolving into tyranny rings chillingly prophetic. The promise of self-rule risks becoming not a promise but a curse, a self-destructive motor pushing toward destinations more volatile, divided, despotic, and mean.

But this book isn't about the pitfalls of popular sovereignty, though it certainly has its perils. Nor is it about the shortcomings of current liberal democratic political systems or the ways they have been corrupted by money and power -- though they have been. That's a story that has been told before, and while it will be the backdrop to my inquiry it is not the focus. This book, instead, is an invitation to think about the word democracy from various angles, looking back through history and reflecting on the philosophy and practice of self-rule in hopes that a more contemplative view will shed useful light on our present predicament. My goal is not to negate the sense of alarm nor deter people from action but to remind us that we are part of a long, complex, and still-unfolding chronicle, whatever the day's headlines might be or whoever governs the country.

Taking a more theoretical approach to democracy's winding, thorny path and inherently paradoxical nature can also provide solace and reassurance. Ruling ourselves has never been straightforward and never will be. Ever vexing and unpredictable, democracy is a process that involves endless reassessment and renewal, not an endpoint we reach before taking a rest (leaving us with a finished system to tweak at the margins). As such, this book is my admittedly unorthodox, idiosyncratic call to democratize society from the bottom to the top. It is also an expression of my belief that we cannot re think democracy if we haven't really thought about it in the first place.

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? Since this deceptively simple question first came into my mind, I haven't been able to shake it. We think we understand the word, but what are we really referring to when we talk about a system in which the people rule themselves?

The word democracy is all around us, invoked in almost every conceivable context: government, business, technology, education, and media. At the same time, its meaning, taken as self-evident, is rarely given much serious consideration. Though the headlines tell us democracy is in "crisis," we don't have a clear conception of what it is that is at risk. The significance of the democratic ideal, as well as its practical substance, is surprisingly elusive.

For most of my life, the word democracy didn't hold much appeal. I was of course never against democracy per se, but words such as justice , equality , freedom , solidarity , socialism , and revolution resonated more deeply. Democracy struck me as mealy-mouthed, even debased. That idealistic anarchists and authoritarian leaders are equally inclined to claim "democracy" as their own only demonstrated its lack of depth. North Korea does, after all, call itself a "Democratic People's Republic," and Iraq was invaded by the U.S. Army in the name of bringing democracy to the Middle East. But today I no longer see the opportunistic use of the word as a sign of the idea's vapidity. Those powers co-opt the concept of democracy because they realize that it represents a profound threat to the established order, a threat they desperately hope to contain.

After making a documentary film, What Is Democracy? , I now understand the concept's disorienting vagueness and protean character as a source of strength; I have come to accept, and even appreciate, that there is no single definition I can stand behind that feels unconditionally conclusive. Though the practice has extensive global roots, the word democracy comes to us from ancient Greece, and it conveys a seemingly simple idea: the people ( demos ) rule or hold power ( kratos ). Democracy is the promise of the people ruling, but a promise that can never be wholly fulfilled because its implications and scope keep changing. Over centuries our conceptions of democracy have expanded and evolved, with democracy becoming more inclusive and robust in many ways, yet who counts as the people, how they rule, and where they do so remain eternally up for debate. Democracy destabilizes its own legitimacy and purpose by design, subjecting its core components to continual examination and scrutiny.

Perfect democracy, I've come to believe, may not in fact exist and never will, but that doesn't mean we can't make progress toward it, or that what there is of it can't disappear. For this reason, I am more convinced than ever that the questions of what democracy is -- and, more important, what it could be -- are ones we must perpetually ask.

Right now, many who question democracy do so out of disillusionment, fear, and outrage. Democracy may not exist, yet it still manages to disappoint. Political gridlock, corruption, unaccountable representatives, and the lack of meaningful alternatives incense people across the ideological spectrum; their anger simmers at dehumanizing bureaucracy, blatant hypocrisy, and lack of voice. Leaders are not accountable and voters rightly feel their choices are limited, all while the rich keep getting richer and regular people scramble to survive. In advanced democracies around the world, a growing number of people aren't even bothering to vote -- a right many people fought and died for fairly recently. Most Americans will say that they live in a democracy, but few will say that they trust the government, while the state generally inspires negative reactions, ranging from frustration to contempt and suspicion. The situation calls to mind Jean-Jacques Rousseau's observation from The Social Contract : "In a well-ordered city every man flies to the assemblies; under a bad government no one cares to stir a step to get to them. As soon as any man says of the State What does it matter to me? the State may be given up for lost." 1

A cauldron of causes generates an atmosphere of corrosive cynicism, social fragmentation, and unease, with blame too often directed downward at the most vulnerable populations. And it's not just in the United States. Consider the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union, the decision known as Brexit; the resurgence of right-wing populism across Europe; coups and reactionary electoral victories in Brazil; and the rise of fascism in India. Plato's warning about democracy devolving into tyranny rings chillingly prophetic. The promise of self-rule risks becoming not a promise but a curse, a self-destructive motor pushing toward destinations more volatile, divided, despotic, and mean.

But this book isn't about the pitfalls of popular sovereignty, though it certainly has its perils. Nor is it about the shortcomings of current liberal democratic political systems or the ways they have been corrupted by money and power -- though they have been. That's a story that has been told before, and while it will be the backdrop to my inquiry it is not the focus. This book, instead, is an invitation to think about the word democracy from various angles, looking back through history and reflecting on the philosophy and practice of self-rule in hopes that a more contemplative view will shed useful light on our present predicament. My goal is not to negate the sense of alarm nor deter people from action but to remind us that we are part of a long, complex, and still-unfolding chronicle, whatever the day's headlines might be or whoever governs the country.

Taking a more theoretical approach to democracy's winding, thorny path and inherently paradoxical nature can also provide solace and reassurance. Ruling ourselves has never been straightforward and never will be. Ever vexing and unpredictable, democracy is a process that involves endless reassessment and renewal, not an endpoint we reach before taking a rest (leaving us with a finished system to tweak at the margins). As such, this book is my admittedly unorthodox, idiosyncratic call to democratize society from the bottom to the top. It is also an expression of my belief that we cannot re think democracy if we haven't really thought about it in the first place.

>

Tonstant Weader , May 29, 2019

You want a physical copy so you can mark it up and highlight and bookmark and clip

Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone is one of those books you might want to get in its physical form so you can shove it full of bookmarks, highlight sentences, write notes, stick little sticky arrows to note something special, and generally leave it in unfit condition for anyone but you, but that will be okay because you will be going back to it again and again whenever you want to argue about something. Yes, it's that good.

Astra Taylor does the difficult job examining democracy, something we talk about a lot without ever completely understanding its full implications. To do this, she examines eight tensions that pull democracies in different directions and are critical to balance or at least understand when understanding democracy. These tensions are interrogated in separate chapters, looking at history, research, and political experience that impinge on them. The vast research involved in these explorations is astonishing.

In the first chapter she examines the tension between freedom and equality and notes that once upon a time we thought they went hand in hand, but that they have become oppositional thanks to political movements that serve the powerful who define freedom in terms of making money and avoidance of regulation rather than freedom from want, hunger, or fear. Equality has become, to American eyes, the enemy of freedom. The second chapter looks at decision-making, the tension of conflict and consensus. This includes the understanding of loyal opposition, something that seems to be lost with a president who calls his political opponents traitors. I appreciated her taking on how consensus can become anti-democratic and stultifying.

The third chapter looks at the tension of inclusion and exclusion, who is the demos, to whom is the democracy accountable. In the fourth, the balance between choice and coercion is explored. Pro-corporate theorists talk about government coercion and attacks on liberty when they are not allowed to poison our drinking water and make government the enemy of the people. She also explores how we seem to think freedom is the be all, end all except at work. Chapter Five looks at spontaneity versus structure. This has an important analysis of organizing versus activism and how the focus on youth movements has weakened social justice movements overall as the energy dissipates after college without the labor and community organizations to foster movement energy. Chapter Six explores the balance between mass opinion and expertise and how meritocracy works against democracy. This chapter looks at how education functions to keep the powerful powerful from generation to generation, "the paradoxical, deeply contradictory role of education under capitalism , which facilitates the ascension of some while preparing a great many more for lowly positions of servitude."

Chapter Seven looks at the geography of democracy, not just in terms of federalism and the federal, state, and local levels of participating in democracy but also the supranational entities like the World Trade Organization and how they undercut democracy and the integrity of the state. Chapter Eight considers what we inherit from the past, the traditions and norms of democracy and what we owe the future, including our obligations to pass on a livable planet.

Needless to say, this is all very discouraging in its totality, but the final chapter encourages us to balance pessimism with optimism just as democracy must balance all those other tensions.

It took me forever to read Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone. That is because after I read a chapter I needed to think about it before I moved on to the next. I took sixteen pages of notes while reading it. I hate taking notes, but I did not want to lose the ideas.

This is also a book you might want to read with some other people, perhaps discussing a chapter at a time. I do not think it is a book you can read passively, without stopping to talk to someone, tweet, or reread. It's that good.

That does not mean I agree with every word of the book, but then the author does an excellent job of interrogating her own ideas. She might seem to be asserting an opinion, and then offer a counter-example because she is rigorous like that. She perhaps places too much faith in Marxist theory from time to time, but then that may be because like democracy, it has never really existed except in conceptual form.

Taylor does not offer a simple answer because there are no simple answers. She does not pretend to know how to, or even if we can, fix democracy. She gives us the questions, the problems, and some ideas, but as someone who truly believes in government by the people, she asks us to take up the challenge.

I received an e-galley of Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Dec 20, 2019] Imperial Tool Pelosi Falsely Links Russia to Ukrainegate by Stephen Lendman

The fact that the 'whistleblower' is a CIA officer who has since returned to active duty at the agency isn't lost on Mr. Trump's supporters.
"The CIA was the central protagonist in Russiagate. The origins of the New Cold War are found in Bill Clinton's first term, when administration neo-cons looted, plundered and moved NATO against a prostrate Russia in contradiction to explicit guarantees not to do so made by the George H.W. Bush administration. Vladimir Putin's apparent crime was to oust the Clintonites from Russia and restore Russian sovereignty." CounterPunch.org
"Russiagate was a declaration of war by the 'intelligence community' against a duly elected President. As argued below, the CIA's motive is to move its own foreign policy agenda forward without even the illusion of democratic consent." CounterPunch.org
Notable quotes:
"... Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution. ..."
Sep 29, 2019 | stephenlendman.org

by Stephen Lendman ( stephenlendman.orgHome – Stephen Lendman )

Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution.

Her long disturbing congressional record shows she exclusively serves wealth and power interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans she disdains, proving it time and again.

Her deplorable voting record speaks for itself, backing:

  1. the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Blily Act repeal of Glass-Steagall, permitting some of the most egregious financial abuses in the modern era;
  2. the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), permitting endless wars of aggression in multiple theaters, raging endlessly;
  3. annual National Defense Authorization Acts and US wars of aggression;
  4. Obama's neoliberal harshness, continuing under Trump, along with tax cuts for the rich, benefitting her and her husband enormously, without admitting it;
  5. increasingly unaffordable marketplace medicine, ripping off consumers for profit, leaving millions uninsured, most Americans way underinsured;
  6. the USA Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and other police state law;
  7. the 9/11 whitewash Commission Recommendation Act;
  8. the FISA Amendments Act -- permitting warrantless spying post-9/11, Big Brother watching everyone;
  9. NAFTA and other anti-consumer/corporate coup d'etat trade bills;
  10. the repressive US gulag prison system, the world's largest by far; incarcerating millions by federal, state, and local authorities, it includes global torture prisons;
  11. unapologetic support for Israeli apartheid viciousness;
  12. fierce opposition to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other nonbelligerent sovereign states threatening no one;
  13. the Russiagate witch hunt and Ukrainegate scams.

Calling exploitive/predatory "free market (capitalism) our greatest asset" shows her contempt for equity and justice.

Her support for the military, industrial, security, media complex is all about backing endless wars of aggression against invented enemies. No real ones exist.

Pelosi represents what belligerent, plutocratic, oligarchic, increasingly totalitarian rule is all about, notably contemptuous of nations on the US target list for regime change -- Russia, China and Iran topping the list.

On Friday, she falsely accused Russia of involvement in Ukrainegate, a failed Russiagate scam spinoff with no legitimacy, supported by undemocratic Dems and their echo-chamber media.

Repeating the long ago debunked Russian US election meddling Big Lie that won't die, she falsely accused Moscow of "ha(ving) a hand in this."

Referring to the Ukrainegate scam, she offered no evidence backing her accusation because none exists.

During a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sergey Lavrov slammed Pelosi's Big Lie, saying:

"Russia's been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some. It's paranoia, and I think it's obvious to everyone."

It's unacceptable anti-Russia hate-mongering, what goes on endlessly, Cold War 2.0 raging.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following on her facebook page:

"Speaker of the lower house of Congress Nancy Pelosi believes that Russia is involved in the scandal over July telephone conversation between us and Ukraine Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky."

"This (baseless) assumption was made on Friday Pelosi (not) explaining what it means, and without providing evidence of her words."

"Considering that it was Nancy Pelosi who caused the 'Scandal around the telephone conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine,' then, according to the speaker's logic, Russia attached the hand to her."

What's going on is continuation of the most shameful political chapter in US history, ongoing since Trump took office, along with railroading Richard Nixon.

Both episodes represent McCarthyism on steroids – supported by establishment media, furious about Trump's triumph over Hillary, targeting him largely for the wrong reasons, ignoring plenty of right ones.

Mueller's probe ended with a whimper, not the bang Dems wanted, Ukrainegate their second bite of the apple to try discrediting Trump for political advantage ahead of November 2020 elections.

That's what Russiagate and Ukrainegate are all about.

These actions by undemocratic Dems and their media press agents are further clear proof that Washington's deeply corrupted political system to its rotten core is far too debauched to fix.

VISIT MY NEW WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org ( Home – Stephen Lendman ). Contact at [email protected] .

[Dec 19, 2019] MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels

Highly recommended!
Dec 19, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

likbez, December 19, 2019 6:58 pm

Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.

This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.

Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out like a garbage.

"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept. of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.

Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984. Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced by Rachel Maddow show ;-)

Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.

One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels."

[Dec 19, 2019] Never Trust a Failing Empire by Federico Pieraccini

Dec 17, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

The Washington Post , through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.

After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.

There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the corporate-controlled mainstream media.

In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.

False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.

The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.

The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as to weaken Iran's main regional ally.

The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.

The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from Russia.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.

The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban, the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its impact.

The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post , is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say, admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of "diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.

The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of the United States.

In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to bring the whole facade crashing down.

[Dec 17, 2019] How We Became Israel by Andrew J. Bacevich

Notable quotes:
"... A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States. ..."
"... Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell. ..."
Sep 10, 2012 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.

In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation's reigning definition of peace shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.

A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States.

Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell.

Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage but military supremacy .

From Israel's perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action , the earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one especially instructive example. Israel's destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 provides a second.

Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second, they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.

For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist's car can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.

Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60 years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it's nasty: but so far at least, it's worked.

What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path. Yet over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that's precisely what we've done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste for assassination -- all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes ourpresent-day MO.

Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington's will.

Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm, a triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel's triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over the "fourth largest army in the world" fostered illusions of the United States exercising perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing less than "Full Spectrum Dominance."

Bill Clinton's contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S. troops being sent into harm's way. Over the course of Clinton's two terms in office, however, intervention became commonplace.

The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent of Israel's reliance on airpower to punish "terrorists" from standoff ranges.

In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with Uncle Sam.

More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view. Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that, whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel's equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S. occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.

By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans -- like most Israelis -- had lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama's response? Hew ever more closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. "Obama wants to be known for winding down long wars," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. "But he has shown no hesitance when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone militarist."

Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and the frontier regions of Pakistan -- and who knows how many other far-flung places -- Obama seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu's expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome will eventually ensue.

The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction. The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense -- a self-assigned mandate to target anyone anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security -- is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies overlaps with theirs -- did someone say Iran? -- military action ordered by Washington just might shorten Jerusalem's "to do" list.

Yet where does this all lead? "We don't have enough drones," writes the columnist David Ignatius, "to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone." And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the words of one SEAL) "the dark matter the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," we probably don't have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems willing to test both propositions.

The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier -- and less risky -- to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough "terrorists" peace on terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli illusions.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame.

[Dec 14, 2019] The military-industrial-congressional complex is largely insulated from public accountability

Notable quotes:
"... The Pentagon’s entire budget operates in much the same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at the defense department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small potatoes by comparison. ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

The easy answer is that there’s a long tradition in Washington, particularly among the foreign policy establishment, that self-reflection, taking responsibility and admitting failure is a big no-no. Heck, you can get convicted of lying to Congress about illegal arms sales, and cover up brutal atrocities and still get a job at the state department. Did you torture anyone? No problem.

While DC’s culture of no culpability certainly plays a role in this case, the more compelling answer lies somewhere near the fact that once the American war machine kicks into gear, no amount of facts undermining its very existence is going to get in the way.

Indeed, the United States has so far doled out nearly one trillion dollars for the war in Afghanistan (the true cost of the war will be trillions more) and everyone’s on the take: from defense industry executives, lobbyists and US political campaign coffers to Afghan government officials and poppy farmers to anyone and anything in between.

What’s more is that this military-industrial-congressional complex is largely insulated from public accountability, so what’s the incentive to change course? The Pentagon’s entire budget operates in much the same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at the defense department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small potatoes by comparison.

The bottom line is that the Afghanistan Papers clearly show that a lot of people were killed, injured and subject to years, if not lifetimes, of psychological trauma and financial hardship because a bunch of men – yes, mostly men – in Washington didn’t want to admit publicly what they knew privately all along. If we don’t start holding these people to account – and it’s not just about Afghanistan – the DC foreign policy establishment will continue to act with impunity, meaning that it’s probably more likely than not that in 50 years there’ll be another batch of “papers” revealing once again that we’ve failed to learn obvious lessons from the past.

[Dec 14, 2019] Warmongeing is the national sport for the neoliberal elite in the USA

As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium. ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Twolfe , 10 Dec 2019 16:30

One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.

The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.

It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.

During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.

The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.

[Dec 13, 2019] Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does.

Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Richard Thorton , 10 Dec 2019 15:03

Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does. The main points of what war does:

1. Transfers wealth from social services to the military industrial complex. Americans don't have education, infrastructure, or healthcare, but they do have a generation of soldiers with PTSD, national debt, worldwide hatred, and an ever increasing sense of exceptionalism.

2. Traps Americans in a cycle of fear and persecution. Americans don't need a bogeyman, but our corporate overlords do, its how they monetize the populace. Find some disparate population of brown people who want self autonomy, send in the CIA to fuck them up, and when they retaliate tell Americans that people who live in a 3rd world land locked country several thousands of miles away are a threat to their very existence and way of life because they don't like God and Walmart.


CourgetteDream , 10 Dec 2019 14:36

Sadly the US uses the MIC to keep a large chunk of its population under control, as well as providing a convenient coverup of the actual numbers of people who are unemployable or would be unemployed if it were'nt for the taxpayer funding humungous spending in the so-called defence sector, which needs a a constant supply of conflict to keep going. The frankly moronic 'thank you for your service' soundbite drives me insane but it shows how much the American public has been brainwashed.
jimbomatic -> Michael Knoth , 10 Dec 2019 14:36
For years my home state of Washington had a New Deal Democrat Senator named Henry Jackson, AKA the Senator from Boeing.
He did good things for the state & was hugely popular here. One reason being that because he brought the Federal pork back home.
IMO the things Gen. Butler wrote about in the 1920s are still the modus operandi of US foreign policy.
Rikyboy , 10 Dec 2019 14:11
If the Afghanistan war ends, the USA will go to war with someone else. You cannot spend so much on military & not be at war. America must have an enemy. And, don’t forget, they always have “God on our side!”
Mauryan , 10 Dec 2019 13:05
The neocons in power during 2001 were hell bent on taking out Saddam Hussein. When 9/11 happened, they were looking for avenues to blame Iraq so that they could launch the war on that nation. Since things could not be put together, and all evidence pointed to Afghanistan, they took a detour in their war plan with a half hearted approach.

In fact Afghanistan was never the problem - It was Pakistan that held Afghanistan on the string and managed all terror related activities. Everything related to 9/11 and beyond pointed directly at Pakistan. Whatever threat Bush and his cronies projected about Iraq was true in the case of Pakistan. The war was lost when they made Pakistan an ally on the war on terror. It is like allying with Al Capone to crack down on the mafia.

Pakistan bilked the gullible American war planners, protected its assets and deflected all the rage on to the barren lands of Afghanistan. They hid all key Al Qaeda operatives and handed off the ones that did not align with their strategic interests to the US, while getting reward for it. War in Iraq happened in a hurry because the Bush family had scores to settle in Iraq. Pressure was lifted on Afghanistan. This is when the war reached a dead end.

The Taliban knew time was on their hands and waited it out. Obama did understand the situation and tried to put Af-Pak together and tightened the grip on Pakistan. He got the troops out of Iraq. Pakistan is almost bankrupt now for its deep investment on terror infrastructure. The US has drained billions of dollars and lives in Afghanistan due to misdirected goals. I am surprised Bush and Cheney have not been sent to jail on lies to launch the Iraq war and botching the real war on terror.

[Dec 08, 2019] The sooner the EU Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence force in parallel with NATO, the better.

Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Alistair says: December 7, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT

Trump is right about the NATO members inadequate military spending; the US expects NATO members to spend 2% of their GDP on their own defence, the US however, does not require them to purchase American made weapons, they can produce their own weapons, like French do, or buy from each other like Germans -- they just have to make their military up and ready in case of emergency, that's not an unreasonable expectation.

Among the NATO members however, Canada's case is unique; due to its closeness and joint high command (NORAD) with the US -- and direct threat from Russian claim on the Canadian Arctic, Canada needs and must increase its military spending significantly, Canada should purchase modern Air force fleet, Advanced Surveillance equipment, Warships and Submarines for the defence of the Arctic; F-35, F-22, AH-64 Apache, Nuclear powered Icebreaker and Submarines etc. because all these equipment will we be partially built in Canada which bring many high tech jobs and economic growth to the Canadian communities.

Trump is right, NATO and Canada should spend much more on their own defence, and buying American advanced weapons is the best strategic choice for the Canadians forces, there shouldn't be any doubt about that.

Jmaie , says: December 7, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT

LOL to the first comment, Russia is *zero* threat to Canada ** . Russia is zero threat to the US or Europe either. NATO has long outlived its purpose and needs to die.

** I suppose Russia could claim the north pole, and threaten to hold Santa hostage.

Alistair , says: December 7, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT
@Jmaie Russian annexation of Crimea was a blatant assault on the International Law, yet it went off without serious consequences to Russia -- it's not a secret that Russia has claims on Canadian Arctic seabed, Russia has already planted its flag on the Arctic seabed; here is a Link that you should want to see:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/02/russia.arctic
joe2.5 , says: December 7, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT
@Alistair Alistair @ 3

I'd really be interested to understand how on earth the reintegration, by overwhelming majority in a plebiscite acknowledged by all sides as free and unconstrained, of Crimea, a Russian province for 300+ years, and a majority-Russian area for quite a long time, is "a blatant assault on the International Law".

The "International Law" you quote must be a newcomer.

voicum , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 2:46 am GMT
@Alistair

Are you insane ? This is where your money and my money should be spent ?

likbez , says: December 8, 2019 at 4:00 am GMT
@joe2.5 @4.joe2.5

"I'd really be interested to understand how on earth "

It is very easy to understand. As Upton Sinclair observed "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Alistair repeats typical neocon viewpoint. Nothing original here. Neocons make their living off threat inflation and this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact.

Fiona Hill is a shining recent example here -- this intellectual prostitute of MIC is a member of Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and other MIC lobbing organization that promote Cold War 2 and neoliberal globalization.

The real question is "Why we should believe any of these chickenhawks?" They has been proven liars so many times that they deserve the rotten tomatoes to be thrown at them on any of their public appearances or, which is sadly impossible, at their Internet posts

But again money do not smell: unless neocons start facing very real and very personal consequences, nothing will change. And like with any sect there is small number of intellectually deficient people who still believe them.

See Stephen M. Walt https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2019/12/04/a-manifesto-for-restrainers/

3. Restrainers Want Realistic Foreign Policy Goal s. Instead of engaging in costly and futile efforts to remake the world in our image, restrainers want U.S. foreign policy to pursue more feasible objectives. The U.S. military must be strong enough to deter attacks on the U.S. homeland, a task that is relatively easy to accomplish. When necessary, the United States can also help other states uphold the balance of power and deter war in a few key strategic areas outside the Western Hemisphere. America's economic clout will also give Washington considerable influence over the institutions that manage trade, investment and other beneficial forms of international cooperation, and it should use that influence to ensure these institutions are working properly. But the United States has neither the need, the capacity, nor the wisdom to conduct massive social engineering projects ("nation-building") in deeply divided and conflict prone societies, and it should cease trying.

4. Restrainers Want Credible Foreign Commitments . The United States keeps taking on new security obligations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but it rarely debates their wisdom or value. Americans are now formally committed to defending more countries around the world than at any time in U.S. history, even though some of these states are hard to defend, have little strategic importance for the United States, and sometimes act in ways that damage U.S. interests. Washington is also engaged in less visible military activities in dozens of other countries, some of them shrouded in secrecy. Yet anytime U.S. leaders contemplate trimming these obligations, alarmists warn that the slightest reduction in America's global presence will undermine U.S. credibility, embolden rivals, and lead to catastrophe. Having allowed itself to become overextended, the United States ends up fighting endless wars in places with no strategic value in order to convince allies and adversaries that it will still fight in places of greater importance.

animalogic , December 8, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT • 100 Words

The sooner the EU & Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence force in parallel with NATO, the better.

Europe MUST take control of its own destiny. It can not have an external nation, the US, with different, if not opposing interests, dictating European policy & action.

The “Russia” situation is a perfect example of this divergence of interests. Europe’s future clearly lies with greater Eurasian integration. Energy, primary products, & mercantile trade all lie to the East, through Russia to China, Vietnam etc. Notably, some countries such as Italy are already pulling away from official EU policy & turning East.

Unfortunately, The US has bribed & threatened (many) EU leaders, leaders who couldn’t even imagine a change to the status quo. Thankfully, though, it seems that many average Europeans are sick to their back-teeth with the status quo & Europe’s “evermore” subservience to US imperialism.

The Alarmist , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 10:31 am GMT

German tax-payers, like most other Europeans, see no need to spend billions of hard-earned euros against a non-existent threat from the East.

They don’t even want to spend their money turning back the actual threats spilling across their borders, but climate change is way up there on the agenda. De-industrialised Europe chock-full of third-world denizens is going to be heaven on earth.

[Dec 08, 2019] WSJ Article Runs Through The Greatest Hits of a Dysfunctional Foreign Policy Debate

Notable quotes:
"... Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force. ..."
"... These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved. ..."
"... September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it. ..."
"... For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific." ..."
"... The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. ..."
"... This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com . ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | responsiblestatecraft.org

The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas, poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few, poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled, "America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious thought or contemplation.

Hyping the threat of withdrawal

The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."

Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response. The U.S. then beefs up its military presence to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.

These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved.

Terrorism safe havens

And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."

The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States has persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.

Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.

Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused, example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are unfounded .

Credibility doesn't work how you think it works

For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific."

Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only the United States had the capability to get it done.

Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War? Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.

Not all interests are created equal

Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy, it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."

The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.

Consequences

Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a foreign policy that's stuck in the past.

This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com .

[Dec 08, 2019] Karlan, US neocons and "The Russians Are Coming!" scare

Notable quotes:
"... When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that. ..."
"... Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business. ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Here is a congealing conventional wisdom around sending military assistance to Ukraine that is as absurd as can be, and it cropped up again this morning:

"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" was extremely stupid when applied to terrorism. It is much more stupid when applied to Russia, and shows how impoverished the FP thinking of even bright, engaged Americans is. My goodness.

-- Justin Logan (@JustinTLogan) December 4, 2019

It is discouraging to see that one of the dumbest talking points from the Bush era has returned. "Fight them there" was always a silly justification for waging unnecessary wars in other countries, and now it is being repurposed to justify the questionable policy of throwing weapons at a conflict in Europe. When it was used in the context of Bush-era wars, it was an attempt to make what were clearly wars of choice seem as though they were unavoidable. When a government needs to defend a bad policy, it will usually claim that they have no choice but to do what they are doing.

When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that.

I have written many times why I think it is a mistake to arm Ukraine. It just encourages escalation at worst and the prolongation of the conflict at best. Until recently, the arguments in favor of doing this have not been very compelling, but at least they weren't quite so mindless. Needless to say, Russia's conflict with Ukraine is a local one, and the U.S. doesn't have much at stake in that conflict. Ukrainians aren't fighting Russia and its proxies on our behalf or to prevent them from attacking someone else, but for the sake of their own country.

If Russia hawks insist on providing Ukraine with weapons and other assistance, they should at least be able to acknowledge that this is a peripheral interest of the United States. Exaggerating the importance of this policy to U.S. security just calls attention to how little it matters to U.S. security.

Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business.

[Dec 08, 2019] The real threat of the Rome Statute to the USA is the universal obligation to prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.

Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bailiff, Whack his Peepee , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT

There's one additional revolutionary factor:

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/12/05/612858/international-criminal-court-investigation-US-war-crimes-Afghanistan?jwsource=cl

The threat to US official impunity panics the regime more than any number of Russian Sarmats or nuclear ramjets. The ICC is one very new judicial forum, and its halting efforts to get its institutional footing panicked the US into imposing illegal sanctions on accredited diplomats. The real threat of the Rome Statute is the universal obligation to prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.

An increasing number of the most influential US functionaries will be unable to travel freely. This is, in effect, pariah-state status more abject than North Korea's. This has been a mounting challenge for years – GW Bush fled Switzerland, scared off by a war crimes accusation from a single legislator.

And international criminal law is one jaw of a pincer. It complements the doctrine of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. State responsibility provides the civil equivalent of international criminal law, with the potential to impose restitution, reparation, satisfaction, and compensation with interest. Satisfaction articulates directly with international criminal law by providing for prosecution of designated criminals. The US faces insupportable liabilities for its internationally wrongful acts, and US functionaries know that any one of them could be sacrificed to get the regime off the hook.

Russian policy is to enforce this law at gunpoint. Iranian policy is to make its case in independent international courts. China is vocal about upholding rule of law, and as its deterrent improves, it will be increasingly active in applying it. The G-192 – 96% of the world's population – pitches in by withholding the "waterfall" of G-5 privileges. The UK recently got pushed off the ICJ bench for the first time ever for its lawless conduct. The US is next.

The US is an underdeveloped country ineffectually waving second-rate weapons. The world is leaving it behind.

[Dec 08, 2019] US Militarism Promotes More Turmoil Than Stability In The Middle East by Rami G. Khouri

Dec 06, 2019 | responsiblestatecraft.org

For the past two centuries and, particularly the last three decades, direct foreign military intervention in the affairs of ostensibly sovereign and independent states has been perhaps the most consistent and destructive common denominator that shapes our region's worsening condition. Direct warfare by foreign powers almost always paves the way for decades, if not centuries, of continuing instability -- whether in the cases of Napoleon in 1798, the Soviet Union and the United States in Afghanistan in the decades after 1979, the U.S. in Iraq in 2003, or Russia, Iran, and seemingly half the world in Syria since 2015.

Direct foreign military attacks or other "security" activities inside Middle East lands inevitably create traumatic local power imbalances that portend chronic local ideological conflicts, and spark resentments and resistance to the foreign invader or to the invader's local ruling ally. Foreign invaders also create local authority vacuums that open the door for other states to intervene (see Iraq, Syria, and Libya), and also create the ideal spawning ground for radical, militant, resistance, or terrorist movements of all stripes. Israel repeatedly encountered this instinctive local resistance to its predatory militarism in Lebanon and Gaza, as did the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the U.S. and its allies in Iraq.

Almost nothing good emerges from direct foreign militarism in the Middle East, and even when the fighting stops surreptitious foreign support to local warring parties also perpetuates tensions and clashes, which only spur economic waste, corruption, collapse, and widespread poverty and suffering among the citizenry.

It is clear now that foreign militarism plays a destructive and sustained role in the two biggest problems that now tear apart much of the Arab region (and also touch on non-Arab Mideast states like Iran, Turkey and Israel). The first is mass pauperization that now sees over two-thirds of all Arab citizens living in poverty or vulnerability, in states that have reached or approach bankruptcy and allow citizens no meaningful political rights. This will get much worse because all prevailing economic trends that could counter it are flat or negative (trade, tourism, direct investment, remittances, job creation).

The second problematic big regional trend -- very much states' reactions to their citizens' helpless pauperization -- is the growing militarization and securitization of governance. This is evident in bloated military and security budgets that are controlled by a handful of unelected, unaccountable leaders, and expanded use of anti-terrorism laws since September 2011 to deter or imprison domestic political foes, or prevent any independent political expression by the public (see Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain). Foreign militarism since the 1940s has inevitably promoted local military rule within Arab states. The incompetence, autocracy, and corruption of Arab military rulers since the 1970s have driven economies into the ground, and sparked the nonstop street uprisings we witness today across the region.

The centuries of cumulative interventions by foreign powers inside Arab states reached a new peak in the past eight years in Syria, where dozens of foreign and regional actors that joined the fray inside the country charted new ground in the historical legacy that had mostly seen big power, usually Western and colonial, interventions in the region's affairs.

Of course Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Persian, and other imperial dominance in the region across time all played a role in defining the Middle East as a frontline battlefield in the recurring waves of global imperial dominance and cultural influence. Starting in the 19th Century, however, as imperial powers started to come to terms with their imminent historical demise, the British and the French mostly wrote the book on the ugly heritage of battling for strategic supremacy in our region. The 20th Century saw foreign powers fight at will in the Middle East, and also provide indirect political and "security" support to their favorite local partners, allies, surrogates, and stooges, who kept fighting it out inside Arab countries that proved to be only nominally sovereign and independent states.

The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was the logical outcome of this legacy. It mirrors other states where authority and legitimacy collapsed in the eyes of their own people, and the sovereign control of their lands and resources succumbed to the many foreign actors that came in to save the dying beast or bite off pieces of its carcass. Syria offers one of the most important examples of this, given the wide variety of warring parties that joined its several overlapping local, regional, and global wars.

The fighters in Syria included dozens of Arab states and non-state armed groups, local militias and tribal forces, regional non-Arab powers like Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Hezbollah and their clients, wannabe regional powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, leading global powers like the U.S. and Russia, second-tier powers like the U.K. and France, and a few smaller countries around the world that joined directly or provided mercenaries mostly to win credits with bigger Arab or foreign powers.

The eight-year war in Syria is at once a consequence and a high-water mark of sustained foreign military interventions in the Arab region, and a harbinger of how such foreign and local militarism will operate there for years to come. We can already see in Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and scattered other corners of our troubled region several noteworthy legacies of today's foreign militarism in Syria and its antecedents since Napoleon.

Regional and foreign powers' rolling interventions in Syria have redefined how such powers engage across the region, where two opposing loose alliances, loosely allied with Saudi Arabia or Iran, now face off -- each comprises Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global powers, and local non-state actors. The sheer number and variety of foreign forces that directly or indirectly fought in Syria portend badly for fragile states whose illusory sovereignty can collapse at any moment in the face of dozens of armed actors that pounce like wolves circling a dazed gazelle. The "international community" that actively joined and fueled the fighting also responded weakly to the alleged and real war crimes on both sides This suggests that the "international community" is something of a fiction, but also that, whatever it represents, it can live with the Middle East's continuing authoritarian, lawlessness, and violent political systems -- as long as the violence, refugees, terrorists, and turmoil remain in the Middle East.

Indeed, global and regional powers actively engage in cross-border militarism and neo-colonialism that we can see in several arenas: Washington's support for Israeli settlements expansion and annexations of occupied Arab lands, and its lingering presence in Syria and Iraq; Russian and American support for Turkish incursions into northern Syria; Saudi Arabian and Emirati moves to control parts of the south of Yemen for their own strategic aims; British and American direct involvement in the war on Yemen; and, French, Emirati, Russian, and Egyptian support for the rebel forces of Khalifa Haftar in Libya, to mention only the most obvious.

These are only the most current but ongoing consequences of over two centuries of non-stop foreign military and political interference that our region has experienced, with devastating long-term impacts. Internal and regional wars, in a climate of very high Arab military spending, continue to propel countries back into dilapidated or vulnerable conditions every few decades. The Arab examples of this only increase, including Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Jordan. Non-Arab Iran, Turkey, and Israel face their own challenges, as they simultaneously suffer the damages of external militarism and also engage in it themselves around the region.

It is time for all foreign and regional powers to start learning the hard lessons of these historical trends and instead seek non-violent diplomatic solutions to challenges they now mostly address with their guns blazing. A regional population of half a billion poor and powerless people held in check by hundreds of billions of dollars of military spending linked to foreign troops who enter our countries at will is probably a far greater real threat to their wellbeing than anything they can imagine today.

[Dec 08, 2019] Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.

Notable quotes:
"... Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider. ..."
Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mulegino1 , says: December 5, 2019 at 5:58 pm GMT

US political "elites" are generally appallingly incompetent in matters of war and are "educated" mostly through Hollywood and Clansiesque "literature". I am not even sure that they comprehend what Congressional Research Service prepares for them as compressed briefings. Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.

Very true, especially the part about "Hollywood and Clansiesque 'literature.'" I used to read Clancy's books and, while entertaining, in retrospect they appear ridiculous, even childish. But they probably capture the popular notion of American military invincibility better than any other.

Most of Hollywood's output is garbage anyway, and its grasp of real war and military matters appears to be that of a not so precocious third grader.

Arioch , says: December 5, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
@joe tentpeg

> USSR Katyn forrest massacre (Poland), Afghanistan.

Katyn, whoever did it, was much before Cold War and before even first relatively small nuclear blast.

And if you want to go that far – why not remember crisis over West Berlin, where tank armees were watching one another, but no one pulled trigger?

Afghanistan was attacking one's own ally. Same as Prague 1968 and Hungary 1956. If you want to compare – that is like USA invading Panama to remove their no longer reliable puppet Norriega. Did American attack on their own Panama risk USSR going ballistic? Hardly so. There was no Soviet invasion into Pakistan nor there was Chinese/American invasion into India.

And looking away from purely military events, there was no attempt to arrest the whole embassy stuff them, neither in Moscow nor in DC. No killing Soviet ambassadors in NATO states during official events.

Those dirty games had red lines, both sides maintained. Today? Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider.

> deploying conventional anti-ballistic missile defenses around their most important cities.

No, by then effective treaty both USSR and USA had only ONE region they were allowed to protect. Those were some nuclear launchpads in USA i guess, and one single city (Moscow) in USSR. No more.

> deterrence [did not] worked
> See the last phrase in bullet 2.

You suppose USSR killed itself trying to keep deterrence working. That does not show it did not work, already. That shows it worked so well (at least from Soviet perspective) that they gambled all they had on the futile effort of keeping that deterrence working into the future.

[Dec 07, 2019] Enough is enough. Viva Tulsi. Down with neocons. List of wars involving the United States

Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 08:16 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

List of wars involving the United States

[Only the listed war names and dates copied without all the references and details.]

  1. American Revolutionary War - (1775–1783)
  2. Cherokee–American wars - (1776–1795)
  3. Northwest Indian War - (1785–1793)
  4. Shays' Rebellion - (1786–1787)
  5. Whiskey Rebellion - (1791–1794)
  6. Quasi-War - (1798–1800)
  7. Fries Rebellion - (1799–1800)
  8. First Barbary War - (1801–1805)
  9. 1811 German Coast Uprising - (1811)
  10. Tecumseh's War - (1811)
  11. War of 1812 - (1812–1815)
  12. Creek War - (1813–1814)
  13. Second Barbary War - (1815)
  14. First Seminole War - (1817–1818)
  15. Texas–Indian Wars - (1820–1875)
  16. Arikara War - (1823)
  17. Aegean Sea Anti-Piracy Operations of the United States - (1825–1828)
  18. Winnebago War - (1827)
  19. First Sumatran expedition - (1832)
  20. Black Hawk War - (1832)
  21. Texas Revolution - (1835–1836)
  22. Second Seminole War - (1835–1842)
  23. Second Sumatran expedition - (1838)
  24. Aroostook War - (1838)
  25. Ivory Coast expedition - (1842)
  26. Mexican–American War - (1846–1848)
  27. Cayuse War - (1847–1855)
  28. Apache Wars - (1851–1900)
  29. Bleeding Kansas - (1854–1861)
  30. Puget Sound War - (1855–1856)
  31. First Fiji expedition - (1855)
  32. Rogue River Wars - (1855–1856)
  33. Third Seminole War - (1855–1858)
  34. Yakima War - (1855–1858)
  35. Second Opium War - (1856–1859)
  36. Utah War - (1857–1858)
  37. Navajo Wars - (1858–1866)
  38. Second Fiji expedition - (1859)
  39. John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry - (1859)
  40. First and Second Cortina War - (1859–1861)
  41. Paiute War - (1860)
  42. American Civil War - (1861–1865)
  43. Yavapai War - (1861–1875)
  44. Dakota War of 1862 - (1862)
  45. Colorado War - (1863–1865)
  46. Shimonoseki War - (1863–1864)
  47. Snake War - (1864–1868)
  48. Powder River War - (1865)
  49. Red Cloud's War - (1866–1868)
  50. Formosa expedition - (1867)
  51. Comanche Campaign - (1867–1875)
  52. Korea expedition - (1871)
  53. Modoc War - (1872–1873)
  54. Red River War - (1874–1875)
  55. Las Cuevas War - (1875)
  56. Great Sioux War of 1876 - (1876–1877)
  57. Buffalo Hunters' War - (1876–1877)
  58. Nez Perce War - (1877)
  59. Bannock War - (1878)
  60. Cheyenne War - (1878–1879)
  61. Sheepeater Indian War - (1879)
  62. White River War - (1879–1880)
  63. Pine Ridge Campaign - (1890–1891)
  64. Garza Revolution - (1891–1893)
  65. Yaqui Wars - (1896–1918)
  66. Second Samoan Civil War - (1898–1899)
  67. Spanish–American War - (1898)
  68. Philippine–American War - (1899–1902)
  69. Moro Rebellion - (1899–1913)
  70. Boxer Rebellion - (1899–1901)
  71. Crazy Snake Rebellion - (1909)
  72. Border War - (1910–1919)
  73. Negro Rebellion - (1912)
  74. Occupation of Nicaragua - (1912–1933)
  75. Bluff War - (1914–1915)
  76. Occupation of Veracruz - (1914)
  77. Occupation of Haiti - (1915–1934)
  78. Occupation of the Dominican Republic - (1916–1924)
  79. World War I - (1914–1918)
  80. Russian Civil War - (1918–1920)
  81. Last Indian Uprising - (1923)
  82. World War II - (1939–1945)
  83. Korean War - (1950–1953)
  84. Laotian Civil War - (1953–1975)
  85. Lebanon Crisis - (1958)
  86. Bay of Pigs Invasion - (1961)
  87. Simba rebellion, Operation Dragon Rouge - (1964)
  88. Vietnam War - (1955–1964[a], 1965–1973[b], 1974–1975[c])
  89. Communist insurgency in Thailand - (1965–1983)
  90. Korean DMZ Conflict - (1966–1969)
  91. Dominican Civil War - (1965–1966)
  92. Insurgency in Bolivia - (1966–1967)
  93. Cambodian Civil War - (1967–1975)
  94. War in South Zaire - (1978)
  95. Gulf of Sidra encounter - (1981)
  96. Multinational Intervention in Lebanon - (1982–1984)
  97. Invasion of Grenada - (1983)
  98. Action in the Gulf of Sidra - (1986)
  99. Bombing of Libya - (1986)
  100. Tanker War - (1987–1988)
  101. Tobruk encounter - (1989)
  102. Invasion of Panama - (1989–1990)
  103. Gulf War - (1990–1991)
  104. Iraqi No-Fly Zone Enforcement Operations - (1991–2003)
  105. First U.S. Intervention in the Somali Civil War - (1992–1995)
  106. Bosnian War - (1992–1995)
  107. Intervention in Haiti - (1994–1995)
  108. Kosovo War - (1998–1999)
  109. Operation Infinite Reach - (1998)
  110. War in Afghanistan - (2001–present)
  111. 2003 invasion of Iraq - (2003)
  112. Iraq War - (2003–2011)
  113. War in North-West Pakistan - (2004–present)
  114. Second U.S. Intervention in the Somali Civil War - (2007–present)
  115. Operation Ocean Shield - (2009–2016)
  116. International intervention in Libya - (2011)
  117. Operation Observant Compass - (2011–2017)
  118. American-led intervention in Iraq - (2014–present)
  119. American-led intervention in Syria - (2014–present)
  120. Yemeni Civil War - (2015–present)
  121. American intervention in Libya - (2015–present)

{ finis }

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:25 AM
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of stone age natives to steal their land.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:45 AM
Neoconservatives in this context are traditionalists rather than some aberration of modern political thought.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:50 AM
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men claiming that they despise war.
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 03, 2019 at 05:14 AM
Rome martyred Christians bc up to Constantine they were all "draft dodgers".
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 03, 2019 at 05:20 AM
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot was also nuclear related.
JohnH -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 07:59 AM
One of the first things that happened after Trump announced his withdrawal [not!] from Syria is that Pelosi hopped on a plane to Jordan:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of American lawmakers on a surprise visit to Jordan to discuss "the deepening crisis" in Syria amid a shaky U.S.-brokered cease-fire."
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/20/nancy-pelosi-goes-to-jordan-for-vital-discussions-about-syria-crisis.html

I mean, what's with that?

It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire, even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further evidence.

Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been almost none.

Team Pelosi has gone rogue as has Trump.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to JohnH... , December 02, 2019 at 12:30 PM
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who knew?
kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 05:02 PM
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
ilsm -> kurt... , December 03, 2019 at 05:12 AM
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress, disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.

See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.

ilsm -> JohnH... , December 03, 2019 at 05:08 AM
Team Pelosi like the faux liberals are sponsored by the same owners of the swamp!

Never attribute to Trump derangement what can be explained by a criminal conspiracy.

JohnH -> EMichael... , December 05, 2019 at 05:13 PM
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.

Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.

As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's perfectly acceptable when his party does it.

kurt -> EMichael... , December 06, 2019 at 11:18 AM
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways. Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil. The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can mass murder if the want.

[Dec 07, 2019] The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved, been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.

Notable quotes:
"... Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way. ..."
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> JohnH... , November 29, 2019 at 09:05 AM

The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved, been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 11:56 AM
"...the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world."

[Who says that they do not? Certainly, it is close enough to that for government work. Besides, in the end corporations and the interests of the donor class dictate the rules of engagement for both illiberal and unconservative politicians. How the dogs of politics fight over scraps thrown out for them should be of less interest to the wage class than who is throwing out the scraps to them.]

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 12:04 PM
Of course a former Air Force military hardware procurements officer likely knows no more about present day life among the wage class than a banker. That would be like thinking that a kid raised in poverty by the welfare state knew how to farm. Still, it is possible for either one to be haunted by guilt late in life.
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 06:26 AM
I stand correct the closet cultural Marxists running with wall st centered on the left coasts forgot to fix the electoral college.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 06:35 AM
You are bound with your adversaries in ways known only to God, not a religious testimonial but merely a proxy for the abstraction of omniscience. Some things can be seen as clear as day and remain a complete mystery, to me at least.
ilsm -> EMichael... , November 29, 2019 at 09:08 AM
" Ethical military decision-making does not make us weak; it makes us strong. "

How does Obama busting up Libya, drone assassinating US citizens and arming up al Qaeda to give them Syria fit?

Trump has committed lesser war crimes than hios predecessors, and that gets hiom in trouble with the establishment....

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 12:15 PM
At the very least Trump is guilty of being Trump. So, if you believe the charges against Trump are Trumped up, then what else would you expect?

Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way.

The US Constitution was written and then rewritten repeatedly in blood going all the way back to Apr 19, 1775. That is what it means to be an American, son, my Cherokee ancestors notwithstanding.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 12:16 PM
We are all brethren, fellow sons of a bloody mother...

[Dec 06, 2019] Endless War Degrades the Military

Dec 06, 2019 | www.shutterstock.com

krill_makarov/Shutterstock

December 5, 2019

|

12:44 pm

Daniel Larison TAC contributor Gil Barndollar calls attention to the damage that endless war is doing to the military:

The president has been rightly excoriated for these pardons, which dishonor the U.S. military and may degrade good order and discipline. But amid this uproar, Americans should note the bigger lesson: Endless wars, especially endless counterinsurgency or counterterrorism wars, slowly chip away at both a military's ethics and its critical war-fighting skills.

These wars are particularly corrosive because they cannot be conclusively won, and for every enemy that is destroyed it seems as if two or three more appear to replace it. Futile, open-ended wars contribute to breakdowns in discipline. Barndollar continues:

However, keeping their honor clean becomes harder and harder the longer these wars drag on. Wars among the people, as all our endless wars now are, are inherently dirty. When even senior members of the foreign policy establishment concede that we are not seeking victory in Afghanistan, it becomes harder for soldiers to make hollow mission accomplishment a higher priority than self-preservation. Treating U.S. soldiers like victims, as Trump implicitly does, also becomes more common.

When a war cannot be won, the rational thing to do would be to stop fighting it, but instead of doing that our political and military leaders treat endless war as a new normal that must not be questioned. It is bad enough when a government sends its soldiers to fight and die for a cause that it pretends can still be won when that isn't possible, but to keep sending them over and over again into war zones to fight a war they admit is futile has to be discouraging and frustrating. This also has to widen the division between the military and the civilian population. While military personnel are called on to go on multiple tours in pointless conflicts, most people back home mouth empty platitudes about supporting the troops and do nothing to bring the wars to an end. The public's failure to hold our political and military leaders accountable for these failed and unnecessary wars is bound to have corrosive effects as well.

At the same time, these wars degrade the military's ability to fight other adversaries:

Even more serious for American national security is the fact that endless small wars degrade a military's ability to fight and win big wars -- wars that have real consequences for our security and way of life.

Our endless wars have been enormously costly. It is estimated that all of the wars of the last twenty years will end up costing at least $6.4 trillion, and beyond that they have consumed our government's attention and resources to the detriment of everything else. Our political and military leaders perpetuate these wars, and the public has allowed them to do this, because they are still laboring under the faulty assumption that the U.S. is being made more secure in the process. The reality is that endless wars are undermining our security, weakening the military, and creating more enemies. They should be ended responsibly, but they must end. about the author Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .

[Dec 06, 2019] So now when a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense? Really?

Notable quotes:
"... Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 … ..."
"... So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17? ..."
Dec 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"'Our Democracy Is at Stake.' Pelosi Orders Democrats to Draft Articles of Impeachment Against Trump" [ Time ]. With autoplay video. ""The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival." • So now when a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense? Really? Yasha Levine quotes Democrat impeachment witness Karlan (see below) but the point is the same:

Yasha Levine ✔ @yashalevine

Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024

So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17?

"Read opening statements from witnesses at the House Judiciary hearing" [ Politico ]. "Democrats' impeachment witnesses at Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing plan to say in their prepared remarks that President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine were the worst examples of misconduct in presidential history." • So again, it's all about Ukraine. I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension. Aaron Maté comments:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GkQDrYr4EZs

My very subjective impression: I've skimmed three, and read Turley. Karlan, in particular, is simply not a serious effort. Turley may be wrong -- a ton of tribal dunking on Twitter -- but at least he's making a serious effort. I'm gonna have to wait to see if somebody, say at Lawfare, does a serious effort on Turley. Everything I've read hitherto is and posturing and preaching to the choir. (Sad that Larry Tribe has so completely discredited himself, but that's where we are.)

While on Turley, see this from his testimony:

Hat tip to alert reader David in Santa Cruz for his early call on "inchoate":

Lambert, while Trump was unable to complete his attempt to extort the President of Ukraine, as someone who practiced the criminal law for 34 years, let me be the first to clue you in to the concept in the criminal law of the inchoate offense . This is criminal law, not contract law.

An inchoate offense includes an attempt, a conspiracy, and the solicitation of a crime. All focus on the state of mind of the perpetrator, and none require that the offense be completed -- only that a person or persons having the required criminal intent took material steps toward completing the crime. Such a person becomes a principal in the contemplated crime, and in the eyes of the law is just as guilty as if he or she had completed the attempted offense.

(The details of Trump's offense differ from what David in Santa Cruz said they would be.) "Inchoate" appears only in Turley's piece, indicating, to me, that his was the only serious effort.

[Dec 04, 2019] There Has Been No Retrenchment Under Trump

Notable quotes:
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
Dec 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:

But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S. allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the contrary be damned.

MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over "withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.

The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with this:

A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters.

Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.

[Dec 04, 2019] American Pravda the Nature of Anti-Semitism by Ron Unz

Notable quotes:
"... Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious. ..."
"... It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians. ..."
Aug 05, 2018 | www.unz.com

I recently published a couple of long essays, and although they primarily focused on other matters, the subject of anti-Semitism was a strong secondary theme. In that regard, I mentioned my shock at discovering a dozen or more years ago that several of the most self-evidently absurd elements of anti-Semitic lunacy, which I had always dismissed without consideration, were probably correct. It does seem likely that a significant number of traditionally-religious Jews did indeed occasionally commit the ritual murder of Christian children in order to use their blood in certain religious ceremonies, and also that powerful Jewish international bankers did play a large role in financing the establishment of Bolshevik Russia .

When one discovers that matters of such enormous moment not only apparently occurred but that they had been successfully excluded from nearly all of our histories and media coverage for most of the last one hundred years, the implications take some time to properly digest. If the most extreme "anti-Semitic canards" were probably true, then surely the whole notion of anti-Semitism warrants a careful reexamination.

All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops, "Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."

Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious.

Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy, but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my lengthy Meritocracy analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.

It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians.

One plausible explanation of the strange contrast between media coverage and reality might be that anti-Semitism once did loom very large in real life, but dissipated many decades ago, while the organizations and activists focused on detecting and combating that pernicious problem have remained in place, generating public attention based on smaller and smaller issues, with the zealous Jewish activists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) representing a perfect example of this situation. As an even more striking illustration, the Second World War ended over seventy years ago, but what historian Norman Finkelstein has so aptly labeled "the Holocaust Industry" has grown ever larger and more entrenched in our academic and media worlds so that scarcely a day passes without one or more articles relating to that topic appearing in my major morning newspapers. Given this situation, a serious exploration of the true nature of anti-Semitism should probably avoid the mere media phantoms of today and focus on the past, when the condition might still have been widespread in daily life.

Many observers have pointed to the aftermath of the Second World War as marking a huge watershed in the public acceptability of anti-Semitism both in America and Europe, so perhaps a proper appraisal of that cultural phenomenon should focus on the years before that global conflict. However, the overwhelming role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution and other bloody Communist seizures of power quite naturally made them objects of considerable fear and hatred throughout the inter-war years, so the safest course might be to push that boundary back a little further and confine our attention to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the lynching of Leo Frank in the American South come to mind as some of the most famous examples from that period.

Lindemann's discussion of the often difficult relations between Russia's restive Jewish minority and its huge Slavic majority is also quite interesting, and he provides numerous instances in which major incidents, supposedly demonstrating the enormously strong appeal of vicious anti-Semitism, were quite different than has been suggested by the legend. The famous Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was obviously the result of severe ethnic tension in that city, but contrary to the regular accusations of later writers, there seems absolutely no evidence of high-level government involvement, and the widespread claims of 700 dead that so horrified the entire world were grossly exaggerated, with only 45 killed in the urban rioting. Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, later promoted the story that he himself and some other brave Jewish souls had personally defended their people with revolvers in hand even as they saw the mutilated bodies of 80 Jewish victims. This account was totally fictional since Weizmann happened to have been be hundreds of miles away when the riots occurred.

Although a tendency to lie and exaggerate was hardly unique to the political partisans of Russian Jewry, the existence of a powerful international network of Jewish journalists and Jewish-influenced media outlets ensured that such concocted propaganda stories might receive enormous worldwide distribution, while the truth followed far behind, if at all.

For related reasons, international outrage was often focused on the legal confinement of most of Russia's Jews to the "Pale of Settlement," suggesting some sort of tight imprisonment; but that area was the traditional home of the Jewish population and encompassed a landmass almost as large as France and Spain combined. The growing impoverishment of Eastern European Jews during that era was often assumed to be a consequence of hostile government policy, but the obvious explanation was extraordinary Jewish fecundity, which far outstripped that of their Slavic fellow countrymen, and quickly led them to outgrow the available spots in any of their traditional "middleman" occupations, a situation worsened by their total disinclination to engage in agriculture or other primary-producer activities. Jewish communities expressed horror at the risk of losing their sons to the Czarist military draft, but this was simply the flip-side of the full Russian citizenship they had been granted, and no different from what was faced by their non-Jewish neighbors.

Certainly the Jews of Russia suffered greatly from widespread riots and mob attacks in the generation prior to World War I, and these did sometimes have substantial government encouragement, especially in the aftermath of the very heavy Jewish role in the 1905 Revolution. But we should keep in mind that a Jewish plotter had been implicated in the killing of Czar Alexander II, and Jewish assassins had also struck down several top Russian ministers and numerous other government officials. If the last decade or two had seen American Muslims assassinate a sitting U.S. President, various leading Cabinet members, and a host of our other elected and appointed officials, surely the position of Muslims in this country would have become a very uncomfortable one.

As Lindemann candidly describes the tension between Russia's very rapidly growing Jewish population and its governing authorities, he cannot avoid mentioning the notorious Jewish reputation for bribery, corruption, and general dishonesty, with numerous figures of all political backgrounds noting that the remarkable Jewish propensity to commit perjury in the courtroom led to severe problems in the effective administration of justice. The eminent American sociologist E.A. Ross, writing in 1913, characterized the regular behavior of Eastern European Jews in very similar terms .

Lindemann also allocates a short chapter to discussing the 1911 Beilis Affair, in which a Ukrainian Jew was accused of the ritual murder of a young Gentile boy, an incident that generated a great deal of international attention and controversy. Based on the evidence presented, the defendant seems likely to have been innocent, although the obvious lies he repeatedly told police interrogators hardly helped foster that impression, and "the system worked" in that he was ultimately found innocent by the jurors at his trial. However, a few pages are also given to a much less well-known ritual murder case in late 19th century Hungary, in which the evidence of Jewish guilt seemed far stronger, though the author hardly accepted the possible reality of such an outlandish crime. Such reticence was quite understandable since the publication of Ariel Toaff's remarkable volume on the subject was still a dozen years in the future.

Lindemann subsequently expanded his examination of historical anti-Semitism into a much broader treatment, Esau's Tears , which appeared in 1997. In this volume, he added comparative studies of the social landscape in Germany, Britain, Italy, and several other European countries, and demonstrated that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews varied greatly across different locations and time periods. But although I found his analysis quite useful and interesting, the extraordinarily harsh attacks his text provoked from some outraged Jewish academics seemed even more intriguing.

For example, Judith Laikin Elkin opened her discussion in The American Historical Review by describing the book as a "545-page polemic" a strange characterization of a book so remarkably even-handed and factually-based in its scholarship. Writing in Commentary , Robert Wistrich was even harsher, stating that merely reading the book had been a painful experience for him, and his review seemed filled with spittle-flecked rage. Unless these individuals had somehow gotten copies of a different book, I found their attitudes simply astonishing.

I was not alone in such a reaction. Richard S. Levy of the University of Illinois, a noted scholar of anti-Semitism, expressed amazement at Wistrich's seemingly irrational outburst, while Paul Gottfried, writing in Chronicles , mildly suggested that Lindemann had "touched raw nerves." Indeed, Gottfried's own evaluation quite reasonably criticized Lindemann for perhaps being a little too even-handed, sometimes presenting numerous conflicting analyzes without choosing between them. For those interested, a good discussion of the book by Alan Steinweis, a younger scholar specializing in the same topic, is conveniently available online .

The remarkable ferocity with which some Jewish writers attacked Lindemann's meticulous attempt to provide an accurate history of anti-Semitism may carry more significance than merely an exchange of angry words in low-circulation academic publications. If our mainstream media shapes our reality, scholarly books and articles based upon them tend to set the contours of that media coverage. And the ability of a relatively small number of agitated and energetic Jews to police the acceptable boundaries of historical narratives may have enormous consequences for our larger society, deterring scholars from objectively reporting historical facts and preventing students from discovering them.

The undeniable truth is that for many centuries Jews usually constituted a wealthy and privileged segment of the population in nearly all the European countries in which they resided, and quite frequently they based their livelihood upon the heavy exploitation of a downtrodden peasantry. Even without any differences in ethnicity, language, or religion, such conditions almost invariably provoke hostility. The victory of Mao's Communist forces in China was quickly followed by the brutal massacre of a million or more Han Chinese landlords by the Han Chinese poor peasants who regarded them as cruel oppressors, with William Hinton's classic Fanshen describing the unfortunate history that unfolded in one particular village. When similar circumstances led to violent clashes in Eastern Europe between Slavs and Jews, does it really make logical sense to employ a specialized term such as "anti-Semitism" to describe that situation?

Furthermore, some of the material presented in Lindemann's rather innocuous text might also lead to potentially threatening ideas. Consider, for example, the notorious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion , almost certainly fictional, but hugely popular and influential during the years following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of so many longstanding Gentile dynasties and their replacement by new regimes such as Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, which were heavily dominated by their tiny Jewish minorities, quite naturally fed suspicions of a worldwide Jewish plot, as did the widely discussed role of Jewish international bankers in producing those political outcomes.

Over the decades, there has been much speculation about the possible inspiration for the Protocols , but although Lindemann makes absolutely no reference to that document, he does provide a very intriguing possible candidate. Jewish-born British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli certainly ranked as one of the most influential figures of the late 19th century, and in his novel Coningsby , he has the character representing Lord Lionel Rothschild boast about the existence of a vast and secret network of powerful international Jews , who stand near the head of almost every major nation, quietly controlling their governments from behind the scenes. If one of the world's most politically well-connected Jews eagerly promoted such notions, was Henry Ford really so unreasonable in doing the same?

Lindemann also notes Disraeli's focus on the extreme importance of race and racial origins, a central aspect of traditional Jewish religious doctrine. He reasonably suggests that this must surely have had a huge influence upon the rise of those political ideas, given that Disraeli's public profile and stature were so much greater than the mere writers or activists whom our history books usually place at center stage. In fact, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a leading racial theorist, actually cited Disraeli as a key source for his ideas. Jewish intellectuals such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso are already widely recognized as leading figures in the rise of the racial science of that era, but Disraeli's under-appreciated role may have actually been far greater. The deep Jewish roots of European racialist movements are hardly something that many present-day Jews would want widely known.

One of the harsh Jewish critics of Esau's Tears denounced Cambridge University Press for even allowing the book to appear in print, and although that major work is easily available in English, there are numerous other cases where an important but discordant version of historical reality has been successfully blocked from publication. For decades most Americans would have ranked Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn as among the world's greatest literary figures, and his Gulag Archipelago alone sold over 10 million copies. But his last work was a massive two-volume account of the tragic 200 years of shared history between Russians and Jews, and despite its 2002 release in Russian and numerous other world languages, there has yet to be an authorized English translation, though various partial editions have circulated on the Internet in samizdat form.

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At one point, a full English version was briefly available for sale at Amazon.com and I purchased it. Glancing through a few sections, the work seemed quite even-handed and innocuous to me, but it seemed to provide a far more detailed and uncensored account than anything else previously available, which obviously was the problem. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the deaths of many tens of millions of people worldwide, and the overwhelming Jewish role in its leadership would become more difficult to erase from historical memory if Solzhenitsyn's work were easily available. Also, his candid discussion of the economic and political behavior of Russian Jewry in pre-revolutionary times directly conflicted with the hagiography widely promoted by Hollywood and the popular media. Historian Yuri Slezkine's award-winning 2004 book The Jewish Century provided many similar facts, but his treatment was far more cursory and his public stature not remotely the same.

Near the end of his life, Solzhenitsyn gave his political blessing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russia's leaders honored him upon his death, while his Gulag volumes are now enshrined as mandatory reading in the standard high school curriculum of today's overwhelmingly Christian Russia. But even as his star rose again in his own homeland, it seems to have sharply fallen in our own country, and his trajectory may eventually relegate him to nearly un-person status.

A couple of years after the release of Solzhenitsyn's controversial final book, an American writer named Anne Applebaum published a thick history bearing the same title Gulag , and her work received enormously favorable media coverage and won her a Pulitzer Prize; I have even heard claims that her book has been steadily replacing that earlier Gulag on many college reading lists. But although Jews constituted a huge fraction of the top leadership of the Soviet Gulag system during its early decades, as well as that of the dreaded NKVD which supplied the inmates, nearly her entire focus on her own ethnic group during Soviet times is that of victims rather than victimizers. And by a remarkable irony of fate, she shares a last name with one of the top Bolshevik leaders, Hirsch Apfelbaum, who concealed his own ethnic identity by calling himself Grigory Zinoviev.

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The striking decline in Solzhenitsyn's literary status in the West came just a decade or two after an even more precipitous collapse in the reputation of David Irving , and for much the same reason. Irving probably ranked as the most internationally successful British historian of the last one hundred years and a renowned scholar of World War II, but his extensive reliance on primary source documentary evidence posed an obvious threat to the official narrative promoted by Hollywood and wartime propaganda. When he published his magisterial Hitler's War , this conflict between myth and reality came into the open, and an enormous wave of attacks and vilification was unleashed, gradually leading to his purge from respectability and eventually even his imprisonment.

These important examples may help to explain the puzzling contrast between the behavior of Jews in the aggregate and Jews as individuals. Observers have noticed that even fairly small Jewish minorities may often have a major impact upon the far larger societies that host them. But on the other hand, in my experience at least, a large majority of individual Jews do not seem all that different in their personalities or behavior than their non-Jewish counterparts. So how does a community whose individual mean is not so unusual generate what seems to be such a striking difference in collective behavior? I think the answer may involve the existence of information choke-points, and the ability of relatively small numbers of particularly zealous and agitated Jews in influencing and controlling these.

We live our lives constantly immersed in media narratives, and these allow us to decide the rights and wrongs of a situation. The vast majority of people, Jew and Gentile alike, are far more likely to take strong action if they are convinced that their cause is a just one. This is obviously the basis for war-time propaganda.

Now suppose that a relatively small number of zealous Jewish partisans are known to always attack and denounce journalists or authors who accurately describe Jewish misbehavior. Over time, this ongoing campaign of intimidation may cause many important facts to be left on the cutting-room floor, or even gradually expel from mainstream respectability those writers who refuse to conform to such pressures. Meanwhile, similar small numbers of Jewish partisans frequently exaggerate the misdeeds committed against Jews, sometimes piling their exaggerations upon past exaggerations already produced by a previous round of such zealots.

Eventually, these two combined trends may take a complex and possibly very mixed historical record and transform it into a simple morality-play, with innocent Jews tremendously injured by vicious Jew-haters. And as this morality-play becomes established it deepens the subsequent intensity of other Jewish-activists, who redouble their demands that the media "stop vilifying Jews" and covering up the supposed evils inflicted upon them. An unfortunate circle of distortion following exaggeration following distortion can eventually produce a widely accepted historical account that bears little resemblance to the reality of what actually happened.

So as a result, the vast majority of quite ordinary Jews, who would normally behave in quite ordinary ways, are misled by this largely fictional history, and rather understandably become greatly outraged at all the horrible things that had been done to their suffering people, some of which are true and some of which are not, while remaining completely ignorant of the other side of the ledger.

Furthermore, this situation is exacerbated by the common tendency of Jews to "cluster" together, perhaps respresenting just one or two percent of the total population, but often constituting 20% or 40% or 60% of their immediate peer-group, especially in certain professions. Under such conditions, the ideas or emotional agitation of some Jews probably permeates others around them, often provoking additional waves of indignation.

As a rough analogy, a small quantity of uranium is relatively inert and harmless, and entirely so if distributed within low-density ore. But if a significant quantity of weapons-grade uranium is sufficiently compressed, then the neutrons released by fissioning atoms will quickly cause additional atoms to undergo fission, with the ultimate result of that critical chain-reaction being a nuclear explosion. In similar fashion, even a highly agitated Jew may have no negative impact, but if the collection of such agitated Jews becomes too numerous and clusters together too closely, they may work each other into a terrible frenzy, perhaps with disastrous consequences both for themselves and for their larger society. This is especially true if those agitated Jews begin to dominate certain key nodes of top-level control, such as the central political or media organs of a society.

Whereas most living organizations exist solely in physical reality, human beings also occupy an ideational space, with the interaction of human consciousness and perceived reality playing a major role in shaping behavior. Just as the pheromones released by mammals or insects can drastically affect the reactions of their family members or nest-mates, the ideas secreted by individuals or the media-emitters of a society can have an enormous impact upon their fellows.

A cohesive, organized group generally possesses huge advantages over a teeming mass of atomized individuals, just as a Macedonian Phalanx could easily defeat a vastly larger body of disorganized infantry. Many years ago, on some website somewhere I came across a very insightful comment regarding the obvious connection between "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which our mainstream media organs identify as two of the world's greatest evils. Under this analysis, "anti-Semitism" represents the tendency to criticize or resist Jewish social cohesion, while "racism" represents the attempt of white Gentiles to maintain a similar social cohesion of their own. To the extent that the ideological emanations from our centralized media organs serve to strengthen and protect Jewish cohesion while attacking and dissolving any similar cohesion on the part of their Gentile counterparts, the former will obviously gain enormous advantages in resource-competition against the latter.

Religion obviously constitutes an important unifying factor in human social groups and we cannot ignore the role of Judaism in this regard. Traditional Jewish religious doctrine seems to consider Jews as being in a state of permanent hostility with all non-Jews , and the use of dishonest propaganda is an almost inevitable aspect of such conflict. Furthermore, since Jews have invariably been a small political minority, maintaining such controversial tenets required the employment of a massive framework of subterfuge and dissimulation in order to conceal their nature from the larger society surrounding them. It has often been said that truth is the first casualty in war, and surely the cultural influences of over a thousand years of such intense religious hostility may continue to quietly influence the thinking of many modern Jews, even those who have largely abandoned their religious beliefs.

The notorious Jewish tendency to shamelessly lie or wildly exaggerate has sometimes had horrifying human consequences. I very recently discovered a fascinating passage in Peter Moreira's 2014 book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler: Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR, and How We Won the War , focused on the important political role of that powerful Secretary of the Treasury.

A turning point in Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s relationship with the Jewish community came in November 1942, when Rabbi Stephen Wise came to the corner office to tell the secretary what was happening in Europe. Morgenthau knew of the millions of deaths and the lampshades made from victims' skin, and he asked Wise not to go into excessive details. But Wise went on to tell of the barbarity of the Nazis, how they were making soap out of Jewish flesh. Morgenthau, turning paler, implored him, "Please, Stephen, don't give me the gory details." Wise went on with his list of horrors and Morgenthau repeated his plea over and over again. Henrietta Klotz was afraid her boss would keel over. Morgenthau later said the meeting changed his life.

It is easy to imagine that Morgenthau's gullible acceptance of such obviously ridiculous war-time atrocity stories played a major role when he later lent his name and support to remarkably brutal American occupation policies that probably led to the postwar deaths of many millions of innocent German civilians .

[Dec 04, 2019] America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore

Highly recommended!
Our leaders like to say we value human rights around the world, but what they really manifest is greed. It all makes sense in a Gekko- or Machiavellian kind of way.
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is? ..."
"... A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right. ..."
"... If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life. ..."
"... I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too. ..."
"... Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it. ..."
"... they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism. ..."
"... Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower. ..."
"... The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources. ..."
"... Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.) ..."
"... The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep! ..."
Dec 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His personal blog is Bracing Views . Originally published at TomDispatch

Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?

Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.

So why do America's disastrous wars persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet.

The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he's sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes , something about which he openly boasts .

War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection, when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?

Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is?

If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's many uses in American life and culture.

War, Its Uses (and Abuses)

A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.

As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world's sole superpower.

And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.

In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."

What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:

The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations , to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American society's almost complete isolation from war's deadly effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will. \ America's persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.

All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a " peace train " that was "soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin' louder to the great peril of us all.

War on Spaceship Earth

Here's the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.

The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the planet.

There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.

In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle . Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?

Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule percentage of the world's petroleum.

If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.

Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.

We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.

likbez December 2, 2019 at 3:17 AM

I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too.

They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks, neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.

For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.

Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.

wjastore says: December 2, 2019 at 8:09 AM
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be? Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.
likbez December 2, 2019 at 12:09 PM
I agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending each year..

That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism.

wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM

Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.

The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources.

Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11. Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT Act.

The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure, yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.

greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM

There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.

Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)

Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of the ideology/theology of the GOP.

The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!

[Dec 02, 2019] The cost of militarism cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq." ..."
"... " 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' " ..."
www.theamericanconservative.com

Michael N. Moore , says: at 12:13 pm

In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:

"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."

"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower, according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."

Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil, is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."

" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "

Michael N. Moore , says: February 13, 2013 at 2:46 pm
As per the request of James Canning for more information on Col. Ted Westhusing, please see:

http://www.correntewire.com/a_disturbing_suicide_note_from_iraq

Or the book "Blood Money" by T. Christian Miller

thefatefullightning , says: June 4, 2013 at 1:09 pm
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O" Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.

Now that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.

My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that means, stop reading here.

I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.

Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.

It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.

Terrence Zehrer , says: July 15, 2013 at 12:48 pm
But the Pentagon is excellent at what it does – extort money from the US taxpayer. I call it treason.

"Massive military budgets erode the economic foundation on which true national security is dependent."

– Dwight Eisenhower

[Nov 30, 2019] Henry Kissinger Gets It US 'Exceptionalism' Is Over

Looks like exceptions in US political jargon means "no rivals"... Trump is still dreaming about "Full Spectrum Dominance" Otherwise he would not populate his administration with rabid neocons, leftover from Bush II administration. As well as people who were responsible for Obama color revolutions and wars. Instead of gratitude from neocons viper nest in the State Department he got Ukrainegate as a Thanksgiving present.
Notable quotes:
"... If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished. ..."
"... A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a rival." ..."
"... In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of "full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos. ..."
"... While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world, respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction." ..."
"... Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia. ..."
"... This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect. ..."
Nov 29, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made prudent remarks recently when he said the United States is no longer a uni-power and that it must recognize the reality of China as an equal rival. The furor over a new law passed by the US this week regarding Hong Kong and undermining Beijing's authority underlines Kissinger's warning.

If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished.

Speaking publicly in New York on November 14, the veteran diplomat urged the US and China to resolve their ongoing economic tensions cooperatively and mutually, adding: "It is no longer possible to think that one side can dominate the other."

A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a rival."

In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of "full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos.

Kissinger's frank assessment is a breath of fresh air amid the stale and impossibly arrogant self-regard held by too many American politicians who view their nation as an unparalleled power which brooks no other.

The seasoned statesman, who is 96-years-old and retains an admirable acumen for international politics, ended his remarks on an optimistic note by saying: "I am confident the leaders on both sides [US and China] will realize the future of the world depends on the two sides working out solutions and managing the inevitable difficulties."

Aptly, Kissinger's caution about danger of conflict was reiterated separately by veteran journalist John Pilger, who warned in an exclusive interview for Strategic Culture Foundation this week that, presumed "American exceptionalism is driving the world to war."

Henry Kissinger is indeed a controversial figure. Many US scholars regard him as one of the most outstanding Secretaries of State during the post-Second World War period. He served in the Nixon and Ford administrations during the 1970s and went on to write tomes about geopolitics and international relations. Against that, his reputation was badly tarnished by the US war in Vietnam and the horrendous civilian death toll from relentless aerial bombing across Indochina, believed to have been countenanced by Kissinger.

Kissinger has also been accused of supporting the military coup in Chile in 1973 against elected President Allende, and for backing the dirty war by Argentina's fascist generals during the 1970s against workers and leftists.

... ... ...

At times, President Donald Trump appears to subscribe to realpolitik pragmatism. At other times, he swings to the hyper-ideological mentality as expressed by his Vice President Mike Pence, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mike Esper. The latter has labeled China as the US's "greatest long-term threat".

This week President Trump signed into law "The Human Rights and Democracy Bill", which will impose sanctions on China over alleged repression in its Hong Kong territory. Beijing has reacted furiously to the legislation, condemning it as a violation of its sovereignty.

This is exactly the kind of baleful move that Kissinger warned against in order to avoid a further poisoning in bilateral relations already tense from the past 16 months of US-China trade war.

One discerns the difference between Kissinger and more recent US politicians: the former has copious historical knowledge and appreciation of other cultures. His shrewd, wily, maybe even Machiavellian streak, informs Kissinger to acknowledge and respect other powers in a complex world. That is contrasted with the puritanical banality and ignorance manifest in Trump's administration and in the Congress.

Greeting Kissinger last Friday, November 22, during a visit to Beijing, President Xi Jinping thanked him for his historic contribution in normalizing US-China relations during 1970s.

"At present, Sino-US relations are at a critical juncture facing some difficulties and challenges," said Xi, calling on the two countries to deepen communication on strategic issues. It was an echo of the realpolitik views Kissinger had enunciated the week before.

While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world, respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction."

Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia.

This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect.

[Nov 30, 2019] Max Blumenthal on how corporate media manufactures consent for war and regime change - YouTube

Nov 30, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Alyson Mc Vitty , 1 week ago

i'm an old woman now and when i listen to the grayzone i feel encouraged that sanity will prevail. long life max. you're great.

James Kelman , 1 week ago

Max is one of the greatest journalists of our time ! Thank You , but take care because their are many that are threatened by truth and integrity ! RESPECT !

b unangst , 1 week ago

The msm is full of CIA swamp lobbyist liars. Max is just objectively reporting substantiated data points that counter lies that are meant to sell taxpayers war.

[Nov 27, 2019] Could your county use some extra money?

Highly recommended!
Nov 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

catherine , 26 November 2019 at 05:16 PM

Could your county use some extra money?

According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.

If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.

While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.

Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?

[Nov 26, 2019] Support for Restraint Is on the Rise by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
Nov 26, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:

Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.

The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy, and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons, and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:

In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.

38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall.

The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries." This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.

The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention:

A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year, there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent stand against it.

With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other. This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear weapons.

There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.

[Nov 26, 2019] Neocon Uses Impeachment To Push Russophobic Agenda by David Stockman

Notable quotes:
"... She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands. ..."
"... "In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests." ..."
"... government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. ..."
"... Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. ..."
"... In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies .. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin. ..."
"... Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev. ..."
"... Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race .. ..."
"... But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections. ..."
"... While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government. ..."
"... Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed, ..."
"... "In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire." ..."
"... On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR . ..."
"... NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security. ..."
"... True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia. ..."
"... Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries. ..."
"... That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward. ..."
"... The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind. ..."
"... But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood. ..."
"... George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well. ..."
"... David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, ..."
"... . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader . ..."
Nov 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
This is part 3 of the two-part article run Friday

It's beginning to seem like an assault by the Zulu army of American politics – they just never stop coming.

We are referring to the Russophobic neocon Deep Staters who have trooped before Adam's Schiff Show to pillory POTUS for daring to look into the Ukrainian stench that engulfs the Imperial City – a rank odor that is owing to their own arrogant meddling in the the internal affairs of that woebegone country.

This time it was Dr. Fiona Hill who sanctimoniously advised the House committee that there is nothing to see on the Ukraine front that involved any legitimate matter of state; it was just the Donald and his tinfoil hat chums jeopardizing the serious business of protecting the national security by injecting electioneering into relations with Ukraine.

She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands.

"In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests."

Folks, we are getting just plain sick and tired of this drumbeat of lies, misdirection and smug condescension by Washington payrollers like Fiona Hill. No Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US election?

Exactly what hay wagon does she think we fell off from?

Or better still, ask Paul Manafort who will spend his golden years in the Big House owing to an August 2016 leak to the New York Times about an alleged "black book" which recorded payments he had received from his work as an advisor to the Ukrainian political party of former president Yanakovych. As we have seen, the latter had been removed from office by a Washington instigated coup in February 2014.

By its own admission, this story came from the Ukrainian government and the purpose was clear as a bell: Namely, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and force Manafort out of his months-old role as campaign chairman – a role that had finally brought some professional management to the Donald's helter-skelter campaign for the nation's highest office.

In the event, this well-timed bombshell worked, and in short order Manafort resigned, leaving the disheveled Trump campaign in the lurch:

government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies .. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev.

The bolded lines in the NYT story above tell you exactly where this was coming from. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau had been set up by an outfit called "AntAC", which was jointly funded by George Soros and the Obama State Department. And there can be little doubt that the Donald's accurate view at the time – that Crimea's reunification with Mother Russia after a 60 year hiatus which had been ordered by the former Soviet Union's Presidium – was unwelcome in Kiev and among the Washington puppeteers who had put it in power.

For want of doubt that the Poroshenko government was in the tank for Hillary Clinton, the liberal rag called Politico spilled the beans a few months later. In a January 11, 2017 story it revealed that the Ukrainian government had pulled out all the stops attempting to help Clinton, whose protégés at the State Department had been the masterminds of the coup which put them in office. Thus, Politico concluded,

Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race ..

But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections.

While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government.

Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency – and publicized by a parliamentarian – appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych.

The New York Times , in the August story revealing the ledgers' existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were "a focus" of an investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.

Yet Fiona Hill sat before a House committee and under oath insisted that all of the above was a Trumpian conspiracy theory, thereby reminding us that the neocon Russophobes are so unhinged that they are prepared to lie at the drop of a hat to keep their false narrative about the Russian Threat and Putin's "invasion" of Ukraine alive.

Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed,

Russia today poses a greater foreign policy and security challenge to the United States and its Western allies than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Its annexation of Crimea, war in Ukraine's Donbas region, and military intervention in Syria have upended Western calculations from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Russia's intervention in Syria, in particular, is a stark reminder that Russia is a multi-regional power ..

There is not a single true assertion in that quotation, of course, but we cite it for a very particular reason. Shifty Schiff & his impeachment tribunal have brought in Hill – and Lt. Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Tim Morrison previously – in order to created an echo chamber.

That's right. The Dems are parroting the neocon lies – whether they believe them or not – in order to propagate the impression that the Donald is undermining national security in his effort to take a different posture on Russia and Ukraine, and is actually bordering on treason.
Thus, Adam Schiff repeated the false neocon narrative virtually word for word at the opening of the public hearings:

"In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire."

That's pure rubbish. It's based on the Big Lie that the overwhelming vote of the Russian population of Crimea in March 2014 was done at the gun point of the Russian Army. And that event, in turn, is the lynch-pin of the hoary canard that Putin is seeking to rebuild the Soviet Empire.

So it is necessary to review the truth once again about how Russian Crimea had been temporarily appended to the Ukrainian SSR during Soviet times.

The allegedly "occupied" territory of Crimea, in fact, was actually purchased from the Ottomans by Catherine the Great in 1783, thereby satisfying the longstanding quest of the Russian Czars for a warm-water port. Over the ages Sevastopol then emerged as a great naval base at the strategic tip of the Crimean peninsula, where it became home to the mighty Black Sea Fleet of the Czars and then the Soviet Union, too.

For the next 171 years Crimea was an integral part of Russia (until 1954). That span exceeds the 170 years that have elapsed since California was annexed by a similar thrust of "Manifest Destiny" on this continent, thereby providing, incidentally, the United States Navy with its own warm-water port in San Diego.

While no foreign forces subsequently invaded the California coasts, it was most definitely not Ukrainian and Polish rifles, artillery and blood which famously annihilated The Charge Of The Light Brigade at the Crimean city of Balaclava in 1854; they were Russians defending the homeland from Turks, French and Brits.

And the portrait of the Russian "hero" hanging in Putin's office is that of Czar Nicholas I – whose brutal 30-year reign brought the Russian Empire to its historical zenith. Yet despite his cruelty, Nicholas I is revered in Russian hagiography as the defender of Crimea, even as he lost the 1850s war to the Ottomans and Europeans.

At the end of the day, security of its historic port in Crimea is Russia's Red Line, not Washington's. Unlike today's feather-headed Washington pols, even the enfeebled Franklin Roosevelt at least knew that he was in Soviet Russia when he made port in the Crimean city of Yalta in February 1945.

Maneuvering to cement his control of the Kremlin in the intrigue-ridden struggle for succession after Stalin's death a few years later, Nikita Khrushchev allegedly spent 15 minutes reviewing his "gift" of Crimea to his subalterns in Kiev.

As it happened, therefore, Crimea became part of the Ukraine only by writ of one of the most vicious and reprehensible states in human history – the former Soviet Union:

On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR .

That's right. Washington's hypocritical and tendentious accusations against Russia's re-absorption of Crimea imply that the dead-hand of the Soviet presidium must be defended at all costs – as if the security of North Dakota depended upon it!

In fact, the brouhaha about "returning" Crimea is a naked case of the hegemonic arrogance that has overtaken Imperial Washington since the 1991 Soviet demise.

After all, during the long decades of the Cold War, the West did nothing to liberate the "captive nation" of Ukraine – with or without the Crimean appendage bestowed upon it in 1954. Nor did it draw any red lines in the mid-1990's when a financially desperate Ukraine rented back Sevastopol and the strategic redoubts of the Crimea to an equally pauperized Russia.

In short, in the era before we got our Pacific port in 1848, and even during the 170-year interval since then, America's national security has depended not one whit on the status of Russian-speaking Crimea. That the local population has now chosen fealty to the Grand Thief in Moscow over the ruffians and rabble who have seized Kiev amounts to a giant: So what!

The truth is, when it comes to Ukraine there really isn't that much there, there. Its boundaries have been morphing for centuries among the quarreling tribes, peoples, potentates, Patriarchs and pretenders of a small region that is none of Washington's damn business..

Still, it was this final aggressive drive of Washington and NATO into the internal affairs of Russia's historic neighbor and vassal, Ukraine, that largely accounts for the demonization of Putin. Likewise, it is virtually the entire source of the false claim that Russia has aggressive, expansionist designs on the former Warsaw Pact states in the Baltics, Poland and beyond.

The latter is a nonsensical fabrication. In fact, it was the neocon meddlers from Washington who crushed Ukraine's last semblance of civil governance when they enabled ultra-nationalists and crypto-Nazis to gain government positions after the February 2014 putsch.

As we indicated above, in one fell swoop that inexcusable stupidity reopened Ukraine's blood-soaked modern history. The latter incepted with Stalin's re-population of the eastern Donbas region with "reliable" Russian workers after his genocidal liquidation of the kulaks in the early 1930s.

It was subsequently exacerbated by the large-scale collaboration by Ukrainian nationalists in the west with the Nazi Wehrmacht as it laid waste to Poles, Jews, gypsies and other "undesirables" on its way to Stalingrad in 1942-43. Thereafter followed an equal and opposite spree of barbaric revenge as the victorious Red Army marched back through Ukraine on its way to Berlin.

So it may be fairly asked. What beltway lame brains did not chance to understand that Washington's triggering of "regime change" in Kiev would reopen this entire bloody history of sectarian and political strife?

Moreover, once they had opened Pandora's box, why was it so hard to see that an outright partition of Ukraine with autonomy for the Donbas and Crimea, or even accession to the Russian state from which these communities had originated, would have been a perfectly reasonable resolution?

Certainly that would have been far preferable to dragging all of Europe into the lunacy of the current anti-Putin sanctions and embroiling the Ukrainian factions in a suicidal civil war. The alleged Russian threat to Europe, therefore, was manufactured in Imperial Washington, not the Kremlin.

In fact, in 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion – not even by "one inch," as then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the Russian border.

So Robert Merry said it well in his excellent piece on the entire neocon Ukraine Scam that is being paraded before the Schiff Show.

That is, what is being desperately defended on Capitol Hill is not the rule of law, national security or fidelity to the Constitution of the United States., but a giant Neocon Lie that is needed to keep the Empire in business, and the world moving ever closer to an utterly unnecessary Cold War 2.0 between nation's each pointing enough nuclear warheads at the other to destroy the planet.

NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.

True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.

Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries.

That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.

The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.

But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.

George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Nov 21, 2019] Washington Makes Endless War And Calls It Peace

Nov 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Washington Makes Endless War And Calls It Peace by Tyler Durden Sun, 11/17/2019 - 23:30 0 SHARES

Authored by Daniel Larison via TheAmericanConservative.com,

Andrew Bacevich rightly rejects the idea that there was ever a Pax Americana in the Middle East:

"It took many decades to build a Pax Americana in the Middle East," X writes. Not true: it took only a handful of hours - the time he invested in writing his essay. The Pax Americana is a figment of X's imagination.

Defenders of U.S. hegemony like to make what they think is a flattering comparison between the U.S. and the Roman Empire, but where the Romans made a desert and called it peace the U.S. has gone to war in the desert again and again with no end in sight.

Not only has the U.S. not brought peace, but there is little reason to think that our government is capable of doing so. More to the point, the U.S. has no right to keep meddling in the affairs of these nations. It would also be accurate to say that the more American involvement there has been in the region, the less pax there has been there. There is nowhere else in the world where our foreign policy is as intensely militarized, and it is no accident that it is also where our foreign policy is most destructive. If the U.S. genuinely desired stability and the security of energy supplies, it would not be waging an economic war on Iran, and it wouldn't be fueling a disgraceful war on Yemen. The author of that piece, William Wechsler, notably has nothing to say about either one of those policies.

Opponents of U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East make two major claims: that withdrawal would harm U.S. interests and that it would make the region worse off than it already is.

The second point is wrong but debatable, and the first one depends on an absurdly expansive definition of what U.S. interests are. The piece that Bacevich is answering asserts that "it would be a terrible mistake and deeply harmful to the United States" to withdraw from the region, but the author does not show that current troop levels of more than 50,000 people are necessary or even useful for securing U.S. interests. The U.S. didn't have and didn't need a large military presence in the Middle East for the entire Cold War, and it doesn't need to have one now. Having a military presence in the region has directly contributed to increased threats to U.S. security through terrorism, and it made the Iraq war debacle possible. The greatest harm to U.S. security has come from our ongoing extensive military involvement in this part of the world.

Neither does the author demonstrate that U.S. foreign policy up until now has actually been doing the job he thinks it has. For instance, he mentions "supporting a delicate balance of power that promotes regional stability and protects our allies," but looking back over just the last twenty years of U.S. foreign policy in the region there is no evidence that the U.S. has been supporting a balance of power or promoted regional stability. On the contrary, to the extent that there was a balance of power at the start of this century, the U.S. set about destroying it by overthrowing the Iraqi government, and it has further contributed to the destabilization of at least three other countries through direct or indirect involvement in military interventions. The clients that the U.S. has in the Middle East aren't allies and we aren't obliged to protect them, but the U.S. hasn't done a terribly good job of protecting them, either. The U.S. has managed to indulge its clients in reckless and atrocious behavior that has also made them less secure and undermined our own security interests. Support for the war on Yemen is a good example of that. Enabling the Saudi coalition's war has bolstered Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), devastated and fractured Yemen, and exposed Saudi Arabia to reprisal attacks that it had never suffered before.

The other major flaw with the Wechsler piece is that he is warning against something that isn't happening:

As campaign promises tend to become governing realities for American foreign policy, the prospect of a full U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East now stands before us.

If only that were true. The U.S. has more troops in the region than it did at the start of this year. There is no sign that those numbers will be reduced anytime soon. Support for the war on Yemen continues, and the president has gone out of his way to keep arming the Saudi coalition. Even in Syria, there will still be an illegal U.S. military presence for the foreseeable future. Full withdrawal is nowhere in sight right now. The U.S. is heading in the opposite direction. The author pretends that withdrawal is in the offing and then urges the next president to "reverse this course," but there is nothing for the next president to reverse. So why rail against something that hasn't happened and isn't likely to occur? This is an old tactic of making the option of withdrawing from the region seem so extreme and dangerous that it has to be rejected out of hand, but these scare tactics are less and less effective as we see the mounting costs of open-ended conflict and deep entanglement in the affairs of other countries.

The author wants the next administration "to reestablish American leadership in the Middle East, restore deterrence with our adversaries, and begin renewing trust with our partners and allies," but he has not made a persuasive case that "American leadership" in the region is worth "reestablishing" even if it were possible to get back to the way things were before the Iraq war. Many of the "partners and allies" in question are themselves unreliable and have become liabilities, and many of the adversaries do not really threaten the U.S. Bacevich concludes that there needs to be a radical overhaul of U.S. foreign policy in the region on account of its colossal failures:

Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero.

There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East. The imperative is to go forward, which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.

Once we acknowledge those errors, the next step is not to fall into the same patterns out of a misguided desire for "leadership" and domination. Instead of chasing after a fantasy of imposing peace in some other part of the world, we need to stop our destabilizing and destructive policies that perpetuate conflict and make new wars more likely.


Miss Informed , 17 minutes ago link

Did the author forget that USA is Netenyahu's little bitch?

khnum , 27 minutes ago link

Lets just be honest the USA is in the business of war,overthrowing governments and creating vassal states with murder and mayhem all the way,sponsoring fascists,dictators,drug lords and Christ knows what else along the way and there is no high moral ground as its average citizen is either watching football or Kim Kardashians *** and couldn't give a ****,no amount of whinging is ever going to change that the author is pissing in the wind.

Jam Akin , 42 minutes ago link

Bacevich's book "America's War for the Greater Middle East" is an excellent read. Highly recommended.

Roger Casement , 57 minutes ago link

https://russianmafiagangster.blogspot.com/2012/08/expose-little-odessas-hidden-world-of.html

https://www.davidicke.com/article/508513/russian-mafia-jewish-groomed-trump

Epstein101 , 1 hour ago link

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islamic_militancy_2049

NoMoreWars , 1 hour ago link

Bring the troops home and put them on our southern border. #1 reason why people voted for Trump.

TheLastMan , 1 hour ago link

Time magazine 2003 cover

" Peace is Hell"

Demented time magazine enjoys programming the folks

And so... "War is Heaven"?

Epstein101 , 1 hour ago link

Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel

ibeanbanned , 1 hour ago link

Joo boys want moar war. Always.

dogismycopilot , 1 hour ago link

Instead of replacing and upgrading infrastructure in the US, we have burned that money up in the desert fighting wars so the Chinese and Russian oil companies could waltz in and take all of marbles.

US Middle East policy has been failing since Eisenhower injected us into Iran an in the 1950s.

libtears , 1 hour ago link

It seems to me those people are intent on killing each other at all costs. No need to get in their way and suffer casualties. Seems like a population reduction in that region might improve the world

Nexus789 , 49 minutes ago link

Your ignorance is amazing. Before the US interventions a number of these countries were going down the path of having secular governments. Many had mixed communities from a religious and ethnic perspective. US bastardry has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.

libtears , 1 hour ago link

Aside from the countless us blunders in the middle east.. The core issues are rooted in the barbaric religious beliefs that have plagued the region since Mohammed rose to power.

Epstein101 , 1 hour ago link

Moses was considerably earlier, Bub.

http://www.unz.com/article/the-holy-hook/

libtears , 1 hour ago link

So what Bub. You believe in Moses? No thanks

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Let them figure it out. Why stick yoar hook nose into someone else's problems? Ah there is something in it for the special group, and the tab goes to the tax payers.

The politicians should set the example by sending their kids to woar first. Trillions wasted and what benefit has that been to the tax payers? No money for healthcare or education, pensions, infrastructure etc. Lotsa money available for killing people.

libtears , 1 hour ago link

Agreed. The Jews were a relatively recent reintroduction to the region. It was a **** hole long before this time. Try to blame it all on them but it's a weak point of view. Unless you are looking at the last 70 years. But that **** hole status goes back far beyond this time frame

Roger Casement , 1 hour ago link

Empire of the City - Brief

Empire of the City - Knuth

artistant , 1 hour ago link

ALL MidEast terrorism, shenanigans, and warmongering are for and by APARTHEID Israhell.

Element , 1 hour ago link

Where did this ridiculously unrealistic author get the idea that it was the USA's job to bringing peace to the ME?

Snap out of it fool.

capital101 , 1 hour ago link

With the dollar on it's way out,

when all you have left is a hammer,

everything feels like the last nail in the coffin.

This is what the smart money is doing

Nelbev , 1 hour ago link

Perpetual war was always the plan since Reagan days to break up OPEC or cause in-fighting and destablize region. Iran/Iraq war, first Gulf war, Iraq war, ISIS, Syrian conflict, Yemen, Sunni/Shitte division, feed the fire on unofficial decades old plan still ongoing by CIA and State Dept lifers. Perpetual war in Mid-East was always the plan.

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

destablize region

That way you keep down the competition. What do you think all the demonizing efforts are against China and Russia now? They are countries murica can't conquer.

Murica is isolating itself and the USD.

Archeofuturist , 42 minutes ago link

Perpetual war is a fact of human existence.

"War is as natural for man as eat or mating"

cforeman44z , 1 hour ago link

https://www.magicalquote.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WAR-IS-PEACE.png

Elliott Eldrich , 1 hour ago link

War is a racket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

JailBanksters , 2 hours ago link

Peace through superior firepower

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708783/?ref_=tt_ch

Epstein101 , 2 hours ago link

The author of the referenced article is a prototypical Atlantic Council Zionist *** chickenhawk ******** artist who pisses swampwater - William F. Wechsler.

His concern is Greater Israel, not what is best for Americans.

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Just look at congress.

TheVoicesInYourHead , 3 minutes ago link

Why would anybody want to volunteer to join, or stay in, the USA military when they know they are only fighting on behalf of Israel?

Risu , 2 hours ago link

All humanity, including us, have the right to survive and defend ourselves from obliteration. To do this we must hit when hit, and harder to eliminate the attack. beyond that, we need not fight. God will is in charge, not ours.

We are at risk of non-survival when we fail to recognize the difference between what we feel responsibly for, and what we can actually control. That is why we need a border. Defnding it gives us a line behidn which we can produce, and be productive. Once we cross that line, we begin to fall into a morass.

Generation O , 2 hours ago link

How long did it take America to exit Vietnam? You would think America had money and men to burn with these fruitless wars. Who benefits other than the vampires of the military-industrial complex, owners of cemetaries, and those who produce and market the Intel community's distracting and criminally-produced films and television offerings?

JuliaS , 1 hour ago link

Vietnam War started back when dollar debt was redeemable in gold. Back then debts had impact and the war spending was felt almost immediately though its effect on the economy. War was partially responsible for closing of the gold window by Nixon. They couldn't fake sustainability otherwise.

yaridanjo , 2 hours ago link

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

US power and influence as a "major threat."

I don't blame them. Look at all the invasions and coups since WWII. Theft of gold, resources, death and destruction and poverty follows. No moar competition.

I hate cunton , 2 hours ago link

obama

libtears , 2 hours ago link

Obamao

Roger Casement , 1 hour ago link

Tweaker

OldFuddyDuddy , 1 hour ago link

Error message

Roger Casement , 1 hour ago link

Try this scroll down to Hussein on the right.

SocratesSolves , 2 hours ago link

Washington? We know what our founding father said about the Jews. He was right. Today, and even before the Federal Reserve "Black Magic Act" of 1913: Washington = Israel. There is no America any longer. It was 911'd inside and out by the Joker *** cult. And after they 911'd you they did a Joker dance, didn't they?

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Maybe people will better understand Germany's struggles in the 30's

DirtySanchez , 2 hours ago link

Only a matter of time before weaponized foreign sovereign drones are flying above jusa coastal cities.

Shortly after the second and absolutely devastating second civil war in this 3rd world banana republic.

Hang every bush, clinton, and bozo family member, and their entire administrations and staff.

rahrog , 2 hours ago link

America's Ruling Class never intended to bring peace to the ME

TBT or not TBT , 2 hours ago link

To be fair, the Middle East has been Islamic for a solid millennium or more, and Islam...isn't peace.

besnook , 2 hours ago link

it was never paxamericana. it was always paxjudaica, in other words war and chaos called peace the way jewlanders roll with their zionazi cocksuckers in tow.

SocratesSolves , 2 hours ago link

besnook: EXACTLY right.

"They [the Jews] work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." -- George Washington

ed_209 , 2 hours ago link

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. Karl Marx

Epstein101 , 2 hours ago link

THE BOLSHEVIK TAKEOVER OF THE WEST

Schroedingers Cat , 2 hours ago link

Our new flag.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillology/comments/5qnu1r/redesigns_the_divided_states_of_america/

2banana , 2 hours ago link

Anyone remember Cindy Sheehan?

She was a nightly fixture on the evening news under Bush.

Entirely disappeared under obama. Along with the daily war dead count.

For now, I will take "not a single new war started" DJT and not care how hard the democrats/fake legacy media scream with a Syrian pullout.

[Nov 21, 2019] The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters, the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests

Highly recommended!
Nov 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Wills , Nov 14 2019 15:33 utc | 105

snake @95 argues "the deep state does not exist" with circular logic that is massively off target.

The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters, the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests. None of those interests have the ability to make policy and implement regime changes without the deep state. Yes, outside interests drive the actions of the deep state, but no, those outside interests have no ability to accomplish anything without their deep state operatives.

If the US federal government bureaucracy was a) much less powerful, b) much more transparent, and c) more responsive to elected leaders, then none of the bad things would happen. A pipe dream? Yes - but it is erroneous to make a simple declaration "the deep state doesn't exist" without any rational arguments to refute my points in @72.


juliania , Nov 14 2019 16:06 utc | 106

Don Wills @ 72:

Thank you for your post. You say that there is a deep state, but you then go on to tell us it is not as deep as we imagine. So, I posit we should call it "the shallow state". It is the foam on the edge of the sea as it begins to recede from a high tide of corrupt practices, delicate and lacy at the edges and so mesmerizing and attractive to some. But it is receding. And out there as it departs the Deep People are waiting. They are the depths of an ocean that never disappears. At low tide they are still there, and they will feed the incoming tide. At the turn.

And I also say, you may not care what the future brings, but I do. I have a little granson, born on my birthday, gazing at me with twinkling eyes from his photograph across the room. Family is also something we can call Deep and be truthful about that. It runs in both directions, past and future. The Deep People have Deep Families.

And yes, I know, other grandsons have met untimely deaths this century and are counted as 'collateral damage' by the shallow state. Still they are with us as the past is always with us; they deepen our persons in unaccountable but irreversible ways. They strengthen our family commitments. They are always here, in our memories and in our strengths. They are not collateral; they are the fabric of our determinations, our life blood.

The Deep People do care what happens. The twinkle in their grandsons' eyes burns in their hearts. It is a fire, a consuming force. It never dies.

Don Wills , Nov 14 2019 17:06 utc | 108
"deep state", "deep people", "the swamp" .. a rose by any other name would smell just as rancid.

"deep people" implies a small, isolated group. IMO, it's more like an iceberg than seashore foam. 90% of it is hidden from view.

My point was that snake's blame of the oligarchs misses the target. I look at them the way I look at any other predator - if the opportunity exists, they will take it. The deep state is THE necessary ingredient for the evil that the US government does.

I too have grandchildren. I am convinced that their lives will be less free, less prosperous, with less opportunity than what the seven generations of Wills family before me have experienced in the US for the last 275 years. So what can I do about it? Typing on my keyboard certainly won't make one whit of difference...

[Nov 13, 2019] CIA emerged as a Political Party

Notable quotes:
"... this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods. ..."
"... Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth. ..."
"... To me Trump is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split when it comes to impeachment. ..."
"... Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist Web Site: The CIA Democrats . ..."
"... "The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth." ..."
"... Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all boats! ..."
"... Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a "war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all. ..."
"... To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero. ..."
"... The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee. ..."
Nov 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Nov 10 2019 15:41 utc | 1

I am amazed how the Impeachment Circus and the mainstream media continue to ignore the facts of this story:

Joe Biden has been a favorite target for Trump-allied lawmakers. Many have adopted Trump's unsubstantiated assertion that Biden pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, because he was investigating Burisma.

Other people get it:

The CIA is emerging as a domestic political party.
...
Brennan put a friendly finger on my chest. "The CIA is not involved in domestic politics," he said. "Period. That's on the record."

This he asserted confidently, at an event where he had just spoken about about influence campaigns on swing voters and implied that Hillary Clinton might be right in calling U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset. Even seasoned analysts, it seems, have their blind spots.

Motivation to impeach Trump is about control of Democratic Party - Rick Salutin, The Star

What shifted [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] now? I'd say the answer is: this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods.
I agree with Mr. Salutin, the impeachment is not about impeachment, although if impeachment results, I'm sure they will take it. And I agree it's about protecting the current Democratic Part "elites", both from scandal (Joe Biden, Clinton) and from the challenge on the left. A risky and desperate move .

I tend to think it was Trump going after the Ukraine cesspit that precipitated the impeachment, but other motives seem relevant. I have thought since Obama went all in with Russiagate that the current Dem leadership does not feel it can afford to relinquish control.


Walter , Nov 10 2019 15:54 utc | 2

@ "ince Obama went all in with Russiagate that the current Dem leadership does not feel it can afford to relinquish control."

How about that...geewhiz, one does speculate as to what crimes they fear might become known and public?

Everybody Knows...Brother Leonard Cohen... this they fear.

It's a mighty force. To the mat.

Jose Garcia , Nov 10 2019 16:59 utc | 4
Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth.

To me Trump is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split when it comes to impeachment.

pnyx , Nov 10 2019 17:58 utc | 10
Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair' (original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)
Seamus Padraig , Nov 10 2019 18:23 utc | 12
Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist Web Site: The CIA Democrats .
karlof1 , Nov 10 2019 18:24 utc | 13
Craig Murray has an exclusive interview with Randy Credico he prefaces with these remarks:

"The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth."

That would include MoA barflies since we crave Truth. Murray has a bit more to say prior to the excerpt I provide, which I suggest be read, too.

juliania , Nov 10 2019 19:13 utc | 18
What a feast of links! I've only just started, with b's Daniel Lazare piece at Stretegic Culture.org - well done!

" ...This is what impeachment is about, not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine – plus Syria, Libya, Yemen, and other countries that the Obama administration succeeded in destroying – and why Trump should pay the supreme penalty for suggesting that Democrats are in any way to blame..."

Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all boats!

chop stick , Nov 10 2019 19:17 utc | 19
Impeachment is about controlling where the attention is focused. When things get to close to home Pelosi says look over here at the orange head, look over there at the border but whatever you do, do not look over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1KfU5ifhqE ">here.
b , Nov 11 2019 14:20 utc | 114
@pnyx - Thanks for linking the NZZ piece

"Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair' (original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)"

Funny it is mostly a recap of my findings of Biden in Ukraine. The piece links to William Bowles ( https://williambowles.info/2019/10/08/when-ukraines-prosecutor-came-after-his-sons-sponsor-joe-biden-sprang-into-action/) and attributes that the findings to him.

But it is not Bowles but a copy my piece here ( https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/10/biden-timeline.html).

So the Neue Züricher Zeitung, the most prestige Swiss outlet, is practically quoting MoA.

I am honored.

Bemildred , Nov 11 2019 14:35 utc | 115
Andrew J. Bacevich weighs in on US foreign policy:
Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a "war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all.

To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero.

There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East. The imperative is to go forward, which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.t

So succinct.

The Blob: Still Chasing After Pax Americana

vk , Nov 11 2019 14:41 utc | 116
@ Posted by: b | Nov 11 2019 14:20 utc | 114

The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee.

[Nov 06, 2019] Manufacturing Fear and Loathing, Maximizing Corporate Profits! A Review of Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc. Why Today's Media Makes Us

Notable quotes:
"... "Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it" (p. 11). ..."
"... Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic. ..."
"... The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15). ..."
"... our corporate media have devised -- at least for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21). ..."
"... And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid. ..."
"... For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same" (pp. 259-260). ..."
Nov 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc . is the most insightful and revelatory book about American politics to appear since the publication of Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal almost four full years ago, near the beginning of the last presidential election cycle.

While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class. In fact, I would strongly recommend that the reader spend some time with Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) and Listen, Liberal! (2016) as he or she takes up Taibbi's book.

And to really do the book the justice it deserves, I would even more vehemently recommend that the reader immerse him- or herself in Taibbi's favorite book and vade-mecum , Manufacturing Consent (which I found to be a grueling experience: a relentless cataloging of the official lies that hide the brutality of American foreign policy) and, in order to properly appreciate the brilliance of Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the Media Stole from Pro Wrestling," visit some locale in Flyover Country and see some pro wrestling in person (which I found to be unexpectedly uplifting -- more on this soon enough).

Taibbi tells us that he had originally intended for Hate, Inc . to be an updating of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (1988), which he first read thirty years ago, when he was nineteen. "It blew my mind," Taibbi writes. "[It] taught me that some level of deception was baked into almost everything I'd ever been taught about modern American life .

Once the authors in the first chapter laid out their famed propaganda model [italics mine], they cut through the deceptions of the American state like a buzz saw" (p. 10). For what seemed to be vigorous democratic debate, Taibbi realized, was instead a soul-crushing simulation of debate. The choices voters were given were distinctions without valid differences, and just as hyped, just as trivial, as the choices between a Whopper and a Big Mac, between Froot Loops and Frosted Mini-Wheats, between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, between Marlboro Lites and Camel Filters. It was all profit-making poisonous junk.

"Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it" (p. 11). And there's an indisputable logic at work here, because the reality of hideous American war crimes is and always has been, from the point of view of the big media corporations, a "narrative-ruining" buzz-kill. "The uglier truth [brought to light in Manufacturing Consent ], that we committed genocide of a fairly massive scale across Indochina -- ultimately killing at least a million innocent civilians by air in three countries -- is pre-excluded from the history of the period" (p. 13).

So what has changed in the last thirty years? A lot! As a starting point let's consider the very useful metaphor found in the title of another great media book of 1988: Mark Crispin Miller's Boxed In: The Culture of TV . To say that Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic.

Taibbi summarizes the history of these three decades in terms of three "massive revolutions" in the media plus one actual massive political revolution, all of which, we should note, he discussed with his hero Chomsky (who is now ninety! -- Edward Herman passed away in 2017) even as he wrote his book. And so: the media revolutions which Taibbi describes were, first, the coming of FoxNews along with Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio; second, the coming of CNN, i.e., the Cable News Network, along with twenty-four hour infinite-loop news cycles; third, the coming of the Internet along with the mighty social media giants Facebook and Twitter.

The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15).

For all that, however, the most salient difference between the news media of 1989 and the news media of 2019 is the disappearance of the single type of calm and decorous and slightly boring cis-het white anchorman (who somehow successfully appealed to a nationwide audience) and his replacement by a seemingly wide variety of demographically-engineered news personæ who all rage and scream combatively in each other's direction. "In the old days," Taibbi writes, "the news was a mix of this toothless trivia and cheery dispatches from the frontlines of Pax Americana . The news [was] once designed to be consumed by the whole house . But once we started to be organized into demographic silos [italics mine], the networks found another way to seduce these audiences: they sold intramural conflict" (p. 18).

And in this new media environment of constant conflict, how, Taibbi wondered, could public consent , which would seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from conflict, still be manufactured ?? "That wasn't easy for me to see in my first decades in the business," Taibbi writes. "For a long time, I thought it was a flaw in the Chomsky/Herman model" (p. 19).

But what Taibbi was at length able to understand, and what he is now able to describe for us with both wit and controlled outrage, is that our corporate media have devised -- at least for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21).

And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.

Or pretty much so. Taibbi is more historically precise. Because of the tweaking of the Herman/Chomsky propaganda model necessitated by the disappearance of the USSR in 1991 ("The Russians escaped while we weren't watching them, / As Russians do ," Jackson Browne presciently prophesied on MTV way back in 1983), one might now want to speak of a Propaganda Model 2.0. For, as Taibbi notes, " the biggest change to Chomsky's model is the discovery of a far superior 'common enemy' in modern media: each other. So long as we remain a bitterly-divided two-party state, we'll never want for TV villains" (pp. 207-208).

To rub his great insight right into our uncomprehending faces, Taibbi has almost sadistically chosen to have dark, shadowy images of a yelling Sean Hannity (in lurid FoxNews Red!) and a screaming Rachel Maddow (in glaring MSNBC Blue!) juxtaposed on the cover of his book. For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same" (pp. 259-260).

And that effect is hate. Impotent hate. For while Rachel's fan demographic is all wrapped up in hating Far-Right Fascists Like Sean, and while Sean's is all wrapped up in despising Libtard Lunatics Like Rachel, the bipartisan consensus in Washington for ever-increasing military budgets, for everlasting wars, for ever-expanding surveillance, for ever-growing bailouts of and tax breaks for and and handouts to the most powerful corporations goes forever unchallenged.

Oh my. And it only gets worse and worse, because the media, in order to make sure that their various siloed demographics stay superglued to their Internet devices, must keep ratcheting up levels of hate: the Fascists Like Sean and the Libtards Like Rachel must be continually presented as more and more deranged, and ultimately as demonic. "There is us and them," Taibbi writes, "and they are Hitler" (p. 64). A vile reductio ad absurdum has come into play: "If all Trump supporters are Hitler, and all liberals are also Hitler," Taibbi writes, " [t]he America vs. America show is now Hitler vs. Hitler! Think of the ratings! " The reader begins to grasp Taibbi's argument that our mainstream corporate media are as bad as -- are worse than -- pro wrestling. It's an ineluctable downward spiral.

Taibbi continues: "The problem is, there's no natural floor to this behavior. Just as cable TV will eventually become seven hundred separate twenty-four-hour porn channels, news and commentary will eventually escalate to boxing-style, expletive-laden, pre-fight tirades, and the open incitement to violence [italics mine]. If the other side is literally Hitler, [w]hat began as America vs. America will eventually move to Traitor vs. Traitor , and the show does not work if those contestants are not eventually offended to the point of wanting to kill one another" (pp. 65-69).

As I read this book, I often wondered about how difficult it was emotionally for Taibbi to write it. I'm just really glad to see that the guy didn't commit suicide along the way. He does describe the "self-loathing" he experienced as he realized his own complicity in the marketing processes which he exposes (p. 2). He also apologizes to the reader for his not being able to follow through on his original aim of writing a continuation of Herman and Chomsky's classic: "[W]hen I sat down to write what I'd hoped would be something with the intellectual gravitas of Manufacturing Consent ," Taibbi confesses, "I found decades of more mundane frustrations pouring out onto the page, obliterating a clinical examination" (p. 2).

I, however, am profoundly grateful to Taibbi for all of his brilliantly observed anecdotes. The subject matter is nauseating enough even in Taibbi's sparkling and darkly tragicomic prose. A more academic treatment of the subject would likely be too depressing to read. So let me conclude with an anecdote of my own -- and an oddly uplifting one at that -- about reading Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the News Media Stole from Pro Wrestling."

On the same day I read this chapter I saw that, on the bulletin board in my gym, a poster had appeared, as if by magic, promoting an upcoming Primal Conflict (!) professional wrestling event. I studied the photos of the wrestlers on the poster carefully, and, as an astute reader of Taibbi, I prided myself on being able to identify which of them seemed be playing the roles of heels , and which of them the roles of babyfaces .

For Taibbi explains that one of the fundamental dynamics of wrestling involves the invention of crowd-pleasing narratives out of the many permutations and combinations of pitting heels against faces . Donald Trump, a natural heel , brings the goofy dynamics of pro wrestling to American politics with real-life professional expertise. (Taibbi points out that in 2007 Trump actually performed before a huge cheering crowd in a Wrestlemania event billed as the "battle of the billionaires." Watch it on YouTube! https://youtu.be/5NsrwH9I9vE -- unbelievable!!)

The mainstream corporate media, on the other hand, their eyes fixed on ever bigger and bigger profits, have drifted into the metaphorical pro wrestling ring in ignorance, and so, when they face off against Trump, they often end up in the role of inept prudish pearl-clutching faces .

Taibbi condemns the mainstream media's failure to understand such a massively popular form of American entertainment as "malpractice" (p. 125), so I felt more than obligated to buy a ticket and see the advertised event in person. To properly educate myself, that is.

... ... ...


Steve Ruis , November 5, 2019 at 8:13 am

I have stopped watching broadcast "news" other than occasional sessions of NPR in the car. I get most of my news from sources such as this and from overseas sources (The Guardian, Reuters, etc.). I used to subscribe to newspapers but have given them up in disgust, even though I was looking forward to leisurely enjoying a morning paper after I retired.

I was brought up in the positive 1950's and, boy, did this turn out poorly.

Dao Gen , November 5, 2019 at 8:59 am

Matt Taibbi is an American treasure, and I love his writing very much, but we also need to ask, Why hasn't another Chomsky (or another Hudson), an analyst with a truly deep and wide-ranging, synthetic mind, appeared on the left to take apart our contemporary media and show us its inner workings? Have all the truly great minds gone to work for Wall Street? I don't have an answer, but to me the pro wrestling metaphor, while intriguing, misses something about the Fourth Estate in America, if it indeed still exists. And that is, except for radio, there is a distinct imbalance between the two sides of the MSM lineup. On the corporate liberal side of the national MSM team you have five wrestlers, but on the conservative/reactionary side you have only the Fox entry. Because of this imbalance, the corruption, laziness, self-indulgence, and generally declining interest in journalistic standards seems greater among the corporate liberal media team, including the NYT and WaPo, than the Fox team.

I'm not a fan of either Maddow (in her current incarnation) or Hannity, but Hannity, perhaps because he thinks he's like David, often hustles to refute the discourse of the corporate liberal Goliath team. Hannity obviously does more research on some topics than Maddow, and, perhaps because he began in radio, he puts more emphasis on semi-rationally structured rants than Maddow, who depends more on primal emotion, body language, and Hollywood-esque fear-inducing atmospherics.

I'd wager that in a single five-minute segment there will often be twice as many rational distinctions made in a Hannity rant than in a Maddow performance. In addition, for the last three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right about the fake Russiagate propaganda blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong from the very beginning as propaganda industry trend-setter Adam Schiff. So for at least these last three years, the Maddow-Hannity primal match has been a somewhat misleading metaphor. The Blob and the security state have been decisively supporting (and directing?) the corporate liberal global interventionist media, at least regarding Russia and the permanent war establishment, and because the imbalance between the interventionist and the non-interventionist MSM, Russia and Ukraine are being used as a wedge to steadily break down the firewalls between the Dem party, the intel community, and the interventionist MSM. If we had real public debates with both sides at approximately equal strength as we did during the Vietnam War, then even pro wrestling-type matches would be superior to what we have now, which is truthy truth and thoughtsy thought coming to us from the military industrial complex and monopolistic holding companies. If fascism is defined as the fusion of the state and corporations, then the greatest threat of fascism in America may well be coming from the apparent gradual fusion of the corporate liberal MSM, the Dem party elite, and the intel community. Instead of an MSM wrestling match, we may soon be faced with a Japanese-style 'hitori-zumo' match in which a sumo wrestler wrestles with only himself. Once these sumo wrestlers were believed to be wrestling with invisible spirits, but those days are gone . http://kikuko-nagoya.com/html/hitori-zumo.htm

coboarts , November 5, 2019 at 9:59 am

"If we had real public debates" and if they were even debates where issues entered into contest were addressed point by point with evidence

Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg , November 5, 2019 at 10:03 am

Today's Noam Chomksy? Chomsky was part of the machine who broke ranks with it. His MIT research was generously funded by the Military Industrial Complex. Thankfully, enough of his latent humanity and Trotskyite upbringing shone through so he exposed what he was part of. So I guess today that's Chris Hedges, though he's a preacher at heart and not a semiotician.

neighbor7 , November 5, 2019 at 10:04 am

Thank you, Dao Gen. An excellent analysis, and your final image is usefully haunting.

a different chris , November 5, 2019 at 12:11 pm

> In addition, for the last three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right about the fake Russiagate propaganda blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong

Eh. Read whats-his-name's (Frankfurter?) book On Bullshit . You are giving Hannity credit for something he doesn't really care about.

jrs , November 5, 2019 at 12:21 pm

I don't believe the media environment as a whole leans corporate Dem/neoliberal.

T.V. maybe, but radio is much more right wing than left (yes there is NPR and Pacifica, the latter with probably only a scattering of listerners but ) and it's still out there and a big influence, radio hasn't gone away. So doesn't the right wing tilt of radio kind of balance out television? (not necessarily in a good way but). And then there is the internet and I have no idea what the overall lean of that is (I mean I prefer left wing sites, but that's purely my own bubble and actually there are much fewer left analysis out there than I'd like)

Self Affine , November 5, 2019 at 9:05 am

Also,

Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

by Sheldon S. Wolin

Critical deep analysis of not just the media but the whole American political enterprise and
the nature of our "democracy".

DJG , November 5, 2019 at 9:20 am

The whole review is good, but this extract should be quoted extensively:

While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class.

In short, stagnation and self-dealing at the top. What could possibly go wrong?

Yves Smith Post author , November 5, 2019 at 11:51 am

Are you serious? Maddow called Trump a traitor and accused him of betrayal in Russiagate, and was caught out when that fell apart. This was pointed out all over the MSM .

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/27/rachel-maddows-deep-delusion-226266

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/17/rachel-maddow-hits-the-panic-button-after-trump-putin-summit-this-is-the-worst-case-scenario/

Carolinian , November 5, 2019 at 9:52 am

This is great stuff. Thanks.

One quibble: the author says

Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets

and then goes on to spend most of the article talking about television. I'd say television is still the main propaganda instrument even if many webheads like yours truly ignore it (I've never seen Hannity's show or Maddow's–just hear the rumors). Arguably even newspapers like the NYT have been dumbed down because the reporters long to be on TV and join the shouting. And it's surely no coincidence that our president himself is a TV (and WWE) star. Mass media have always been feeders of hysteria but television gave them faces and voices. Watching TV is also a far more passive experience than surfing the web. They are selling us "narratives," bedtime stories, and we like sleepy children merely listen.

Jerri-Lynn Scofield , November 5, 2019 at 9:54 am

This rave review has inspired me to add this to my to-read non-fiction queue. Currently reading William Dalrymple's The Anarchy, on the rise of the East India Company. Next up: Matt Stoller's Goliath. And then I'll get to Taibbi. Probably worth digging up my original copy of Manufacturing Consent as well, which I read many moons ago; time for a re-read.

Susan the Other , November 5, 2019 at 12:32 pm

almost every page of mine is dog-eared and marked along the edge with exclamation points

urblintz , November 5, 2019 at 1:41 pm

May I suggest Stephen Cohen's "War with Russia?" if it's not already on your list? In focusing on the danger emerging from the new cold war, seeded by the Democrats, propagated by corporate media (which he thinks is more dangerous than the first), Cohen clarifies the importance of diplomacy especially with one's nuclear rivals.

Imagine that

shinola , November 5, 2019 at 9:56 am

Support your local book store!

Off The Street , November 5, 2019 at 9:57 am

Us rubes knew decades ago about pro wrestling. There was a regional circuit and the hero in one town would become the villain in another town. The ones to be surprised were like John Stossel, who got a perforated eardrum from a slap upside the head for his efforts at in-your-face journalism with a wrestler who just wouldn't play along with his grandstanding. Somewhere, kids cheered and life went on.

The Historian , November 5, 2019 at 10:01 am

Ah, Ancient Athens, here we come – running back to repeat your mistakes! Our MSM media has decided that when we are not at our neighbor's throats, we should be at each other's throats!

teacup , November 5, 2019 at 10:11 am

I was watching old clips of the 'Fred Friendly Seminars' on YouTube. IMHO any channel that produced a format such as this would be a ratings bonanza. Imagine a round table with various media figures (corporate) left, (corporate) right, and independent being refereed by a host-moderator discussing topics in 'Hate, Inc.'. In wrestling it's called a Battle Royale. The Fourth Estate in a cage match!

@ape , November 5, 2019 at 10:12 am

And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.

This is important, if people don't want to be naive about what democracy buys. Democracy in the end is a ritual system to determine which members of an elite would win a war without actually having to hold the war. Like how court functions to replace personal revenge by determining (often) who would win in a fight if there were one, and the feudal system replaced the genocidal wars of the axial age with the gentler warfare of the middle ages which were often ritual wars of the elite that avoided the full risk of the earlier wars.

That, I think, is important -- under a democracy, the winner should be normally the winner of the avoided violent conflict to be sustainable. Thus, it's enough to get most people to consent to the solution, using the traditional meaning of consent being "won't put up a fight to avoid it". If the choices on the table are reduced enough, you can get by with most people simply dropping out of the questions.

Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit

It shouldn't be a surprise that we've moved to "faking dissent" -- it's the natural evolution of a system where a lot of the effective power is in the hands of tech, and not just as in the early 20th century, how many workers you have and how many soldiers you can raise.

If you don't like it, change the technology we use to fight one another. We went from tribes to lords when we switch from sticks to advanced forged weapons, and we went from feudalism to democracy when we had factories dropping guns that any 15 year old could use (oversimplifying a bit). Now that the stuff requires expertise, you'd expect a corresponding shift in how we ritualize our conflict avoidance, and thus the organization of how we control communication and how we organize our rituals of power.

Aka, it's the scientists and the engineers who end up determining how everything is organized, and people never seem to bother with that argument, which is especially surprising that even hard-core Marxists waste their time on short-term politics rather than the tech we're building.

I'd be curious whether Taibbi thought about the issue of the nature of the technology and whether there are technological options on the horizon which drive the conflict in other directions. If we had only kept the laws on copyright and patent weaker, so that the implementation of communicative infrastructure would have stayed decentralized

Susan the Other , November 5, 2019 at 12:41 pm

Tabby's "manufacturing fake consent" was really the whole punchline – the joke's on us. Hunter S. Thompson, another of Taibbi's heroes, is, along with Chomsky, speaking to us through MT. Our media is distracting us from social coherence. Another thing it is doing (just my opinion) is it is overwhelming us to the point of disgust. Nobody likes it. And we protect ourselves by tuning it out. Turning it off. Once the screaming lunatics marginalize themselves by making the whole narrative hysterical, we just act like it's another family fight and we're gonna go do something else. When everyone is screaming, no one is screaming.

Jerry B , November 5, 2019 at 10:26 am

I have tried to read Hate Inc. and Taibbi's Griftopia but one of my main issues with Taibbi's writing is his lack of notes, references, or bibliography, etc. in his books. In skimming Hate Inc. it seems like a book I would enjoy reading, however my personal value system is that any book without footnotes, endnotes, citations, or at minimum a bibliography is just an opinion or a story. At least Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal has a section for End Notes/References at the end of the book. Again just my personal values.

Sbbbd , November 5, 2019 at 10:45 am

Another classic in the genre of manufactured consent through media from the age of radio and Adolf Hitler:

"The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception", in the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

Joe Well , November 5, 2019 at 11:04 am

I am from Greater Boston, far, far from flyover country (which I imagine begins in Yonkers NY), but I sure grew up with pro wrestling as part of the schoolyard discourse. I certainly knew it was as much of a family affair as Disney on Ice and have trouble believing he thought otherwise though I will not impugn his honesty. I am very grateful to the author for taking the time to write this, but is it possible for a male who grew up in the US to be as deeply embedded in the MSNBC demo as he claims to be?

Seriously, how is it possible for a male raised in the US to not at least have some working familiarity with pro wrestling? My family along with my community was very close to the national median income–do higher income boys really not learn about WWF and WWE?

Seriously, rich kids, what was childhood like? I know you had music lessons and sports camps, what else? Was it really that different?

Carolinian , November 5, 2019 at 11:59 am

And it's not just the US. See the British WWE movie: Fighting With My Family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_with_My_Family

Yves Smith Post author , November 5, 2019 at 12:03 pm

Sorry, my blue collar, lifetime union member brother says your view is horseshit. All the knows about WWE and WWF is that they are big-budget fakery and that's why they are of no interest.

amfortas the hippie , November 5, 2019 at 1:38 pm

aye. in my blue to white collar( and back to blue to no collar) upbringing, wrestling was never a thing. it was for the morons who couldn't read. seen as patently absurd by just about everyone i knew. and this in klanridden east texas exurbia
wife's mexican extended familia oth luche libre is a big thing that all and sundry talked about at thanksgiving. less so these days possibly due to the hyperindiviualisation of media intake mentioned
(and,btw, in my little world , horseshit is a good thing)

BlueStater , November 5, 2019 at 11:11 am

Even allowing for my lefty-liberal bias, I do not see how it is possible to equate Fox Noise and MSNBC, or Hannity and Maddow, as "both-sides" extremists. Fox violates basic professional canons of fairness and equity on a daily basis. MSNBC occasionally does, but is quick to correct errors of fact. Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without much education or knowledge of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar. It is one of the evil successes of the right-wing news cauldron to have successfully equated these two figures and organizations.

Yves Smith Post author , November 5, 2019 at 12:05 pm

Huh? MSNBC regularly makes errors of omission and commission with respect to Sanders. They are still pushing the Russiagate narrative. That's a massive, two-year, virtually all the time error they have refused to recant.

The blind spots of people on the soi-disant left are truly astonishing.

semiconscious , November 5, 2019 at 1:08 pm

'Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without much education or knowledge of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar '

oh, well, then – end of conversation! i mean, god knows, it'd be a cold day in hell before a rhodes scholar, or even someone married to one, would ever lead us astray down the rosy neoliberal path to hell, while, at the same time, under the spell of trump derangement syndrome, actually attempt to revive the mccarthy era, eh?

Summer , November 5, 2019 at 12:11 pm

Actual drugs are being used to hinder debate as well as emotional drugs like hate.
They can't trust agency to be removed by words and images alone – the stakes are too high.
Now all of you go take a feel good pill and stop complaining!

McWatt , November 5, 2019 at 1:02 pm

I would like to know if Matt is doing any book signings any where around the states for this new title?

David , November 5, 2019 at 1:15 pm

I've been impressed with Taibbi's work, what I've read of it, but ironically this very article contains a quote from him which exemplifies the problem: his casual assertion that the US committed "genocide" in Indochina. Even the most fervent critics of US policy didn't say this at the time, for the very good reason that there was no evidence that the US tried to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic or nationalist group (the full definition is a lot more complex and demanding than that). He clearly means that the US was responsible for lots of deaths, which is incontestable. But the process of endless escalation of rhetoric, which this book seems to be partly about, means that everything now has to be described in the most extreme, absurd or apocalyptic tones, and at the top of your voice, otherwise nobody takes any notice. So any self-respecting war now has to be qualified as "genocide" or nobody will take any notice.

[Nov 03, 2019] No true war is bad

Nov 03, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

by John Quiggin on October 13, 2019 On Facebook, my frined Timothy Scriven pointed to an opinion piece by classics professor Ian Morris headlined In the long run, wars make us safer and richer It's pushing a book with the clickbaity title War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots .". Timothy correctly guessed that I wouldn't like it.

Based on the headline, I was expecting a claim along the lines "wars stimulate technological progress" which I refuted (to my own satisfaction at any rate) in Economics in Two Lessons" . But the argument is much stranger than this. The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity.

For the classical world at 100 CE or so, the era on which Morris is an expert, that argument seemed pretty convincing. As the famous Life of Brian sketch suggests, Roman rule delivered a lot of benefits to its conquered provinces.

The next 1900 years or so present a bit of a problem, though. There have been countless wars in that time, and no trend towards bigger states. On the contrary two or three dozen states (depending on how you count them) now occupy the territory of the former Roman Empire.

You could cut the number down a bit by treating the European Union as a new empire, but then you have an even bigger problem. The EU was not formed through war, but through a determination to avoid it. Whatever you think about the EU in other respects, this goal has been achieved.

Morris avoids the problem by a "no true Scotsman" argument. He admits in passing that the 1000 years of war following the high point of Rome had the effect of breaking down larger, safer societies into smaller, more dangerous ones, but returns with relief to the era of true wars, in which big states always win. That story works, roughly, until 1914, when the empires he admires destroyed themselves, killing millions in the process.

After that, the argument descends into Pinker-style nonsense. While repeating the usual stats about the decline in violent deaths, Morris mentions in passing that a nuclear war could cause billions of deaths. He doesn't consider the obvious anthropic fallacy problem – if such a war had happened, there would not be any op-eds in the Washington Post discussing the implications for life expectancy.

I haven't read the book, and don't intend to. If someone can't present a 700 word summary of their argument without looking silly, they shouldn't write opinion pieces. But, for what its worth, FB friends who have read it agree that it's not very good.


William Meyer 10.13.19 at 12:31 pm (no link)

I have not read the book in question, so I don't know if the author made this point: "Since violence or implicit violence is how we overcome essentially all collective action problems as humans, war probably does belong in the human toolkit." Obviously it would be better if we could find more and better alternatives to war, and remove the obvious glitches in the alternatives (e.g., representative democracy, single-party states, etc.) we have tried in the past. So I find it odd as I get old that so little energy/research/academic effort is devoted by the human race to finding better means of collective decision making. Clearly our current abilities in this field are completely inadequate. I ponder if this is because we are incapable of doing better by some inherent flaw in our makeup or if it is because, as in some many areas of life, the wicked work tirelessly to maintain the systems that enrich and empower them. I suspect I'll never find out.
Omega Centauri 10.13.19 at 4:33 pm (no link)
There might be a case to be made for empire building conquest advancing human society. I think it was primarily by forcing the mixing of cultures which otherwise would have been relatively isolated from each other. Also empires tended to create safe internal trade routes, the Silk Road was made possible by the Mongol empire.

At least the authors of books about such empires like to state that over a timespan of centuries that empire creation was a net positive.

Orange Watch 10.13.19 at 7:07 pm (no link)
Tim Worstall and Dipper's suggestion that the EU is borne of war is mostly just a failure to take Morris's claim on its unsophisticated face and instead assume it contains subtle complexity that is obviously missing if you read the article itself:

This happened because about 10,000 years ago, the winners of wars began incorporating the losers into larger societies. The victors found that the only way to make these larger societies work was by developing stronger governments; and one of the first things these governments had to do, if they wanted to stay in power, was suppress violence among their subjects.

For the EU to have been a result of war in the sense that Morris means, it would have to have been forcibly formed in 1945 by the US/UK/Russia forcibly incorporating Europe into it. When Morris states "wars make us stronger and richer" he very simply means wars of conquest are long-term net positives. He doesn't mean something subtle about nations banding together to forestall further war; he bluntly means conquerors gluing together their conquests into empires and then liberally applying boot leather to necks.

Mark Brady 10.13.19 at 7:56 pm (no link)
John Quiggin is, of course, well aware of this quotation, but some of you may not.

"Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of destruction, they see almost endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see "miracles of production" which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a postwar world made certainly prosperous by an enormous "accumulated" or "backed up" demand. In Europe they joyously count the houses, the whole cities that have been leveled to the ground and that "will have to be replaced." In America they count the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent radios and refrigerators. They bring together formidable totals.

"It is merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat beyond recognition. This time it is supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It confuses need with demand."

Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, Chapter 3, "The Blessings of Destruction."

Alex SL 10.13.19 at 8:37 pm (no link)
On one side, AFAIK the last few centuries of war in Europe have indeed seen a reduction of the number of states. Yes, the trend was partly reversed since 1914, but never to the degree of splintering that existed in the middle ages.

On the other side, even the widely accepted cases of supposedly 'beneficial' empires such as the Romans bringing the Pax Romana and the Mongols allowing far-reaching trade and travel need to be seen against the devastation they caused to make their victories possible. The Romans, for example, committed genocide in Gaul and Carthage, and they enslaved millions.

Best case argument in my eyes is that a very successful war is beneficial because it stops continuous smaller wars, which is still not exactly the same as a general "war is beneficial". Why not just create institutional arrangements that avoid wars between small nations in the first place?

fran6 10.13.19 at 9:26 pm (no link)
Here's another personality who's also unfazed by the evils of war (although, she does wish more folks were "kind" to each other):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EsWSh8kPMfg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Barry 10.13.19 at 10:40 pm ( 18 )
Tim Worstall: "The EU came into existence in 1992, neatly coinciding with the Yugoslav unpleasantnesses."

You might want to look at the time between then and WWII.

You also might want to check the membership in the EU in 1992, and see which state(s) were not in it (hint – Yugoslavia).

John Quiggin 10.13.19 at 11:36 pm ( 19 )
Stephen @11 Say what? Are you suggesting that the Soviet bloc was part of the EU? As both your comment and Tim Worstall's unwittingly illustrate, the fact that the EU has been entirely peaceful since its creation (by contrast with non-EU Europe) is not because Europeans suddenly became pacifists.
Salazar 10.14.19 at 12:39 am ( 20 )
Sorry if I have a hard time getting Morris' argument, but: towards the end, be seems to be saying the world requires a "Globocop" like the US to ensure its prosperity. But how does that relate to his wider point about the benefits of war? Does Morris believe the hegemon owes it to itself, and to the rest of the world, to wage permanent war?
Tabasco 10.14.19 at 1:23 am ( 21 )
"the EU has been entirely peaceful since its creation"

Spain and Portugal are still arguing the 200+ year border dispute over Olivenza/Olivença, but it hasn't reached Kashmir levels (yet).

Ed 10.14.19 at 2:34 am ( 22 )
Morris sold out. This was evident in his book comparing the progress of China and Europe, though that book made excellent points in between the fluff and is well worth reading. But he is well versed enough in Chinese history to be aware of the ultimate example of armies conquering and bringing peace to a large area, which happens repeatedly in Chinese history.

Actually, Chinese history itself shows that the opposite argument has more support, that instead of war being valuable because one powerful country will conquer a large area and bring peace to it, its valuable because competition between states who are worried about other states getting a jump on them turns out to be valuable to progress. Large continental empires, including the Roman one as well, tended to stagnate in terms of culture and technology and become correct.

MFB 10.15.19 at 7:18 am (no link)
Well, the opinion-piece was published on Jeff Bezos' blog. Oligarchs are naturally in favour of centralised power and therefore of empires (so long as they are at the apex thereof, which they usually are). The best way to build an empire is through war.

Of course, the author has to say "despite Hitler, Stalin and Mao", for ideological reasons. Actually, Hitler built his empire largely through the threat of war rather than through war itself; once he had actually started the war, he antagonised three more powerful empires than his own and his empire was then crushed. As for Stalin, he actually did various double-back-somersaults to avoid getting into wars, and the "empire" which he built in Eastern Europe as a result of winning a war he didn't want did not sustain itself. And of course Mao didn't start any wars at all -- his name just had to be thrown in for reactionary reasons.

It is true that the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British empires were built upon war. But where are they now? The United States fought a lot of wars against its indigenous people, but frankly it would still have been a global superpower if it had simply sidestepped most of them, at least from about 1865 onward.

An interesting question: can it be that a professor of Classics doesn't actually have to understand the concept of evidence-based argument in any case, because everything has already been said on the subject and all you have to do is cherry-pick other people's statements? Because that seems to be how that silly article reads.

And yes, the whole thing reeks of the better angels propaganda. Let's not forget, by the way, that various members of the EU -- Britain, France, Italy et al -- have launched brutally murderous wars elsewhere, and the fact that they don't fight among themselves doesn't make them peaceful or moral entities.

Neville Morley 10.15.19 at 9:47 am (no link)
@TheSophist #25: that was mentioned as a joke rather than self-publicity, but if you're really interested: The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, 2020). Obviously books about the Roman Empire are ten a penny; my main claim for this one, besides its being less apologetic and/or gung-ho than most, is that I try to integrate the historical reality with its reception, i.e. how people have subsequently deployed Rome as an example or model.
Bill Benzon 10.15.19 at 12:44 pm (no link)
Maybe the Roman Empire delivered on peace, but prosperity is a bit more complicated. Some years ago David Hays wrote a book on the history of technology. One of the things he did was make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of material welfare at different levels of development. He concluded that, while civilization has always been a good deal for the elite, it's been rather iffy for peasants and workers. It's only during the Industrial Evolution that the standard of living at the lower end of society rose above that of hunter-gatherers. So, the prosperity delivered by the Roman Empire went mostly to the elite, not the peasantry.

I've excerpted the relevant section of Hays's book .

steven t johnson 10.16.19 at 8:06 pm (no link)
Peter Erwin@43 wanted the Nazis to roll right up to the eastern border of Poland, etc. etc. So did Hitler. And although I'm quite reluctant to read minds, especially dead one, I will nevertheless guarantee the move into the Baltics was seen as a blow to his plans, even if accepted for temporary advantage. You must always see who hates Stalin for beating Hitler, and those rare few who object to his real crimes.

And, Erwin thinks Chinese troops being in Korea with permission is an aggression, while US troops closing on Chinese borders is not. The US still isn't out of Korea, but China is, but he can't figure out who the aggressor is.

Really, Peter Erwin really says it all. The maddest ant-Communist propaganda is now official.

MFB 10.17.19 at 9:02 am (no link)
I don't want to unnecessarily dump on Peter Erwin, because I don't believe in kicking disadvantaged children, but if he reads the original post he will notice that it was talking about international wars, not civil wars. I'll admit the invasion of Finland (and of the Baltic states and Poland) but those were fairly obviously ways of strengthening the USSR's position in order to discourage a German invasion, and all took place within the boundaries of the former Russian Empire which Stalin undoubtedly saw as the default position.

As to Mao, he didn't start the Korean war (as Erwin unwillingly admits) and all the other wars except for the invasion of Vietnam were civil wars since they entailed moving into Chinese-controlled territory which had broken away during the main civil war. I'll admit that Vietnam was a problem, but then, since Mao had been dead for some time by then, it's would be hard for Erwin to blame him except for the fact that Erwin clearly lives on Planet Bizarro.

Z 10.17.19 at 9:05 am (no link)
@John Quiggin The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity

I don't think this is an intellectually generous summary of the arguments, as presented in the article.

The author himself summarizes it as "war made states, and states made peace", and if it is indeed true that the author often speaks of "larger, more organized societies" there is a strong implication that for a society to be "large" in the sense discussed in the article, it is not really necessary that it be territorially very wide (the most clear cut indication of that is that the author refers to the European states of the 1600s as "big, settled states" while they all were geographically tiny at the time). So the point of the author, if interpreted with intellectual honesty, seems to me to be twofold: 1) that war has been a crucial factor in the formation of complex, organized states and societies and 2) that these complex, organized states and societies brought with them so many positive things that the wars required to form them were worth it.

The second point is pure Pinker. I consider it logically meaningless, myself (it ultimately relies on the concept that History proceeds like an individual who is choosing a pair of shoes) and morally repugnant (it is not hard to see who will be pleased to have a rhetorical tool that can justify any atrocity by the long term gains it will provide humanity – indeed, it is instructive in that respect to read SS internal papers on when and why children should be executed with their parents, and how to select people for that task: contrary to what could be guessed, the manual recommends the soldiers who appear to have a strong sense of empathy and morality, with the idea that they will those who will most strongly endorse the "by doing this abominable act, we are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of future generations" thesis).

The first point, however, appears to me to be broadly correct descriptively. Extracting an interesting thesis out of it requires much more work than is indicated by the article, however (I consider Ertman's Birth of the Levianthan an example of that kind of extra work done successfully).

Z 10.17.19 at 9:30 am ( 52 )
@John Quiggin Lots of people predicted, along the lines of your post, that with the external threat of the USSR gone, and the US pulling back, the old warlike Europe would reassert itself.

I think what we may call the "wide military context thesis" runs rather like this: because of the experience of WWII and the Cold War, modern industrial states have amassed enormous military power while at the same time knowing that they can experience total destruction if they enter into a military conflict with a state of comparable military might. As a consequence, peace dominates between them. So France is not at war with the United Kingdom or Germany, certainly in part because they are all (for now) members of the EU but also in part for the same reason Japan is not at war with South Korea and Russia not at war with China.

Personally, I think it would be absurd to claim that the EU has played no role in the pacification of Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, but I think it would be equally absurd to deny the role of other factors that plainly play a major role in the equally remarkable pacification of other regional areas in the absence of an economical and political unification process (rise in prosperity, rise in education, aging populations, increased military power ).

otpup 10.19.19 at 10:51 pm ( 68 )
@7, Omega
Not really wanting to get into the "do empires benefit civilization by promoting trade" argument, but having just read Lost Enlightenment, nothing in that lengthy tome suggests the Silk Road city states gain any special advantage from the Mongol invasion. In fact, quite the opposite. After the Mongols (in part for reasons preceeding the conquest), Central Asia never regained its pre-eminence (it had actually not just been a facilitator of trade but also a center of manufacture, culture, scientific progress). Maybe the trade routes hobbled along as trade routes but the civilization that was both built by and facilitated trade did not rebound. Most empires seem to get that there is wealth to be had from involvement in trade, they don't always know how to keep the gold goose alive.
LFC 10.20.19 at 9:10 pm (no link)
"War made states and states made peace" is a riff on Charles Tilly's line "war made the state and the state made war."

[Oct 31, 2019] The Militarization Of Everything

Notable quotes:
"... But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. ..."
"... But who can object to celebrating " hometown heroes " in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools ? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway , timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs? ..."
"... Roughly two-thirds of the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever closer to a trillion dollars ..."
"... The U.S. military remains the most trusted institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. ..."
"... A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. ..."
"... America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in the room." ..."
"... The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as talking heads to explain and promote military action to the American people. ..."
"... America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. ..."
"... In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50 caliber sniper rifles to various military-style assault rifles. ..."
"... Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000 gun deaths in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the continued bombing of numerous countries. ..."
"... 9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself has taken on a new " warrior ethos " that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this country's citizen-soldier tradition , especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II. ..."
"... Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war , as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism. ..."
Oct 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Militarization Of Everything by Tyler Durden Wed, 10/30/2019 - 23:10 0 SHARES

Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,

Killing Me Softly with Militarism - The Decay of Democracy in America

When Americans think of militarism , they may imagine jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through the streets as flag-waving crowds exult ; or, like our president , they may think of enormous parades featuring troops and missiles and tanks, with warplanes soaring overhead. Or nationalist dictators wearing military uniforms encrusted with medals, ribbons, and badges like so many barnacles on a sinking ship of state. (Was Donald Trump only joking recently when he said he'd like to award himself a Medal of Honor?) And what they may also think is: that's not us. That's not America. After all, Lady Liberty used to welcome newcomers with a torch, not an AR-15 . We don't wall ourselves in while bombing others in distant parts of the world, right?

But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. Even in the heartland of Trump's famed base, most Americans continue to reject nakedly bellicose displays like phalanxes of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue.

But who can object to celebrating " hometown heroes " in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools ? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway , timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs?

What do I mean by softer forms of militarism? I'm a football fan, so one recent Sunday afternoon found me watching an NFL game on CBS. People deplore violence in such games, and rightly so, given the number of injuries among the players, notably concussions that debilitate lives. But what about violent commercials during the game? In that one afternoon, I noted repetitive commercials for SEAL Team , SWAT , and FBI , all CBS shows from this quietly militarized American moment of ours. In other words, I was exposed to lots of guns, explosions, fisticuffs, and the like, but more than anything I was given glimpses of hard men (and a woman or two) in uniform who have the very answers we need and, like the Pentagon-supplied police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, are armed to the teeth. ("Models with guns," my wife calls them.)

Got a situation in Nowhere-stan? Send in the Navy SEALs. Got a murderer on the loose? Send in the SWAT team. With their superior weaponry and can-do spirit, Special Forces of every sort are sure to win the day (except, of course, when they don't, as in America's current series of never-ending wars in distant lands).

And it hardly ends with those three shows. Consider, for example, this century's update of Magnum P.I. , a CBS show featuring a kickass private investigator. In the original Magnum P.I. that I watched as a teenager, Tom Selleck played the character with an easy charm. Magnum's military background in Vietnam was acknowledged but not hyped. Unsurprisingly, today's Magnum is proudly billed as an ex-Navy SEAL.

Cop and military shows are nothing new on American TV, but never have I seen so many of them, new and old, and so well-armed. On CBS alone you can add to the mix Hawaii Five-O (yet more models with guns updated and up-armed from my youthful years), the three NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) shows, and Blue Bloods (ironically starring a more grizzled and less charming Tom Selleck) -- and who knows what I haven't noticed? While today's cop/military shows feature far more diversity with respect to gender, ethnicity, and race compared to hoary classics like Dragnet , they also feature far more gunplay and other forms of bloody violence.

Look, as a veteran, I have nothing against realistic shows on the military. Coming from a family of first responders -- I count four firefighters and two police officers in my immediate family -- I loved shows like Adam-12 and Emergency! in my youth. What I'm against is the strange militarization of everything, including, for instance, the idea, distinctly of our moment, that first responders need their very own version of the American flag to mark their service. Perhaps you've seen those thin blue line flags, sometimes augmented with a red line for firefighters. As a military veteran, my gut tells me that there should only be one American flag and it should be good enough for all Americans. Think of the proliferation of flags as another soft type of up-armoring (this time of patriotism).

Speaking of which, whatever happened to Dragnet 's Sergeant Joe Friday, on the beat, serving his fellow citizens, and pursuing law enforcement as a calling? He didn't need a thin blue line battle flag. And in the rare times when he wielded a gun, it was .38 Special. Today's version of Joe looks a lot more like G.I. Joe, decked out in body armor and carrying an assault rifle as he exits a tank-like vehicle, maybe even a surplus MRAP from America's failed imperial wars.

Militarism in the USA

Besides TV shows, movies, and commercials, there are many signs of the increasing embrace of militarized values and attitudes in this country. The result: the acceptance of a military in places where it shouldn't be , one that's over-celebrated, over-hyped , and given far too much money and cultural authority, while becoming virtually immune to serious criticism.

Let me offer just nine signs of this that would have been so much less conceivable when I was a young boy watching reruns of Dragnet :

1. Roughly two-thirds of the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever closer to a trillion dollars . Such colossal sums are rarely debated in Congress; indeed, they enjoy wide bipartisan support.

2. The U.S. military remains the most trusted institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. No other institution even comes close, certainly not the presidency (37%) or Congress (which recently rose to a monumental 25% on an impeachment high). Yet that same military has produced disasters or quagmires in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. Various "surges" have repeatedly failed. The Pentagon itself can't even pass an audit . Why so much trust?

3. A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. Wars are now automatically treated as multi-generational with little concern for how permawar might degrade our democracy. Anti-war protesters are rare enough to be lone voices crying in the wilderness.

4. America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in the room." Sages like former Secretary of Defense James Mattis ( cited glowingly in the recent debate among 12 Democratic presidential hopefuls) will save America from unskilled and tempestuous politicians like one Donald J. Trump. In the 2016 presidential race, it seemed that neither candidate could run without being endorsed by a screaming general ( Michael Flynn for Trump; John Allen for Clinton).

5. The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as talking heads to explain and promote military action to the American people. Simultaneously, when the military goes to war, civilian journalists are "embedded" within those forces and so are dependent on them in every way. The result tends to be a cheerleading media that supports the military in the name of patriotism -- as well as higher ratings and corporate profits.

6. America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. Consider, for instance, the current controversy over the aid to Ukraine that President Trump blocked before his infamous phone call, which was, of course, partially about weaponry . This should serve to remind us that the United States has become the world's foremost merchant of death, selling far more weapons globally than any other country. Again, there is no real debate here about the morality of profiting from such massive sales, whether abroad ($55.4 billion in arms sales for this fiscal year alone, says the Defense Security Cooperation Agency) or at home (a staggering 150 million new guns produced in the USA since 1986, the vast majority remaining in American hands).

7. In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50 caliber sniper rifles to various military-style assault rifles. Roughly 15 million AR-15s are currently owned by ordinary Americans. We're talking about a gun designed for battlefield-style rapid shooting and maximum damage against humans. In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, the hunters in my family had bolt-action rifles for deer hunting, shotguns for birds, and pistols for home defense and plinking. No one had a military-style assault rifle because no one needed one or even wanted one. Now, worried suburbanites buy them, thinking they're getting their " man card " back by toting such a weapon of mass destruction.

8. Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000 gun deaths in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the continued bombing of numerous countries. But ignorance is not bliss. By tacitly giving the military a blank check, issued in the name of securing the homeland, Americans embrace that military, however loosely, and its misuse of violence across significant parts of the planet. Should it be any surprise that a country that kills so wantonly overseas over such a prolonged period would also experience mass shootings and other forms of violence at home?

9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself has taken on a new " warrior ethos " that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this country's citizen-soldier tradition , especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II.

What these nine items add up to is a paradigm shift as well as a change in the zeitgeist. The U.S. military is no longer a tool that a democracy funds and uses reluctantly. It's become an alleged force for good, a virtuous entity, a band of brothers (and sisters), America's foremost missionaries overseas and most lovable and admired heroes at home. This embrace of the military is precisely what I would call soft militarism. Jackbooted troops may not be marching in our streets, but they increasingly seem to be marching unopposed through -- and occupying -- our minds.

The Decay of Democracy

As Americans embrace the military, less violent policy options are downplayed or disregarded. Consider the State Department, America's diplomatic corps, now a tiny , increasingly defunded branch of the Pentagon led by Mike Pompeo (celebrated by Donald Trump as a tremendous leader because he did well at West Point). Consider President Trump as well, who's been labeled an isolationist, and his stunning inability to truly withdraw troops or end wars. In Syria, U.S. troops were recently redeployed, not withdrawn, not from the region anyway, even as more troops are being sent to Saudi Arabia. In Afghanistan, Trump sent a few thousand more troops in 2017, his own modest version of a mini-surge and they're still there, even as peace negotiations with the Taliban have been abandoned. That decision, in turn, led to a new surge (a " near record high ") in U.S. bombing in that country in September, naturally in the name of advancing peace. The result: yet higher levels of civilian deaths .

How did the U.S. increasingly come to reject diplomacy and democracy for militarism and proto-autocracy? Partly, I think, because of the absence of a military draft. Precisely because military service is voluntary, it can be valorized. It can be elevated as a calling that's uniquely heroic and sacrificial. Even though most troops are drawn from the working class and volunteer for diverse reasons, their motivations and their imperfections can be ignored as politicians praise them to the rooftops. Related to this is the Rambo-like cult of the warrior and warrior ethos , now celebrated as something desirable in America. Such an ethos fits seamlessly with America's generational wars. Unlike conflicted draftees, warriors exist solely to wage war. They are less likely to have the questioning attitude of the citizen-soldier.

Don't get me wrong: reviving the draft isn't the solution; reviving democracy is. We need the active involvement of informed citizens, especially resistance to endless wars and budget-busting spending on American weapons of mass destruction. The true cost of our previously soft (now possibly hardening) militarism isn't seen only in this country's quickening march toward a militarized authoritarianism. It can also be measured in the dead and wounded from our wars, including the dead, wounded , and displaced in distant lands. It can be seen as well in the rise of increasingly well-armed, self-avowed nationalists domestically who promise solutions via walls and weapons and "good guys" with guns. ("Shoot them in the legs," Trump is alleged to have said about immigrants crossing America's southern border illegally.)

Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war , as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism.

With apologies to the great Roberta Flack , America is killing itself softly with war songs.

hoytmonger , 12 minutes ago link

"Police who deployed explosives and armored vehicles to flush out a man –who'd stolen two belts and a shirt from a Greenwood Village Walmart– from the house of Leo and Alfonsia Lech, are not required to compensate the couple for destroying their home, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday."

https://www.rt.com/usa/472224-police-explode-house-zero-compensation/

charlie_don't_surf , 3 minutes ago link

Those police destroyed a house worth well over 200K since it's in metro Denver...and all to apprehend a punk that shoplifted less than $100 of merchandise...something terribly wrong, all the govt units, local on up are high on the arrogance of power with impunity.

[Oct 29, 2019] Asia Times China's financial threat to the 2020 US election Article

Oct 29, 2019 | www.asiatimes.com
Henry 4 days ago ,

The author seems to be writing an interesting fiction, reminds one of a Hollywood movie about a Russian oligarch at the behest of a senior Russian government official, attempting to engineer wall street crash.

Taking out a newspaper advertisement with proper representation to state one's case can't be compared with the US funded National Endowment for Democracy's funding of Hong Kong's increasingly violent rioting.

tinhatter Henry 4 days ago ,

Is the NED something like the China's interference in the NBA ?

Henry tinhatter 4 days ago ,

This is like apple and orange, not comparable. China did not interfere in NBA's affairs, just reacting to her citizens uproar against the infamous now deleted tweet. Thus many Chinese Chinese sponsors pulled out. This is no different to sponsors pulling out of US athletes endorsements from time to time when there are scandals.
Whereas NED is US intelligence cover for interference in targeted countries like Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran and many Islamic countries around the world, to advance US political agenda.

tinhatter daggo77 4 days ago ,

And in breaking news. 39 Britons have been found dead in a container trying to be smuggled fromt eh failed UK state to the successful state run by the CCP.
Did I get that the right-way round ?

Mustafa 4 days ago ,

Who is this guy? Does he think this is CNN?

Is he smoking a heretofore unheard of narcotic?

Let me set the stage.

This is a paper or news site about asia. It is written in English? What does this tell you? The audience ostensibly consists of westerners (or educated people from asia or elsewhere) who want to read an alternative to the drivel and rubbish that's propagated in copious quantities by the scat factories of the west and their zionist-oligarch dominated news conglomerates...

Who is interfering in elections? Does china name some loser guaido as president of venezuela or support terrorists in syria? Is china sanctioning (with financial warfare)the whole world including their own allies? You must have no modicum of shame to come up with this absolute smorgasbord of rancid festering bollocks that you think is befitting of "reporting." You are bettet off taking a sabbatical and never coming back... i would tell you all of this to your face with the utmost respect that i could muster before i vomited...

Presidents come and go... the empire, deep state bureaucrats, and their slavish dual-state minions such as yourself will march on no matter what until your rotten seed perpetuate the corruption and degeneracy passed down through your genes. That xyz is president makes zero difference in deterring the momentum of evil that lurks within the diseased sociopaths such as yourself.

You are an unmitigated disgrace to true journalism and do a grave disservice to this site's reputation.

pooi-hoong chan Mustafa 4 days ago ,

Bill Gertz is not a journalist. He is a bullshitter. He constantly spews out lies, fake news, propaganda and BS against China.

M Henri Day pooi-hoong chan 2 days ago ,

"Bill Gertz is not a journalist. He is a bullshitter." Alas, pooi-hong chan, these two professions are in many cases equivalent....

Henri

AsianInvestor Mustafa 4 days ago • edited ,

CIA uses fake identities for the propaganda articles. If a nation is building close ties with China, automatically an author with a name from that nation appears. They also have groups posting propaganda under a single fake name. There are only a few genuine Asian CIA hacks making a living off the CIA.

USA is heading for multiple recessions possibly a depression unless they change their current anti China policies.

Bianca AsianInvestor 4 days ago ,

In fact, in military, fake identities for information warfare are assigned to one person, so that it multiplies the effect. To keep track of these "personas" per each real person, and their postings -- a "persona" data bases are needed to keep track of their activities. And unfortunately , there are always some technicians who are more then happy to talk about it.

Deuxieme Bianca 4 days ago ,

Yes. just google Operation Earnest Voice. It's a project by Pentagon that let one person control several of these "personas"

Mustafa AsianInvestor 4 days ago ,

It would not surprise me if he worked for the CIA... this organization is, by its mission, embedded into all public spheres...

What is worrisome is that the cia has no accountability to anyone. It is one great example of deep state operator. Also, cia is heavily infiltrated by mossad. In other words, cia is a parallel drug traffickers organization that dabbles in news, democracy promotion, torture, coups, blackmail, assasibation, rendition...

It is accountable to no one ... their actions are conducted in secrecy and cannot be scrutinized... the president can't control them... these organizations are a manifest example of why this article is a huge fallacy dressed up in cured excrement.

Huashen 4 days ago • edited ,

These people are outrageously shameless in their assertion that they can openly interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, like the recent bills passed by the US House of Representatives in support of the Blackshirts of HK, but they would not brook any interference from China in their election, not that it's true at all.
This is a good example of how the US apply its Orwellian ideology of "American Exceptionalism" - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" - George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

Lee Sky 4 days ago ,

Another guy cashing in on the evil China fad, pathetic. It is the US who conducts financial warfare by imposing illegal sanctions and restrictions on other countries using the dominance of the dollar in international trade.

Bianca 4 days ago ,

If it is so easy to have a country's financial system snd stock markets manipulated -- how do know that our own financial sharks are not already manipulating market to enrich them selves , while making it appear that everything is fine? Or that they are not crashing markets in order to profit?
There is something not right about a country with financial and market systems living off the fumes of news cycle?

Look at how many times West attacked Russian financial systems
and markets, blocking whole companies and financial institutions -- yet nothing crashed. Currency lost some value helping exports, while those earning in dollars simply had more money to spend domestically. And by placing sanctions kn European food products -- they shot up to the first place globally in wheat production.

I am wondering if the difference is Russia's large currency and gold reserves. As opposed US economy that sits atop a large debt bubble? Than anything can spook it.

Deuxieme 4 days ago • edited ,

Bill Gertz is running out of stuff to bad mouth China. He is eager to make some money now that he's been fired by Washington Free Beacon for having some shady deals with the Chinese billionaire fugitive Guo who is the subject covered in his reporting.
Maybe Gertz can tell us who China wants to be elected by staging these financial influence campaign? Gertz is sounding utterly ridiculous now.

Bapa aku 4 days ago ,

american are losers, foreign influence here and there, well thanks to your own foreign policies bombing here and there and regime change everywhere, you sow what you get. if you don't want foreign influence. just build a great wall and extend it to these. not only no 5G, ditch all comunications including mail

Bobserver 4 days ago • edited ,

This is a nonsense article. Lots of hypotheticals with no proof presented of China's intention or cases of actually trying to influence any American election.

This is more how Western countries behave with their Machivellian modus operandi overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. This author and American officials are merely voicing what the USA is already capable of doing rather than what China has in place.

In fact there is a debate among Chinese officials and think tanks that they might want Trump to have a second term because as the USA p@sses off many countries including those allied with the USA that might help China down the line.

Bianca 4 days ago ,

Wait a minute -- Russia wants Trump to be reelected, and China wants him to lose?

With US creating legislation for the whole world -- our sanctions whose enforcement is imposed in others -- means that other people must have the right to elect the president? How can the world accept such financial burden on others with no right to vote.

Remember America next time you vote for sanctions, tariffs etc. -- no taxation without representation. Global presidents must be elected globally!

MD6888 4 days ago ,

Bill Gertz is a Washington-based national security journalist and author of Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China's Drive for Global Supremacy

007's imaginary script writer. LOL!

Alex 4 days ago ,

There's no need for the Chinese to rely on 'covert' operation to influence the election's outcome. For instance, if China just cancels the buying of the agricultural goods from the US that it has dealt with Trump in what is being called the partial deal from the trade war, it would be already enough to influence in the election. Lol!

[Oct 24, 2019] Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.

Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.

This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.

Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers, or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.

Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.

It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.

America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters. That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships. Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.

All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.

That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."

That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying people in countries all over the world.

The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.

The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom and peace, both here and abroad.

There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land.

[Oct 22, 2019] It's four more years of the Trumpian Reich folks, with Russian Spetsnaz patrolling the streets, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, babushkas, the whole nine yards by CJ Hopkins

Notable quotes:
"... Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins vis The Unz Review, ..."
Oct 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins vis The Unz Review,

So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked," or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy.

Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up a last-minute military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.

[Oct 20, 2019] How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area. ..."
"... Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. ..."
"... Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind. ..."
"... A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion? ..."
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Oct 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dan Hayes says: October 4, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT • 100 Words @Ron Unz Proprietor Ron,

Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled man.

Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.

I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU academic nor an Upper West Side resident.

And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!


sally , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:47 am GMT

How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area.

Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt, Yemen etc.

Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind.

I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.

A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

Beckow , says: October 4, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT

The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO, and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?

There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?

eah , says: October 4, 2019 at 11:55 am GMT
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.

Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.

Roberto Masioni , says: October 4, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level. This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
Pamela , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.

To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96% turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with all the international mandates.

It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.

All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!

follyofwar , says: October 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.

The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State knew it.

Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.

The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones.

The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt, that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.

These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights, those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable damage will be done to our country and its institutions.

AnonFromTN , says: October 4, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@Pamela In fact, several Western sources reluctantly confirmed the results of Crimean referendum of 2014:
German polling company GFK
http://www.gfk.com/ua/Documents/Presentations/GFK_report_FreeCrimea.pdf
Gallup
http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf

Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.

On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.

Alden , says: October 4, 2019 at 5:35 pm GMT
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.

We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.

chris , says: October 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm GMT
@Ron Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any push-back from the interviewer) says:

Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a coup d'etat against Yanukovich.

Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the Ukraine coup ?

Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US.

These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.

No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.

In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is the staging post for an attack on Russia.

The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical conclusion.

Anonymous [855] • Disclaimer , says: October 4, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of Europe.

Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion, according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and, according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.

According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital, which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1 million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools' endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous populations they claim to protect.

AnonFromTN , says: October 5, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Mikhail Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@anon American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run by the same puppet master.

Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him, like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the rat).

Skeptikal , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:10 pm GMT
@follyofwar The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.

But it is probably not worth the aggravation.

Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other innovations.

Beckow , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@AP Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?

Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' – actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in hell of joining EU.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Skeptikal Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away. Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).

So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports, Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.

annamaria , says: October 6, 2019 at 8:10 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."

-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the coziness of western life?

S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet regime."

-- If you wish: "The Rape of Russia: Testimony of Anne Williamson Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives, September 21, 1999:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/Harvard_mafia/testimony_of_anne_williamson_before_the_house_banking_committee.shtml

"Economic rape of post-USSR economic space was by design not by accident:"
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#Economic_rape_of_post_USSR_economic_space_was_by_design_not_by_accident

"MI6 role in economic rape of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet republics:" http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml#MI6_role_

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 11:39 pm GMT
@AP Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and blew it.
AP , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them, there were too many) a

Illegal revolution (are there any legal ones? – was American one legal?) rather than coup. Violations of Constitution began under Yanukovich.

We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed suicide.

LOL. Were you the one comparing it to Somalia?

Here is "dead" Ukraine:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DDWAobR8U0c?start=3017&feature=oembed

What a nightmare.

Compare Ukraine 2019 to Ukraine 2013 (before revolution):

GDP per capita PPP:

$9233 (2018) vs. $8648 (2013)

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=UA-AM-GE-MN-AL&name_desc=false

GDP per capita nominal:

$3110 (2018) vs. $3160 (2013)

Given 3% growth in 2019, it will be higher.

Forex reserves:

$20 billion end of 2013, $23 billion currently

Debt to GDP ratio:

40% in 2013, 61% in 2018. Okay, this is worse. But it is a decline from 2016 when it was 81%.

Compare Ukraine's current 61% to Greece's 150%.

Military: from ~15,000 usable troops to 200,000.

Overall, not exactly a "suicide."

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@AnonFromTN I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups – it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.

In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could stage a ' revolution '.

AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.

Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed, Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.

We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.

Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.

Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@AP You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989, had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.

So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.

You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a success?

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Beckow True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Beckow , says: October 7, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies, and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.

What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about ' EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.

What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well, all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal', almost as good as 2013 . Right.

Robjil , says: October 5, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
Ukraine is an overseas US territory.

It is not a foreign nation at all.

Trump dealt with one of our overseas territories.

Nuland said that US invested 5 billion dollars to get Ukraine.

She got Ukraine without balls that is Crimea. Russia took back the balls.

US cried, cried a Crimea river about this. They are still crying over this.

DESERT FOX , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Robjil Agree, and like Israel the Ukraine will be a welfare drain on the America taxpayers as long as Israel and the Ukraine exist.
Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
@AP I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:

lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians

Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask: why? did the authors of that policy think it through?

Beckow , says: October 5, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@AP I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth' under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.

One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.

If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.

AnonFromTN , says: October 6, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT
@Beckow Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.

Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood. Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets, etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more, most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).

Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for has befallen us". End of story.

Sergey Krieger , says: October 6, 2019 at 4:15 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even 40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing. Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when die off very real one is going right under your nose.
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 6, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
@AnonFromTN

By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.

Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important to those hawks.

Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing. I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct, what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of better relations impossible.)

AnonFromTN , says: October 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Per/Norway

The ukrops are pureblooded nazis

Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender. Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
@AP

So uprising by American colonists was a coup?

How about what happened in Russia in 1917?

Or Romania when Communism fell?

Talk about false equivalencies.

Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected president of Ukraine.

Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the Euromaidan.

Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and the deaths of law enforcement personnel.

In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.

Mikhail , says: • Website October 7, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Beckow The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:17 am GMT
@AP Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert Trump's investigation of those crimes.

Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24 report fairly objective?

Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtUrPKK73rE?feature=oembed

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
@AP This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage- is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.

Crimea: Three years after annexation – BBC News

anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:55 am GMT
@AP Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
anon [113] • Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@AP "Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by @TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"

REVEALING UKRAINE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER #1 (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Nj_bdtO0SI0

Robjil , says: October 15, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
@Malacaay Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.

This probably explains their differences with Russia.

Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the rest of Russia.

The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the Soviet Union.

Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime Minister.

Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine, Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.

[Oct 19, 2019] Our pentagon should be producing best and first technologies ACROSS THE BOARD, not spending all its time trying to hide from the taxpayer how many billions the neocons pilfered last quarter

Instead something has to be found to justify 12 Carrier Strike Force fleets for the U.S. Navy, so we've discovered Russia as the perfect scapegoat.
Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

alexander , says: October 5, 2019 at 1:10 am GMT

@Alta It has already started.

Our neocon policies have proven to be an existential threat to the solvency , well being, and future of the United States.

We have squandered tens of trillions of dollars on stupid wasteful wars when we could have been using those exact same resources to build out our infrastructure, education and technological advantages.

Our pentagon should be producing best and first technologies ACROSS THE BOARD, not spending all its time trying to hide from the taxpayer how many billions the neocons pilfered last quarter.

We need to replace our policy of "perpetual war fraud" with a policy of empowering and igniting creativity and human excellence.

[Oct 13, 2019] Will American Exceptionalism Rise Again

The Collapse of American exceptionalism is actually the collapse of neoliberalism and the US neoliberal empire.
Oct 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

At its core, exceptionalism places America outside of normal history into a category of its own. Our initial "escape" from history followed two interrelated tracks: one was the religious radicalism of the Puritans, the other was the frontier experience. Both paths were the warpath.

The early settlers believed that they were "chosen" -- blessed by a special relationship to their God. They viewed their " errand in the wilderness " as a holy mission destined to bring a new and better way of life to the world. God's judgment on their progress was revealed in the bounty of a harvest or the outcome of a war.

Exceptionalism was not a free-floating idea but was forged into a lasting culture by the frontier wars aimed at the elimination or assimilation of native people and the conquest of land. America's frontier history produced a lasting mythology that popularized empire and white settler culture while cloaking their many contradictions.

I know it is hard to believe that the Puritans are still camped out in our minds. The old religious radicalism has taken modern form in the liberal-sounding belief that the US military is a "force for good (read God) in the world." The double-edged sword of exceptionalism traps us into repeating history: our high moral standards and special role in the world gives us license for wars and aggressions. It is the liberal elements of exceptionalism that are most seductive, most difficult to wrap our heads around, and the most effective at winning our consent to war.

Exceptionalism Wins Our Consent to War With A One-Two Punch

On the one hand, we have the "hard" exceptionalism like that of the Cold War (New and Old) and the War on Terrorism. These war stories revolve around a rigid binary of good and evil. After 9/11, in scores of speeches, George W. Bush repeated the mantra that there were "no gray areas" in the struggle between good and evil.

On the other hand, "soft" exceptionalism takes a slightly different tack by appealing to the liberal in us. Stories of rescue, protection, democracy and humanitarian efforts assure us of our goodness. Obama mastered this narrative by claiming the US had a "duty to protect" the weak and vulnerable in places like Libya.

These two strains of war stories are the narrative one-two punch, winning our consent to war and empire.

Here is how war propaganda works: if authority figures in government and media denounce foreign leaders or countries or immigrants as an evil threat and repeat it thousands of times, they do not even have to say, "We are the chosen people destined to bring light to the world." They know that millions of Americans will unconsciously refer to the exceptionalist code by default because it's so deeply embedded in our culture. Once made brave by our exceptional character and sense of superiority, the next moves are war, violence and white supremacy.

Myth Meets the American War in Vietnam

The Vietnam War, and the resistance to it, profoundly challenged all existing war stories. At the heart of this disruption was the soldier's revolt. Thousands of US soldiers and veterans came to oppose the very war they fought in . An anti-war movement inside the military was totally unprecedented in US history. The war-makers have been scrambling to repair the damage ever since.

Following the defeat of US forces in Vietnam, the elites shifted gears. The idea that the US could create a new democratic nation -- South Vietnam -- was an utter illusion that no amount of fire-power could overcome. In truth, the US selected a series of petty tyrants to rule that could never win the allegiance of the Vietnamese people because they were the transparent puppets of American interests. The ruling class learned a lesson that forced them to abandon the liberal veneer of "nation-building."

The Next Generation of War Stories: From "Noble Cause" to "Humanitarian War."

Ronald Regan tried to repair the damaged narratives by recasting the Vietnam War as a "Noble Cause." The Noble Cause appealed to people hurt and confused by the US defeat, as well as the unrepentant war-makers, because it attempted to restore the old good vs. evil narrative of exceptionalism. For Regan, America needed to rediscover its original mission as a "city on a hill" -- a shining example to the world. Every single President since has repeated that faith.

The Noble Cause narrative was reproduced in numerous bad movies and dubious academic studies that tried to refight the war (and win this time!). Its primary function was to restore exceptionalism in the minds of the American people. While Regan succeeded to a considerable degree -- as we can see in the pro-war policy of both corporate parties -- "nation-building" never recovered its power as a military strategy or war story.

The next facade was Clinton's "humanitarian war." Humanitarian war attempted to relight the liberal beacon by replacing the problems of nation-building with the paternalistic do-gooding of a superior culture and country. In effect, the imperialists recycled the 19th Century war story of "Manifest Destiny" or "White Man's Burden." That "burden" was the supposed duty of white people to lift lesser people up to the standards of western civilization -- even if that required a lot of killing.

This kind of racist thinking legitimized the US overseas empire at its birth. Maybe it would work again in empires' old age?

From the "War on Terrorism" to the "Responsibility to Protect."

After the shock of 9/11 the narrative shifted again. Bush's "global war on terrorism" reactivated the good vs. evil framing of the Cold War. The "war on terror" was an incoherent military or political strategy except for its promise of forever wars.

Just as the Cold War was a "long twilight struggle" against an elusive but ruthless communist enemy, terrorists might be anywhere and everywhere and do anything. And, like the fight against communism, the war on terrorism would require the US to wage aggressive wars, launch preemptive strikes, use covert activities and dodge both international law and the US Constitution.

9/11 also tapped into deeply-rooted nationalistic and patriotic desires among everyday people to protect and serve their country. The first attack on US soil in modern memory powerfully restored the old binary: when faced with unspeakable evil, the US military became a "force for good in the world." It's easy to forget just how potent the combination is and how it led us into the War in Iraq. According to The Washington Post :

Nearing the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this.

The mythology is so deep that at first the people, soldiers especially, just had to believe there was a good reason to attack Iraq. So we fell back on exceptionalism despite the total absence of evidence. Of course Bush made no attempt to correct this misinformation. The myth served him too well -- as did the official propaganda campaign claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But in due course, some of the faithful became doubters. A peace movement of global proportions took shape. But in the US far too much of what appeared as resistance was driven by narrow partisan opposition to Republicans rather than principled opposition to war and empire.

But fear not war-makers -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came to the rescue! As they continued Bush's wars in the Middle East and expanded the war zone to include Libya, Syria and then all of Africa, they sweetened "humanitarian war" with a heaping dose of cool-coated "Responsibility to Protect." Once again, American goodness and innocence made the medicine go down and our wars raged on.

Obama restored legitimacy to the empire so effectively that it took years for the illegal, immoral, racist and "unwinnable" wars to reveal themselves to the public. I was told by one of the leaders of About Face: Veterans Against War that they almost had to close shop after Obama was elected because their donor base dried up. Obama's hope was our dope. Just as the daze was finally lifting, Trump started to take the mask off.

Is The Mask Off?

Today's we face an empire with the mask half off. Trump's doctrine -- "We are not nation-building again, we are killing terrorists." -- is a revealing take on military trends that began with the first US – Afghan War (1978-1992). US leaders gave up nation-building and opted for failed states and political chaos instead of the strong states that nation-building, or its illusion, required. The US military began to rely on mercenaries and terrorists to replace the American citizen-soldier. The soldier revolt of the Vietnam Era already proved that everyday Americans were an unreliable force to achieve imperial ambitions.

Nothing rips the mask off of the humanitarian justifications better than the actual experience of combat in a war for oil and power -- so the war managers tried to reduce combat exposure to a few. And they succeeded. The number of official US troops abroad reached a 60-year low by 2017 . Even still a new resistance movement of veterans is gathering steam .

Can the mask be put back on? It's hard to say, because as The Nation reports, Americans from a wide spectrum of political positions are tired of perpetual war.

Can the "Green New Military" Put The Mask Back On?

The recycled imperial justifications of the past are losing their power: Manifest Destiny, White Mans' Burden, leader of the free world, nation-building, humanitarian war, war against terrorism, responsibility to protect -- what's next? If only the military could be seen as saviors once again.

A last-ditch effort to postpone the collapse of the liberal versions of war stories might just be the " Green New Military ." Elizabeth Warren's policy claims, "Our military can help lead the fight in combating climate change. " It's a wild claim that contradicts all evidence unless she is also calling for an end to regime-change wars, the New Cold War and the scaling down of our foreign bases. Instead, Warren is all about combat readiness. She did not invent this -- the Pentagon had already embraced the new rhetoric . Given that the Working Families Party and some influential progressives have already signaled their willingness to accept Warren as a candidate, she might just silence dissent as effectively as Obama once did.

But, the lie is paper-thin: "There is no such thing as a Green War." You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time but you cannot fool mother nature one little bit. War and climate change are deeply connected and ultimately there is no way to hide that.

The New Cold War and More of The Same Old Wars

So far the New Cold War against Russia and China has recycled the anti-communist conspiracy of the old Cold War into the xenophobic conspiracy theory of Russia-gate. Even a trusted tool like Mueller could not make it work as a coherent narrative but no matter -- the US did not skip a beat in building up military bases on Russia's borders .

The media and political attacks on Russia or China or immigrants, or Iran or Syria are likely to continue because propagandists cannot activate the exceptionalist code without an evil enemy. Still, it takes more than evil. An effective war story for the US ruling class must project the liberal ideas of helping, protection, saving and the spread of democracy in order to engineer mass consent to war. Hence the need for "Humanitarian War," "Duty to Protect" or maybe the"Green New Military."

Let anyone propose a retreat from any battlefield and the "humanitarian" war cry will rally the empire's pawns and savior-types. If we practice our exceptionalism religiously -- and religion it is -- then the US empire will never ever pull back from any war at any time. There is always someone for the empire to "protect and save:" from the "Noble Savages" and innocent white settlers of the frontier, to the Vietnamese Catholics, to the women of Afghanistan, to the Kurds of Syria.

We so want to see our wars as a morality play, just as the Puritans did, but the empire is all about power and profit.

"War is the Continuation of Politics by Other Means." -- Carl von Clausewitz

All the Big Brass study Clausewitz because he is the founder of western military science -- but they are so blinded by the dilemmas of empire that they make a mess of his central teaching: War is politics.

None of the war narratives and none of the wars can solve the most important question of politics: governance . Who will govern the colonies? The overwhelming verdict of history is this: colonies cannot be democratically or humanely governed as long as they are colonies. Until the empire retreats its heavy hand will rule in places like Afghanistan.

The empire is reaching the limits of exceptionalism as both war narrative and national mythology. This is why our rulers are forced to desperate measures: perpetual war, occupation, intense propaganda campaigns like Russia-gate, the reliance on mercenaries and terrorists, and the abuse and betrayal of their own soldiers.

Just as damning to the war machine is the collapse of conventional ideas about victory and defeat. The US military can no longer "win." The question of victory is important on a deep cultural level. According to the original mythology, the outcome of wars waged by "the chosen people" are an indication of God's favor or disfavor. In modern terms, defeat delegitimizes the state. Endless war is no substitute for "victory."

But it's not military victory we want. Our victory will be in ending war, dismantling the empire, abolishing the vast militarized penal system and stopping irreparable climate chaos. Our resistance will create a new narrative but it can only be written when millions of people become the authors of their own history.

The empire is slipping into decline and chaos – one way or another. Will we be actors deciding the fate of the American Empire or will it's collapse dictate our fate? But these wars will, sooner or later, become the graveyard of empire -- or else America is truly exceptional and we really are God's chosen people.

[Oct 10, 2019] There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
Oct 09, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

EMichael , October 09, 2019 at 04:05 PM

Despicable. She is actually saying Bush's actions were just a difference of opinion, as opposed to causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I have never watched anything she has ever done without thinking about it. Now I will never watch anything she does because of her imbecility.

Nobody Should Be Friends With George W. Bush by Sarah Jones

"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.

George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:

And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has many deaths on his conscience:

Here's the money quote from her apologia:

"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be kind to everyone."

This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days.

Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:

There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong, and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion, I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency has to die.

DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/ellen-degeneres-is-wrong-about-george-w-bush.html

... ... ...

...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.

Tulsi Gabbard
‏Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago

.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha, & work together for the people.

There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.

[Oct 09, 2019] Mark Ruffalo called out for selective outrage over tweet shaming Ellen Degeneres and George Bush's war crimes

Notable quotes:
"... "Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted. ..."
"... While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today. ..."
"... From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner. ..."
"... *Nobel Peace Drones™ ..."
"... "Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," ..."
Oct 09, 2019 | www.rt.com

Actor Mark Ruffalo was shredded for double standards after he posted a "callout" tweet assailing George Bush for the sins of the Iraq War, with many netizens noting his aversion to slamming Barack Obama's military adventures. Weighing into a controversy kicked off by TV personality Ellen Degeneres, who came under fire for schmoozing it up with former President George W. Bush at a football game last weekend, Ruffalo insisted no quarter or kindness should be offered to perpetrators of heinous war crimes until they face consequences, including Bush.

"Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted.

Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness. https://t.co/dpMwfck6su

-- Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 9, 2019

While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today.

Claiming Bush is some monster while worshipping Obama even though they did the same things abroad🤔

-- Dave Weber (@Dave_Weber86) October 9, 2019

Bush and Obama bro! They're both war criminals!!

-- Dodgers High Correspondent (@42o_Bandit) October 9, 2019

From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

*Nobel Peace Drones™

-- Fuzzy Chimp (@fuzzychimpcom) October 9, 2019

Obama must be brought to justice for his drone strikes that killed thousands of civilians.

-- ed (@eleventy17) October 9, 2019

"Woke Twitter, [including] Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs," one user observed, noting the several occasions former first lady Michelle Obama posed affectionately with Bush without facing a similar wave of outrage from figures like Ruffalo.

People ripping Jameela Jamil and the celebs in these screenshots but it was tumbleweed 101 when Michelle Obama was getting regular sweeties fixes from George W. Bush & going above and beyond duty in friendly optics. Woke Twitter, incl Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs. pic.twitter.com/snNYZEbAWM

-- Independent Thinker (@ThinkIndep) October 9, 2019

It's funny how Mark Ruffalo can criticize Ellen, who was an actual person affected by Bush's ignorance, but not a peep about Michelle Obama who admits to having a special FRIENDSHIP with GW. https://t.co/9UM1BP8GpY

-- Anthony Joseph (@Anthony45525826) October 9, 2019

Another commenter seconded Ruffalo's views on Bush, but encouraged the actor to take his criticism further, applying the same humanitarian standard evenly, regardless of the party in power.

"Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," the user said.

The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush. However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over.

Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions

The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush

However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over

-- HeroAssange (@HeroAssange) October 9, 2019

100% on Bush. You forgot to add Obama & Clinton though. No reason to root for justice against one war criminal, while giving a free pass to others. It makes it partisan, rather than ethical.

-- Life Coach (@jimlyons3000) October 9, 2019

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[Oct 08, 2019] Are There Israelis in the U.S. Government by Philip Giraldi

Looks like Us politicians adopted the stance: if you can't win against Israel lobby, join... And yea we should talk about Zionists as a flavor of far right nationalism, nit about Jews, per se. The latter smells with anti-Semitism as it accuses the ethnic group as a whole. Which is not only false, but also self-defeating stance: Russophobia is "politically correct" anti-Semitism in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
"... I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun; Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge. ..."
"... I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. ..."
"... Mandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade. ..."
Oct 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Given Israel's clearly demonstrated ability to manipulate and manage American government at all levels, there is inevitably considerable speculation about the presence of actual Israeli citizens in the federal and state bureaucracies. Very often, lists that appear on the internet focus on Jewish legislators, but in reality, few of them are likely to have Israeli citizenship even if they regularly exhibit what amounts to "dual loyalty" sympathy for the Jewish state. Nevertheless, Jews who are Zionists are vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the Middle East.

There are, of course, some Jews who flaunt their identification with Israel, to include current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who describes himself as "protector" of Israel and former Senator Frank Lautenberg, frequently referred to as "Israel's Senator." One might also include Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and mayor of Chicago, who reportedly served as a volunteer in the Israeli Army, and Doug Feith, who caused so much mischief from his perch at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Feith had a law office in Jerusalem, suggesting that he might have obtained Israeli citizenship.

To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their star to the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing. One only has to observe in action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and perhaps the most revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for office proclaiming that he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States. After being elected he traveled to Jerusalem with a large entourage of Zionist supporters to hold the first meeting of the Florida state government cabinet. According to some authorities in Florida, the meeting was supposed to be held in the state capitol Tallahassee and was therefore illegal, but DeSantis was undaunted and made clear to observers where his loyalty lies.

Part of the problem is that Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon application by any Jew and once obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the Israeli government. Nor is there anything equating to a list of citizens, so it is possible to be an Israeli citizen while also holding American citizenship and no one would be the wiser. As the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and American.

Having dual nationality only a real issue when the policies of one citizenship conflict with the other, and that is precisely where the problem comes in with Israeli dual nationals in the United States, particularly if they wind up in the government. Frank Lautenberg, for example, was responsible for the "Lautenberg amendment" of 1990 which brought many thousands of Russian Jews into the United States as refugees, even though they were not in any danger and were therefore ineligible for that status. As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and educational benefits.

Some other current officials in the government who may or may not have dual nationality and are in policy making positions might include U.S. (sic) Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and the recently resigned international negotiator Jason Greenblatt. Both have long histories of pro-Israel advocacy to include supporting illegal settlements on the West Bank. And there is also someone named Jared Kushner, whose ties to Israel are so close that Benjamin Netanyahu once slept in his father and mother's apartment. If the metric to judge the actions – and loyalty – of these individuals is their willingness to place American interests ahead of those of Israel, they all would fail the test.

That said, there was one individual dual national who truly stood out when it came to serving Israeli interests from inside the United States government. She might be worthy of the nickname "Queen of Sanctions" because she was the Department of the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI), who handed the punishment out and had her hand on the throttle to crank the pain up. She is our own, unfortunately, and also Israel's own Sigal Pearl Mandelker, and is its wonderful to be able to say that she finally resigned last week!

OFTI's website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats," but it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel's perceived interests. Grant Smith notes how "the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons complex."

To be sure, sanctions have been the key weapon in the ongoing unending war against perceived "enemies" like Russia and Venezuela, but they have been laid on most promiscuously in the case of Iran, Israel's number one enemy du jour, which has also been demonized by Washington even though it is no threat to the United States. And it should be recognized that sanctions are not a bloodless exercise used to pressure a recalcitrant government. They disproportionately affect the poor and powerless, who starve and are denied access to medicines, but they rarely have any impact on those who run the government. Five-hundred thousand Iraqi children died from sanctions imposed by President Bill Clinton and his vulturine Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Currently, Iranians and Venezuelans are dying, by some estimates in their tens of thousands.

Once on a sanctions list administered by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) , there is no actual appeal process and no getting off the hook unless Mandelker said so. And anyone who has any contact with the sanctioned entity can be in for trouble, including American citizens who will find themselves no longer having rights to free speech and association. The terms for violation of sanctions used by OFAC are "transaction" and "dealing in transactions," broadly construed to include not only monetary dealings or exchanges, but also "providing any sort of service" and "non-monetary service," including giving a presentation at a conference or speaking or writing in support of a sanctioned group or individual.

OFAC has a broad mandate to punish anyone who has anything to do with any Iranian group or even any individual as Iran is considered a country that is "comprehensively sanctioned." To cite just one example of how indiscriminately the sanctions regime works, Max Blumenthal has described how the FBI recently, acting under Mandelker's orders, warned a number of Americans who had planned on speaking at an Iranian organized conference in Beirut that they might be arrested upon their return.

Mandelker was born in Israel and largely educated in the United States. She is predictably a lawyer. She has never stated how many citizenships she holds while repeated inquiries as to whether she retains her Israeli citizenship have been ignored by the Treasury Department. It is not clear how she managed to obtain a security clearance given her evident affinity to a foreign country. The position that she held until last Wednesday was created in 2004 by George W. Bush and is something of a "no Gentiles need apply" fiefdom. Its officials travel regularly on the taxpayer's dime to Israel for consultations and also collaborate with pro-Israel organizations like AIPAC, WINEP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). Mandelker's predecessor was Adam Szubin and he was preceded by David Cohen and, before that, by the office's founder Stuart Levey, who is currently Group Legal Manager and Group Managing Director for global bank HSBC. Since its creation, OFTI has not surprisingly focused on what might be described as Israel's enemies, most notably among them being Iran.

Mandelker was clear about her role, citing her personal and business relationship with "our great partner, Israel." Referring to sanctions on Iran, she has said that "Bad actors need money to do bad things. That is why we have this massive sanctions regime Every time we apply that pressure, that crunch on them, we deny them the ability to get that kind of revenue, we make the world a safer place." In support of the pain she is inflicting to no real purpose other than to force complete Iranian capitulation, she cites alleged Iranian misdeeds, foremost of which is its alleged threatening of Israel. She also condemns Iran's support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who she claims has killed his own people with chemical weapons, an assertion that has proven to be untrue.

Mandelker touted her personal history as a claimed child of the seemingly ubiquitous "holocaust survivors." In a speech at the Holocaust Museum in April she claimed that her parents went underground in Eastern Europe: "They were hiding underground, in forests, in ditches and under haystacks. I grew up hearing their stories, including about moments of great courage, some of which resulted in survival and others that ended in death."

To be sure, Mandelker and her predecessors have been going after Iran's money since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, constantly devising new restrictions and rules to make it hard for Tehran to do business with any other country. In 2006 Levey's office began to focus on cutting off Iran from the global financial system. Currently the Trump administration is applying what it describes as "maximum pressure" in seeking to sink Iran's economy by blocking all oil exports. Since May, any country buying Iranian oil has been vulnerable to secondary sanctions by Washington, all set up and choreographed by Mandelker.

That Mandelker and company have been engaging in economic warfare with a country with which the United States is not at war seems to have escaped the notice of the media and Washington's chattering class, not surprisingly as Israel is a beneficiary of the policy. And the fact that the way sanctions are being enforced against American citizens is clearly unconstitutional has also slipped by the usual watchdogs. Sigal Mandelker was a prime example of why anyone who is either an actual dual national or plausibly possesses dual loyalty should not hold high office in the United States government and is a blessing that she is gone, though one imagines she will be replaced by another Zionist fanatic. If anyone wonders why Israel gets away with what it does the simple answer would be that there are just too many people at the federal level who think that serving Israel is the same as serving the United States. That is just not so and it is past time that the American public should wake up to that fact.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Greg Bacon , says: Website October 8, 2019 at 12:28 am GMT

As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and educational benefits.

Including free Social Security, even though they never paid any money into that fund.

And it's not merely thousands, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands, all living off the generosity of the American taxpayer. But Shhh, don't say anything, why that would be anti-Semitic!

Talk about welfare Queens.

Those covered by the Lautenberg Amendment are eligible for Special Cash Assistance and for Federal Public Assistance Programs including, but not limited to, Social Security, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

CRS statistics indicate that over 370,000 refugees were admitted from the Former Soviet Union in the first ten years of the Lautenberg Amendment. In October 2002 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that "The Lautenberg Amendment allowed some 350,000 to 400,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union to gain entry into the United States without having to prove they were individually persecuted." In 2010 the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society cited Eric Rubin, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow stating that the amendment had resulted in almost 440,000 refugees from the former Soviet Union and other regions of the world.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/06/the-lautenberg-amendment/

I'm sure Wolf Blitzer of Rachael Madcow will cover this theft soon.

renfro , says: October 8, 2019 at 2:33 am GMT
*Eric Alterman made extended remarks in 2009 at the 92d Y, celebrating his dual loyalty:

"You know, one of the touchiest words you can say when you're discussing Jews and Israel is the word dual loyalty. It's sort of one of those words that American Jewish officialdom has ruled out of the discourse. If you say dual loyalty, you're playing into the hands of anti-semites, because it's been a consistent trope among anti-Semites that you can't trust Jews. etc. etc. And I find this very confusing because I was raised dually loyal my whole life. When I went to Hebrew school, the content of my Hebrew school was all about supporting Israel. When my parents who I think are here tonight sent me to Israel when I was 14, on a ZOA [Zionist Organization of America]-sponsored trip it was drummed into me that I should do what's best for Israel.
I was at the Center for Jewish History not long ago where I heard Ruth Wisse, the Yiddishist professor at Harvard instruct a group of young Jewish journalists that they should think of themselves as members of the Israeli army.
I am a dual loyal Jew and sometimes I'm going to actually go with Israel, because the United States can take an awful lot of hits and come up standing. Whereas if Israel takes one serious bad hit it could disappear. So there's going to be some cases where when Israel and the United States conflict I'm going to support what's best for Israel rather than what I think is best for the United States.
Then-editor of the Forward Jane Eisner: Can you imagine a time where you would feel that dual loyalty and go with Israel?
Alterman: I just said, there are many occasions.
Eisner: Can you give us an example?
Alterman: I think that bin Laden and 9/11 were to some degree inspired by U.S. support of Israel. I think a great deal of the terrorist attacks and the sort of pool of potential terrorists who want to attack the United States are inspired by the United States support for Israel. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Israel for that reason. I'm saying, Dammit if that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it. I'm just saying Let's be honest about it.".>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Just think that what Alterman said is not condemned ..he suffers nothing for admitting that he is basically a traitor who would sacrifice Americans for the Jewish state.

Unbelievable ..staggers the mind how this kind of Jew treason is so accepted in America ..just staggering.

How did this kind of treason come to be O.K. for the Jews?
It came from this kind of treason .. Nancy Pelosi Addressing AIPAC in December of last year:

"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are.""

If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of Wal-Mart's.

Oscar Peterson , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
@renfro It's true. They're utterly disgusting.
Jon Baptist , says: October 8, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of Wal-Mart's

This is the key observation.

"ISIS once 'apologized' to Israel for attacking IDF soldiers – former Defense Minister" –
https://www.rt.com/news/386027-isis-apologized-israel-golan/

"'You can assume that these terrorists are fighting for Israel. If they aren't part of the regular Israeli army, they're fighting for Israel. Israel has common goals with Turkey, the United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries,' Assad was quoted by Ynet" – https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4946010,00.html

Greg Bacon , says: Website October 8, 2019 at 6:23 am GMT

Dammit if that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it

Altermann is being slippery here, saying HE would be willing to pay the price of some neoCONs or Zionists dragging the USA into another war for Israel.

What he should of said is that as a member of the Jewish dominated MSM, they are more than willing to trick, deceive, bamboozle and pull us by our Star of David shaped nose ring into endless wars for the glory of Apartheid Israel and if you disagree, why you're just a mouth breathing, knuckle-dragging anti-Semite.

Dmitry , says: October 8, 2019 at 6:28 am GMT

obtained virtually automatically upon application

^ Just nonsense.

They need to live for 3 months in Israel (after attaining the correct visa) to attain the citizenship, or a year of living in Israel for the passport (unless they changed this recently or accelerated it).

What you are confused with is obtaining the repatriation visa and the temporary card. The visa they can issue before people arrive in Israel, and the temporary identity card at the airport. But those are only useful if you will live for the following months in Israel.

Ludwig Watzal , says: Website October 8, 2019 at 7:12 am GMT
I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun; Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge.
JR , says: October 8, 2019 at 7:18 am GMT
"current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who describes himself as "protector" of Israel "

FARA registration?

Tom Welsh , says: October 8, 2019 at 7:59 am GMT
"As the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and American".

Although I have not checked recently, I am fairly sure that is not the whole story by any means.

It is quite true that ordinary citizens can go a lifetime with dual nationality and feel no pain. I am one such, as my parents were British by birth but I was born in Argentina. Like the USA, Argentina grants nationality to everyone born there (or, perhaps more accurately, claims such people as its citizens).

However I think you will find that US law forbids anyone with dual US-anything nationality to serve as an officer (or perhaps in any rank) in the other nation's armed forces, or to accept political office in the other nation's government. There may well be other restrictions.

The exceptions I have pointed out are very relevant indeed to the dual US-Israeli citizens mentioned in the article, as many of them have served in the Israeli armed forces. Indeed is that not compulsory for any Israeli citizen resident in Israel)? Some of them have also held political office, had civil service jobs, etc.

For such people to remain anonymous is a scandal and, frankly, a serious national security risk for the USA.

Tom Welsh , says: October 8, 2019 at 8:03 am GMT
"Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon application by any Jew and once obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the Israeli government".

Neat and effective. "It's a kopeck to get in, but a ruble to get out".

Tom Welsh , says: October 8, 2019 at 8:08 am GMT
'OFTI's website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats" '

Doesn't the US government mind this office setting itself up against the power of Washington?

Illicit use of funds – check.
Rogue nation – check.
Terrorist facilitators – check in CAPITAL LETTERS. (Also actual terrorists).
WMD – check. (No other nation's government still maintains nuclear, chemical and biological weapons).
Money launderers – Hell, Washington is the world's biggest counterfeiter.
Drug kingpins – check, although that is mostly delegated to the CIA.
Other national security threats – check, Washington is a national security threat to every other nation in the world except Israel.

Realist , says: October 8, 2019 at 10:32 am GMT

To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their star to the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing.

It can only be career enhancing if whites allow it.

One only has to observe in action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and perhaps the most revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for office proclaiming that he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States.

With the exception of Nikki Haley, who was appointed by an elected official, the other two were elected by the majority white electorate. Jews have inordinate power in our country because whites allow it.

To be clear any problems caused by Jews are the result of white insouciance.

alexander , says: October 8, 2019 at 10:46 am GMT
@renfro Dear Phil,

I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008.

If it is true, then she,like Alexander Acosta, is guilty of breaking the law by entering into judgement a plea deal without first notifying the plaintiffs of what that deal was, and whether or not it met to their satisfaction.

The fact that it was MORE important to Mandelker to reward a child rapist/ pedophile with a super sweet, totally cush deal , than to seek justice for his numerous victims , indicates , with extreme clarity , she has no business working in our treasury department, let alone our OFAC.

Individuals, who breach our laws and rules of ethics to ensure pedophiles and child rapists are free to roam our streets, have no business working in the United States Government, in any capacity.

The fact that both Mendaker AND Acosta were given prominent positions of power , with the full awareness of their actions by those who appointed them, is very, very troubling.

It is simply NOT acceptable to the American People that there may be pedophiles and/or child rapists serving within, and/ or influencing , our representative bodies.

The fact there has been no investigation into any of this, as well as Mandelkers connection, is an absolute disgrace.

It seems to me, that until all the facts are clear, President Trump should order a "clean sweep protocol" As soon as possible.

Child rapists , and their enablers , belong in only one place .and that is Federal Prison. .

It is not just a matter of ethics it is a matter of National Security.

mark green , says: October 8, 2019 at 11:14 am GMT
Excellent article. Important subject.

Zionists have thoroughly infiltrated and compromised the US Treasury. This is news. Watch it be ignored.

Crypto-Israelis have captured (and partly converted) a US Federal agency for the purpose of crippling the economies of any state that interferes with the far-flung agenda of global Zionism. Their duplicitous mission borders on treason.

Using American resources to target Israel's far-away foes has nothing to do with advancing the interests of the American people. To the contrary. It damages us economically and strategically. It also undermines us domestically since these actions allow a foreign-based faction to seize and exploit US power for its own nefarious ends.

Crypto-Zionist penetration of Washington is a backdoor assault on US sovereignty. We are being parasitized.

Incredibly, Israeli influence over Washington has become so embedded that's it's now taken for granted by Jews and acquiescing gentiles alike. Success in Washington now requires one to A) fully understand (and respect) Jewish privilege, while B) never transgressing upon the taboos that protect this indomitable group.

Indeed, just examining the range and depth of Jewish power in America is a forbidden topic (except by Jewish scholars for a Jewish audience).

But for the rest of us, just noticing Jewish power is a risky enterprise. (So say nothing.)

Officially, there's no such thing. Only Jewish victims.

Hapless Americans are confused. For Diaspora Jews however these artful deceptions constitute a familiar gameplan. Organized Jewish subversion dates back to ancient Persia. Jews celebrate it. (See: Purim)

Today, Israeli operatives are all over Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood and beyond. And they're not the least bit ashamed about it. No siree. It's what they do.

Activist Jews are deeply committed to weaving Israel's economic and political needs into the very fabric of American life. They are succeeding.

When Zio-America's corrupt, bloodthirsty, and over-extended empire finally collapses, Diaspora Jews can simply cash in their chips and migrate to Israel. America's demise will mark a new chapter in their glorious, wandering, drama-filled history.

Unfortunately, we goyim are expected to go down with the American ship.

Richard B , says: October 8, 2019 at 11:23 am GMT
@Grigor That's exactly right! They should not be recognized.

What should be recognized is the fact that no American could seriously think of a single thing Israel has ever done for us.

We could think of a lot of things they've done TO us.

Now THAT's something that should be recognized.

They've corrupted our Congress.
They've subborned our Citizens.
They've looted our Treasury.
They've sold our secrets to China and Russia.
They've attacked our military (USS Liberty)
They've attacked our country (September 11th, 2001)

I could go on but I'd never finish.

Either way, you get the idea.

Just as Iran is no threat to the US, Israel is no benefit to the US.

Israel is a Terror State working with its Dual Citizens to Destroy America. Period!

By the way, if Mueller really wanted to bust someone for collusion he could arrest the entire US Congress after its next AIPAC meeting.

He could contact CNN and organize a live feed of Congress coming out of the hotel holding their AIPAC checks.

geokat62 , says: October 8, 2019 at 11:45 am GMT
@renfro

To see just how 'entitled' the Jewish State thinks it is read these two articles. They are aflame over Trump decision not to interfere in the Turkey Kurd dispute on the Turkey Syrian border.

Speaking of aflame, I would recommend a third. It's an article by Yossi Alpher, who is a former Mossad official and former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

Concluding paragraphs from, What Trump's Withdrawal From Syria Means For The Kurds – And For Israel :

At the end of the day, there are two basic lessons here for Israel and its supporters. For anyone who has entertained doubts about the need for a state for the Jewish people, the Kurds represent a tragic reminder. They are consistently being abandoned to an ugly fate because they don't have a country.

The second lesson is that Israel cannot and must not depend on Trump. The cries of alarm in Israel in recent days about a looming security threat do not only reflect lessons drawn from Iran's (or one of its proxy's) spectacular attack on Saudi Arabia's energy infrastructure. The alarms also reflect concern over the precedent set by Trump's refusal to get involved militarily after Washington's Saudi ally was the victim of naked aggression from Iran.

From that standpoint, America abandoning the Syrian Kurds is just icing on the cake of Trump's Middle East non-strategy.

https://forward.com/opinion/432783/what-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria-means-for-the-kurds-and-for-israel/

lysias , says: October 8, 2019 at 12:06 pm GMT
@alexander Mandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade.

[Sep 29, 2019] Want To Save The Environment De-Fund The Pentagon by Caitlin Johnstone

Sep 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Millions of people are uniting in demonstrations worldwide against our civilization's ecocidal march toward extinction, which makes me so happy to see. It's really encouraging to see so many young people burning with love for their planet and a hunger to reverse the damage that has been done to our ecosystem by the refusal of previous generations to turn away from our path of devastation. This must continue if we are to survive as a species.

The challenge now is the same perennial challenge which comes up every single time there is a massive and enthusiastic push from the public in a direction that is healthy: such movements always, without exception, become targeted for manipulation by establishment interests. I write all the time about how this has happened with the intrinsically healthy impulse of feminism; I just finished watching an MSNBC pundit proclaim that anyone who still supports Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren is a sexist. This corralling of healthy energy into the advancement of corrupt establishment interests happens with feminism, it happens with the healthy fight against racism and antisemitism, and of course it happens with environmentalism.

Of course it does. People get very emotional when you say this, even if you fully support environmentalism and don't have any objections to the overall scientific consensus about what's happening to our environment, but environmentalism is not destined to be the one and only popular movement which establishment interests don't move mountains to co-opt.

We know that our oligarchic empire will do literally anything, up to and including murdering a million Iraqis, to secure control over energy resources. We know this with absolute certainty. Therefore we can also know with certainty that they are working to ensure that when new energy systems are put in place, they are put in place in a way which allows the oligarchs to retain their power, and ideally to expand it, without losing their thrones to rival plutocrats, to governments, or (worst case scenario) to the rank-and-file public gaining control over their own energy. This agenda is on the table. It is happening.

The ruling elites have many advantages over us, but one of the greatest is the fact that they know exactly what they want and exactly where they're trying to push things, whereas we the general public, on average, do not. If we only had one positive anti-establishment direction to push in there'd be no stopping us, and as soon as we find one the oligarchs will be done. But in general and on average what we have is a few clear ideas about what we don't want and a great many vague, frequently contradictory ideas about what we do want. This lack of clarity in direction always leaves us highly susceptible to the influence of any well-funded narrative manager who steps forward to say "Oh yeah I know exactly where we're going! It's this way, follow me!"

Luckily for us, there's a very clear demand we can add into the mix in this new push for environmentalist reforms which runs directly counter to the interests of the empire that is trying to manipulate our healthy impulses: de-fund the Pentagon.

There is no single, unified entity that is a larger polluter than America's dishonestly labeled "Department of Defense". Its yearly carbon output alone dwarfs that of entire first-world nations like Sweden and Portugal ; if the US military were its own country it would rank 47th among emitters of greenhouse gasses, meaning it's a worse polluter than over 140 entire nations. That's completely separate from the pollution already produced by the US itself. None of the sociopathic corporations whose environmental impact is being rightly criticized today come anywhere remotely close to that of the Pentagon. They are going under the radar.

And that's just greenhouse gas emissions, which the Pentagon's poisonous effects on our environment are in no way limited to. As journalist Whitney Webb highlighted in an excellent article for Mintpress News about the wildly neglected subject of the US military's ecological toxicity:

"Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined, the US Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others."

Webb documents how the US "has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined", how US military interventionism in Iraq "has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory , crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food," and how "US military bases, both domestic and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world."

"While the US military's past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the US military from openly planning future contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts," Webb writes.

"Last November, the US Navy announced its plan to release 20,000 tons of environmental 'stressors,' including heavy metals and explosives, into the coastal waters of the US Pacific Northwest over the course of this year."

This is all a massive environmental burden to take on for a branch of the government which provides no other service to anyone beyond bullying the rest of the world into obedience , wouldn't you agree? So get rid of it.

Surely with all this talk about the huge, sweeping changes that are required to avert climate catastrophe we're not going to overlook the world's single worst polluter just because a few think tankers and their plutocratic sponsors believe it's important for the US-centralized power alliance to retain total global hegemony? If we're making huge, sweeping changes, the completely needless globe-spanning US war machine would be the obvious place to start.

That's something we can inject into the mainstream dialogue as this environmental movement grows, and the cool thing about it is that the establishment manipulators can't reject it or they'll expose themselves. It's something we can demand that they can't legitimately say no to. We can surf this clear, concrete, exciting and utterly indisputable idea on the surging momentum of these climate demonstrations, and the same healthy impulse to save our planet that these budding activists are now embodying will lift it right up and carry it to the top of mainstream awareness. No sane person will reject this, so if anyone pushes back against it to say "No, not that," they'll immediately spotlight the insane agendas they serve.

The US does not need any more military power than what other normal nations have: enough to defend its own easily defended shores from unprovoked attack. Anything beyond that, and certainly the hundreds of environmentally toxic military bases circling our planet, exists solely for the benefit of murderous dominating imperialists and sociopathic war profiteers. Demanding a reversal of US military expansionism as a part of the environmental movement is sane on its face and will benefit everyone, and it will also help highlight all unwholesome elements of empire loyalism.

* * *

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , checking out my podcast on either Youtube , soundcloud , Apple podcasts or Spotify , following me on Steemit , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I'm trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I've written) in any way they like free of charge.

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[Sep 22, 2019] US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim

Highly recommended!
Oct 01, 2025 | tass.com

Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin © Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry's press service/TASS BEIJING, October 25. /TASS/. The drones that attacked Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria were operated from the US Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday.

"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the deputy defense minister noted.

"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance, received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed," Fomin reported.

"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.

The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the world.

The forum

The eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials, politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.

[Sep 22, 2019] Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states

Highly recommended!
Sep 22, 2019 | tass.com

The defense minister also stressed that the number of threats to Russia is not declining

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The United States' belief in its own superiority could lead to various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.

"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia," Shoigu said.

Meanwhile, the recognition of your vulnerability and a wish to maintain balance and universal equal security "makes you turn your head on," the defense minister said, also stressing that the number of threats to Russia is not declining.

At the same time, Shoigu voiced hope that a full-scale war is not on the horizon.

The priority task now is to ensure information security, he stressed, noting that "at the current level of informatization and automation, there is a high probability of errors in the weapons control system.".

[Sep 18, 2019] The Obama Administration Destroyed Libya. Could Trump Make It Worse? by Ted Galen Carpenter

Notable quotes:
"... The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government -- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area. President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in April with Haftar and appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's stance. ..."
"... One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In her new book, The Education of an Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison correctly excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?" ..."
"... Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling! ..."
"... I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians. ..."
Sep 16, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

The United States cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials can't seem to decide which faction they want to back.

The Western-created disaster in Libya continues to grow worse. Fighting between Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar's so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the even more misnamed Government of National Accord (GNA) has intensified in and around Tripoli. The LNA boasted on September 11 that its forces had routed troops of the Sarraj militia, a GNA ally, killing about two hundred of them. That total may be exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the situation has become increasingly violent and chaotic in Tripoli and other portions of Libya, with innocent civilians bearing the brunt of the suffering.

An article in Bloomberg News provides a succinct account of the poisonous fruits of the U.S.-led "humanitarian" military intervention in 2011. "Libya is enduring its worst violence since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of Muammar el-Qaddafi, which ushered in years of instability that allowed Islamist radicals to thrive and turned the country into a hub for migrants destined to Europe. Haftar had launched the war as the United Nations was laying the ground for a political conference to unite the country. It is now more divided than ever." The country has become the plaything not only of rival domestic factions but major Middle East powers , including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Those regimes are waging a ruthless geopolitical competition, providing arms and in some cases even launching airstrikes on behalf of their preferred clients.

The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government -- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area. President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in April with Haftar and appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's stance.

Given the appalling aftermath of the original U.S.-led intervention, one might hope that advocates of an activist policy would be chastened and back away from further meddling in that unfortunate country. Yet, that is not the case. Neither the Trump administration nor the humanitarian crusaders in Barack Obama's administration who caused the calamity in the first place seem inclined to advocate a more cautious, restrained U.S. policy.

One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In her new book, The Education of an Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison correctly excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?"

The answer to Larison's rhetorical question is "extraordinarily arrogant." It is not as though prudent foreign-policy experts didn't warn Power and her colleagues about the probable consequences of intervening in a volatile, fragile country like Libya. Indeed, as Robert Gates, Obama's secretary of defense, confirms in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War , the Obama administration itself was deeply divided about the advisability of intervention. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice President Joe Biden, and Gates were opposed. Among the most outspoken proponents of action were Power and her mentor, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates notes further that Obama was deeply torn, later telling his secretary of defense that the decision was a "51 to 49" call.

The existence of a sharp internal division is sufficient evidence by itself that Power's attempt to absolve herself and other humanitarian crusaders of responsibility for the subsequent tragedy is without merit. Indeed, it has even less credibility than Pontius Pilate's infamous effort to evade guilt. They were warned of the probable outcome, yet they chose to disregard those warnings.

Power, Clinton, Obama and other proponents of ousting Qaddafi turned Libya into a chaotic Somalia on the Mediterranean, and the blood of innocents shed since 2011 is on their hands. Given the stark split within the president's national security team, the Libya intervention was especially reckless and unjustified. The default option in such a case should have been against intervention, not plunging ahead.

The Trump administration should learn from the blunders of its predecessor and resist any temptation to meddle further. America does not have a dog in the ongoing fight between Haftar and the GNA, and we should simply accept whatever outcome emerges. Washington's arrogant interference has caused enough suffering in Libya already.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest , is the author of thirteen books and more than eight hundred articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur .


Druid 7 hours ago ,

The outcome in Libya is what the intent was - chaos, per the Yinon plan. The side effect of mass immigration to Europe was warned by Gaddafi! All was known, yet the destabilization war continued.

npbinni 8 hours ago ,

Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling!

dieter heymann 13 hours ago ,

Libya was and still is the case of a civil war into which foreign powers have intervened. The major parties of that war have always been the Tripolitanian West and the Cyrenaican East. Whoever is on top considers the others to be the rebels. That is how the demise of Qaddafi began. For him Benghazi was the rebel's nest which needed some cleaning. Nothing has changed. Haftar is the new Qaddafi.

I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians.

Mark Thomason a day ago ,

You can always make things worse. It is one thing that Trump and friends are good at.

They don't consider that a criticism either, since they want what the rest of us consider worse -- more war, more enemies, more inequality in outcomes at home, more desperation at home giving more power to the haves over the have-nots.

redeemed626 2 days ago • edited ,

Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" is a timeless classic that still applies to articles produced for electronic consumption. One of Adler's primary admonitions was to consider the author's expertise, credibility, and potential biases. With regard to this article, scrolling down to the end reveals the author's association with the Koch Brother financed Cato Institute. The Koch Brothers and their money have done more to destroy American democracy than any foreign tyrant or Presidential folly.

And oh, by the way, what did the Neocons and the Vulcans of the W Administration do to the entire Middle East other than create a contiguous geographic belt of Iranian Shiite influence from Tehran to Beirut?

[Sep 18, 2019] USA Pretend Unmasked - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Sep 18, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

"USA Pretend" Unmasked By S. Brian Willson Global Research, September 12, 2019 Region: Asia , USA Theme: History

Viet Nam – Epiphany for the USA

There was a moment in Viet Nam when I questioned whether everything I had been taught about "America" was one big fabricated lie – a huge pretend. It was April 1969, and I had just experienced witnessing the aftermath of a series of bombings of supposed military targets. They were in fact inhabited, undefended villages where virtually everyone in those villages perished from low flying bombings, that included napalming. The majority of dead – murdered – were young burned children. On several occasions I observed those bodies up close, sickened by the sight, now burdened by the criminal nature of the US war. The policy of accumulating massive numbers of body counts was an inkling of the Grand Lie. Reading the entrance sign to my squadron in-country headquarters, "Welcome to Indian Country," was a first clue.

My duty station was the "home" of the fighter-bombers and pilots who followed orders to destroy those "enemy targets", i.e., villages. I was the USAF night security commander following orders to protect those soldiers and planes from mortar and sapper attacks.

A few days later I was reading an article in Stars and Stripes , an official, independent newspaper for soldiers, reporting on a recent Supreme Court decision ( Street v . New York , 1969) that upheld the right of desecrating our "sacred" symbol – the US flag. During a period of increased burnings of the US American flag in protests of the US wars against African-Americans at home, and Asians abroad, an African-American veteran recipient of a Bronze Star, Sidney Street , publicly burned his personal flag on a New York City street corner for which he was arrested and convicted.

Depressed, I pondered how it is that one could be arrested for burning a piece of cloth – even a national symbol – that represented an official policy of criminally burning innocent human beings, including large numbers of young children, while the pilot-perpetrators were commended, and whom, in my duties I was protecting? Initially suicidal, I had difficulty wrapping my head around this dystopian nightmare. I was in psychic shock from extreme cognitive dissonance.

Our behavior against the Vietnamese, a nation of peasants with one-sixth the population of the USA, one-thirtieth its size, certainly must rank as one of the worst of a number of barbarisms in the 20 th Century. The US left 26 million bomb craters, sprayed 21 million gallons of DNA-altering chemical warfare on the landscape and people, murdered some 6 million Southeast Asians, destroyed by bombing over 13,000 of Viet Nam's 21,000 villages, 950 churches and pagodas, 350 clearly marked hospitals, 3,000 high schools and universities, 15,000 bridges, etc.

Why all this overwhelming firepower and destruction? Incredulously, to prevent the Vietnamese from enjoying their self-determination, absurdly touted as necessary to stop "communism." Does there in fact exist a kind of psychopathy in our cultural DNA? Though I hadn't fired a bullet myself, or dropped a bomb, I had been a compliant participant in a mindless murder machine. Viet Nam was not an aberration, but consistent with a long history of arrogant interventions revealing something very dark about who we are. Was I part of a savage culture of unthinking sadists, I wondered?

VNWarMontage.png

Clockwise, from top left: U.S. combat operations in Ia Đrăng , ARVN Rangers defending Saigon during the 1968 Tết Offensive , two A-4C Skyhawks after the Gulf of Tonkin incident , ARVN recapture Quảng Trị during the 1972 Easter Offensive , civilians fleeing the 1972 Battle of Quảng Trị , and burial of 300 victims of the 1968 Huế Massacre . (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Learning Real People's Versus Fake, Kool Aid US History

I have spent countless hours studying a more comprehensive people's version of world and US history. Study of US history of course is part of the Eurocentric globalization/colonization over the past 500 years. The 20 percent Eurocentric "developed-world" is a product of self-proclaimed "superiors" violently and deceitfully stealing resources and labor from the other 80 percent, all cloaked in the conceited rhetoric of spreading "civilization." This patriarchal policy is totally unsustainable from a social, political, ecological, psychological, and moral perspective.

It is instructive to learn that the "Founding Fathers" chose, not democracy, but oligarchy/plutocracy "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." Jefferson's "empire of liberty" was a vision to expand private property for large landowners. Our Constitution is more a document to preserve freedom of "property" and commercial transactions, than it is to preserve human liberty, of which free speech is the most fundamental. Historian Staughton Lynd summarized it thus: inherited land replaced inherited government. Recently the highest court of the land ruled the legal fiction that property (money) is a person with free speech rights, as preposterous as the earlier legal fiction that a person (slave) is property.

A fear-laden gun culture originating in violent settler-colonialism and white nationalism-supremacy serve as a basis for the founding ideology and military strategy of the United States. Slave patrols and Indian fighters were our first "special operations," establishing the essential White character of our militarized culture. As the systematic dispossession project continued, the US government signed over 400 treaties with Indigenous nations, violating every one of them, establishing deceit and outright lying as part of our cultural DNA.

The politics of violence based on classism and racism has been incessant throughout our history. Examining the US criminal injustice system housing a quarter of all the world's prisoners reveals brutal truth when comparing extreme disparities in punishments by race, and class. Justice?

I studied the history of the city of my birth – Geneva, New York, which in the 1700s was Kanadesaga, capitol of the Seneca nation. On September 8, 1779, Major General John Sullivan and his forty-five hundred soldiers eradicated these "merciless Indian Savages" in the largest Revolutionary War battle of 1779 – a terrorist, scorched-earth campaign massacring civilians while destroying all forty of the well-established Seneca towns, including Kanadesaga. By 1788, the European settlers renamed it Geneva, as if nothing had happened, a deserved reward for superiors.

All those arrowheads I enjoyed collecting as a child possessed a profound dark secret about the nature and character of my ancestors. However, I would only discover their secret after deep reflections from my Viet Nam awakening.

Official US military interventionism began with the US Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1798 during the undeclared naval war with France. However, hundreds of settler paramilitary units had been killing Indians since the 1620s. But imperialism has been explicit policy since the late 1890s to assure domestic prosperity. In 1907, Woodrow Wilson while president of Princeton University (six years before being elected US president) lectured:

"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. .Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused."

President McKinley, and various Senators continued to advocate "a foreign market for our surplus products." US meddling, both "soft," and hard, has never stopped.

Traveling to a number of nations in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East have exposed me to details of hundreds of US overt interventions, and thousands of covert destabilization actions. These policies have caused the murders of millions, 20 to 30 million alone since WWII during the so-called "Cold War". Only five of these nearly 600 military interventions have been declared wars as required by the Constitution, clearly indicating our sacred document is not taken seriously. This also tells us the system has no interest in being accountable to its own Constitution, or international law. Speaking with peasants in these victim-countries invariably reveals the horrendous cruelty of US interveners and their surrogates. Does the US possess any intentions to be law-abiding? Does the US possess any feelings for others, or only selfish imperial ambitions? And does anyone care?

Violence against even White citizens has matched violence we have carried out in foreign policy. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1917-18 were enacted to suppress anti-war dissent against US entrance into World War I. Thousands of US Americans were deported and imprisoned following World War I for "radical" anti-war expressions, including labor leaders and socialists. Some were tortured in US prisons. Ironically, free speech dissent is most critical when a government decides to go to war. The original Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 stifled free speech of US citizens, including elected officials, who objected to the undeclared war against France. Free speech? Huh?

While the US was locking up and deporting citizens for opposing World War I, the FBI was ignoring extremely violent KKK supremacist groups whose six million members – nearly 25 percent of the white male population at the time – were lynching with impunity an average of six African-Americans a month. Equal protection?

The first known use of air power against civilians was committed by US Marines in Haiti in 1919. But, the second known use of US air power against civilians occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, May 31-June 1, 1921, when hundreds of economically successful Black residents living in a 36-square block community were murdered, including from low flying white-piloted planes dropping incendiaries, destroying nearly 1,300 buildings. How many US Americans know about this abomination?

Walter White, a longtime leader in the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), concluded that southerners fear of Negro progress offends the intangible feeling of racial superiority, explaining the intensity of White savagery. The sense of established White superiority (or anyone possessing those feelings) often leads to an insecure character from lack of practicing accountability with others in a world of varied, challenging relationships. Those feelings easily morph into paranoia of others, and delusions of self grandeur – one of the most difficult psychological orders to treat, as the persistent pathology of racism (and classism) so attests.

America's Wars: The Day We Refused To Fight. "War is just Terrorism with a Bigger Budget"

The third known use of US bombing civilians occurred at Blair Mountain, West Virginia, August-September 1921. As many as 15,000 striking coal miners attempting to unionize were attacked by 2,000 armed sheriff's deputies, coal company paramilitaries, US troops, and US Army Martin MB-1 bombers, killing as many as 100 miners, with many more wounded. Before the battles had ended, more than a million ammunition rounds had been fired. Nearly 1,000 miners were ironically indicted for murder of the nearly 30 deaths among the miner's attackers. Over 700 union organizers have been murdered in our history. Is this known by many?

We continue to be obsessed with personal and government guns (police and military) as a guarantor of our security. Those who question easy access to guns, even assault weapons, or the ridiculously wasteful military spending, are thought of as nearly traitorous. US citizens personally own nearly 400 million firearms, or 40 percent of all private guns in the world. On average, three US citizens are killed every day by police, disproportionately African-Americans. So far in 2019, the US has experienced more than one mass shooting (4 or more shot) every day. Our gun death rate is ten times above that of other high income countries. Using violence as a default position historically ends in disaster, as it has been proven over and over that violence spirals out of control into more violence, while distracting from serious discourse. Why the incredible record of violence? Insecurity?

Under its doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, the US government routinely dispatches military ships to every sea space, military planes to every airspace, hundreds of satellites into outer space, while ordering Special Forces units to operate clandestinely in nearly three-fourths of the world's countries. Additionally, of the 1.4 million US soldiers in the world, nearly 200,000 are positioned in as many as 150 countries, most stationed at 800 major military bases in 80 nations. The US also possesses a large percentage of the world's weapons of mass destruction, and recently has dispensed with any genuine effort at containing the spread of nuclear weapons. The annual military budget, including hidden costs, amounts to an exorbitant $1.25 trillion a year, more money than the next seven countries combined spend on their militaries. If you want to be guaranteed health care and a modest house, join the Army. Otherwise these human rights are "unaffordable." If you want gun control, start at the top.

How to explain the extent and breadth of our violent militarism and global imperialism? Paranoia? It seems that our sense of superiority justifies hurtful dispossession from others to acquire and preserve undeserved privilege.

After exiting the military in 1970, my opinions about the US war against the Vietnamese were affirmed with the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers revealing the more than 20 years of criminal intentions, and deceit, to thwart Vietnamese aspirations for self-determination. Earlier in 1971, January 31-February 2, Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted the "Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes" when nearly 120 veterans testified about the war crimes and atrocities they committed or witnessed in Viet Nam. I was aghast when learning about Nixon's intended Huston plan to criminally interrupt antiwar activities, the FBI's sixteen-year COINTELPRO of more than 2,000 illegal actions against innocent US citizens, the CIA's Operation CHAOS keeping tabs on 300,000 citizens opposed to the Viet Nam war, and the National Security Agency's Operation SHAMROCK watch lists of those communicating with people overseas. Respect for the law? Huh? Further research revealed that as early as 1934 President Roosevelt instituted a long-standing joint FBI-military program to conduct domestic intelligence with broad investigative scope. The "American" Kool Aid indeed has sedated us.

Today our freedoms are further curtailed, for example, as the National Security Agency (NSA) spies on every US American, the Authorization of Military Force Act (AUFA) allows warrantless electronic surveillance of anyone suspected of aiding terrorism, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enables indefinite detention of US citizens, even arrest by the military. Where is the Constitution when we need it? Or was it ever really there for us?

One of the most revealing chapters in our history is the incredible sympathy the US possessed for authoritarian Nazi Germany. Even though the Soviet military was most critical in defeating the Nazis in World War II, deep fear of the Bolsheviks (the emergence of an alternative social-economic system to capitalism) motivated US America's wealthy class, with complicity of the US government, to support the rise of Nazi Germany from the mid-1930s into the war years themselves. The US capitalists supported the Nazi capitalists to defeat the "threat" of socialism. Elite power brokers included leaders of Wall Street and wealthy "barons" such as the Rockefellers and Andrew Mellon, and businesses such as Ford Motor, IBM (tabulating daily location of Jews in the Holocaust), General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil, Texaco, ITT, International Harvester, Chase Manhattan Bank, the House of Morgan banking dynasty, DuPont, United Aircraft, etc., who enjoyed huge profits from the war. And following the war, the US's "Operation Gladio" systematically defeated popular anti -Nazi groups throughout Europe, while "Operation Paperclip" secretly brought Nazi scientists and other professionals to the US. Our affinity for fascism has been established.

Psychologically, it is important to note that our national identity has consistently been markedly defined by demonizing others – "merciless savages", "uppity ni**ers", "anarchists", "radicals", "communists", "Russians", "alien filth", "narco-traffickers", "terrorists", "shithole countries", "vermin", etc., echoing psychologist Carl Jung's principle of "shadow projection." Jung described a cowardly trick we play on ourselves: avoid looking in the mirror so as not to take responsibility for seeing our own demons. We "see" the evil in others, perpetuating a nation addicted to war against them, obscenely profiting as we self-righteously deny our own severe pathologies. If we had looked in the mirror we would have learned what Pogo told us, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Eco-psychologist Chellis Glendinning suggests that modern humans suffer from deep insecurity that emerged from collective traumas hundreds of generations ago. A serious disconnect from intimacy with the earth occurred when our ancient ancestors began controlling nature through agriculture and animal domestication. Evolutionary philosopher Gregory Bateson concludes that addictive behavior is consistent with the Western approach to life that pits mind against body, while behaving as if the natural world is a commodity. We seek various distractions to numb our pain from this feeling of aloofness. Technology, not Nature, has become our God.

Recognizing the Lie

Could it be that virtually everything I was taught by my parents, community, school, church, and political leaders in terms of factual history, morality, ethics, and rational thinking about "America" was the opposite of what had been represented? How could that be?

Yes, I have been conditioned by an incredibly comfortable fairy tale, a massive cultural system denying or distorting historic realities, founded on shameful genocides. I had been betrayed. We are told we are the greatest, even as we (s)elect imperial Presidents and Congresspeople in an orgy of fantastic fiction about "democracy." The US Senate is a millionaire's club, with many members of the US House also in that class. Indian author Arundhati Roy describes "democracy" and "pro-democracy" as the "Free World's whores", hollow words satisfying a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will where facts don't matter.

US America loves its myth of being committed to justice for all, but in fact it is a society ruled and funded by a wealthy elite. This is not a government of, by and for the people! It is a ruthless oligarchy sanctioned by a majority of the people believing their vote counts. Money has always mattered, severely rigging the game in many ways toward an upper class (obscenely bribing candidates, corporate personhood power, gerrymandering, proprietary election software, hacking capacity to effect results, Jim Crow laws, voter suppression, etc.). The oligarchy approves "acceptable" candidates, while contrived rhetoric, propaganda, and our education system keep us faithful to our political system comprised of one party with two right wings, the winner ruling by tyranny of its majority. But the bottom line is that (s)elected representatives obey their large donors who thrive on war-making against vulnerable others.

Nonetheless, these facts do not preclude existence of individual conscientious politicians. However, the political economic system itself is fixed, it is not broken, a dilemma every honest politician must face. This delicious Kool Aid has in fact concealed a delusional madness, a Kafkaesque, Orwellian nightmare. Our political leaders have consistently and collectively acted outside the Constitution, while selectively applying laws that preserve the cabal in power. It has always been this way, though the social revolution of the 1960s threatened to overturn the oligopoly. This revolution was unfortunately unsuccessful but the fearful system's repressive reaction is now in its fifth decade. In the end, we are in fact a nation of men, not laws.

So, in effect, our mythological story made me functionally stupid, a "good kid" who became complicit in mindless, mass murder. And I am suggesting that it has created a society comprised of millions of functionally stupid people. This is different from intelligence. This is not idiocy. This is serious non -thinking of intellectually capable people who, in effect, have suspended their autonomous critical thinking, basking in an intoxicated spell of our sense of national invincibility. It has enhanced the Friedman era of neoliberal privatization, worshipping greed, while millions are without health care and homeless. This is mass psychopathy, a dangerous cultural mental illness.

German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer , while a prisoner in one of Hitler's jails, wrote about the role of stupidity in the German people that substantially contributed to the rise of Nazism and worship of savior Hitler. He argued that it is very separate from intellectual capacity but occurs when a cult-like belief system dangerously suspends critical thinking, bringing collective relief to an emotionally anxious population. It is a form of voluntary servitude more dangerous than malice, an entrenched belief system that makes genuine dialogue and education almost impossible. (Bonhoeffer was hung in April 1945).

As US Americans we possess no visceral memory of the two unspeakable genocides our ancestors shamefully committed, forcefully dispossessing Indigenous Africans of their labor, and genuine Americans of their land, murdering millions with impunity. Even though we are superficially taught about slavery and conquering the Indigenous, their egregious suffering has been outsourced outside our feeling fields for 25 generations . Thus, was established our cultural "DNA" of achieving expansion benefitting a few (mostly White males and those who think like them) through any means while escaping any accountability whatsoever. Now nearly 600 overt, and thousands of covert interventions later, US Americans still know little or nothing about our unspeakable imperialism. Why not? Isn't it critically important that we seriously grapple with our diabolical history?

In 2019, the President, US military, CIA, and other "regime change" entities like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and their funders in Congress, continue to intervene almost everywhere, destabilizing with crippling sanctions, sadistically causing suffering, causing chaos, creating kill lists, murdering, bombing, etc. Does any of this criminal insanity even happen? Has it ever? Does it matter to most people? I believe there is a deep shame that burdens us. It is understandable to avoid looking at shame, but the cost is perpetual war for perpetual peace until we are all dead. The era of privilege is over, as we enter the terrifying era of consequences, bringing fear, insecurity and anxiety to many heretofore privileged folks. Denial becomes a lethal seduction.

Our amnesia has precluded emotional intelligence, a depth of character, so necessary for mature development, with little understanding of historical context. We are effectively emotionally retarded, blocking the universal embedded human feeling of empathy, and the collective solidarity that emerges therefrom. Thus, "America" is very insecure having been conveniently wrapped in a fake, pretend narrative, convincing us of our "exceptional" nature, ignoring both our systemic pattern of domestic violence, and global imperialism. The corporate media, and corporate-owned social media platforms, serve as stenographers for our oligarchic policies and values. They create an agenda-driven narrative that inoculates our minds with constant group think untruths of neo-liberal capitalism.

We now live in a post-truth world, where narcissistic life is experienced as virtual, not real. Do we feel the pain of the Afghani, Yemeni, the Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Libyan, Somali, the Russian, the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Palestinian in Gaza, or our neighbor down the street whose cancer left her homeless due to foreclosure? How much do we care? Answering these questions can tell us a lot about our own survival, including yours and mine.

Serious discussion and debate of a broad range and depth of ideas is virtually nonexistent. Mention of "socialism" is considered traitorous to the religion of neoliberal corporatism. In reality, we promote individualism over community, competition over cooperation, and acquisitiveness over inquisitiveness. These capitalist characteristics condition human development in a way that is diametrically opposed to our inherent, genetic nature as a social species requiring for survival cooperation in all our relations.

The economy and political system is now virtually dependent upon what Eisenhower proclaimed as the military/security industrial complex, and that complex thrives on creation of endless "enemies" which produce obscene war profits for a very few. Community and family units have disintegrated, and citizenship is less engaged as life is increasingly defined in terms of commodities. Everything and everybody is for sale to the highest bidder. This leads to anomie, violence and madness. And yet, we continue to enjoy shopping as the government conducts its daily bombing. How can this be? How can we pay taxes and go about our business as usual when so many people in the world are being impoverished or eliminated by US policies facilitating the wealthy getting richer?

The Deep Divide – 1959 – 2019

Having graduated from a rural upstate New York high school in 1959 at the height of post-WWII Cold War euphoria, in the midst of the short historic blip of aspiring consumerism, the "American" Kool Aid I and my 28 fellow graduates drank at that time was delicious. I was raised in a lower middle class home by conservative, religious parents, not dissimilar to the upbringings of many of my classmates. Life seemed great, and simple. However, my Viet Nam experience rudely exposed the poisonous nature of this delicious drink and its true ingredients.

Discovering information about my former classmates finds several still living in the same area we grew up, possessing similar views to that which we believed in 1959 – religiously and politically conservative, but now supporters of MAGA, Trump and Israel. One classmate who had been a basketball cheerleader, still married to her high school sweetheart after 60 years, read my Facebook postings from Nicaragua, then declared me "a fool" admonishing me to "stay there." This same cheerleader chanted for each starter before games, such as "Brian, Brian, he's our man, if he can't do it, nobody can."

Being raised in and conditioned by US America instills a desire to preserve a fantasy of post-WWII euphoria for many, at least until President Reagan. But experiential reality painfully destroys make-believe. I argue that the USA has never been great, but suspect many of my 1959 classmates would vehemently disagree.

Trump Exposes the Pretend Society

The phenomenon of the Presidency of Donald John Trump disturbingly "offers" our culture, and the world, an overdue undisguised photo of our real culture and its politics. Some say Trump brings out the worst in people – hatred, self-centeredness, cruelty, insensitivity, crassness, racism, insulting language, poisonous divisiveness, adolescent delinquency, etc. But is it possible that his language and demeanor are validating expressions of historically suppressed feelings and values which have never been sufficiently addressed or openly acknowledged in our Eurocentric, capitalist, money-oriented, nature-defying, often mean-spirited culture? These censored feelings once unleashed, no matter how adolescent they seem, are capable of manifesting in a vicious authoritarian and neo-fascist state, as they did in Germany nearly 100 years ago. It seems we are at that point again.

The "developed" world, now led by the United States of America, has historically been built on egregious exploitation and violence hidden under fanciful rhetoric. Inevitably, the chickens will come home to roost. As Eurocentrics we have been lying to ourselves and the world with our highly touted economic system and "democracy," fooling ourselves by myths and lies we have long believed about our "superiority" built on the suffering of others. As stated above, we have (s)elected leaders who are to varying degrees corrupted by money who use politically "correct" language and a finessed demeanor to gain approval. In fact, they have consistently been imperial and oligarchic, selfishly stealing to assure an insatiably consumptive lifestyle for under 5 percent of the world's population (but only benefitting a minority of its own people), while gobbling up anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the globe's resources (depending on the resource and era examined). We ad nauseum excuse our interventions using "national security" or "humanitarian justice." We have followed in the footsteps of our imperial teachers in the United Kingdom. Fair? Sustainable? Ever thought about the structural unfairness and gross arrogance that has enabled 500 years of colonization? Trump's Presidency reveals a lot about us that we have not wanted to recognize. Scary? Our historical chronic complicity in this horror story cannot be ignored.

Trump serves as an avatar, or caricature, of a collective, creepy, violent, disgusting, mean-spirited, immature culture, at least as experienced by large numbers of people both in the US and the world. Trump's appeal can largely be attributed to the fact that he has taken the clothes off of Pretend . His childish nature of lying, tweeting and exaggerating, ironically reveals an ugly "truth" about our modern selves that has been drowned under incredible "public relations" – education, the media, Hollywood, sports, the State Department, etc. His extreme personal narcissism matches well our extreme collective exceptionalism. Is it clearer now just how big the LIE has been, protected by our comfortable 500-year myths? Welcome to dystopia, Kafka, and Orwell.

Conclusion

The 400-year history of Western dualistic Cartesian thinking (named after French philosopher Rene Descartes' view of reductionist mind-body dualism) divorcing human beings from study of observable nature, has produced a terribly flawed epistemology. The opposite basis for knowledge is holism, a framework that enables comprehension of multiple interconnections and historical context. Dispensing with any serious concern for consequences, the insatiably consumer-driven materialistic Western Way of Life has ironically and blissfully been destroying life itself by its addiction to burning finite fossil fuels. The harsh truth is that a capitalist system is on a direct collision course with sustainable societies that require conserving healthy interconnected relationships with each other and the earth's eco-system. We have become accustomed to wishful thinking that resources are infinite, and that they belong to us. This theft can only happen, of course, by force or its threat, and deceit, while living in the toxic illusion we are better than others. Does this suggest a kind of arrogant collective stupidity?

Nature bats last, something our cortex apparently chose to fatally ignore. We now face the greatest existential crisis as Nature bats last humbling modern humans into extinction, or near so. We somehow forgot the most critical truth of all – that we all part of the One. If we can now recognize our various levels of "stupidity", we have an adrenaline opportunity to leap out of our heretofore seductive comfortable fantasy, choosing instead to access our buried human characteristic of interconnection with everything and everybody, i.e., mutual respect and accountability. This leap now must be of a revolutionary nature, rocketing us out of our historic arrogant pleasureableness. Our survival foundation: embracing the evolutionary feeling of empathy. Saving ourselves is pretty damn important, and that means saving life for all. Let's do it! We are not worth more; they are not worth less.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website: brianwillson.com. His recent book, "Don't Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies" is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir, "Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson" was published by PM Press (2011). A documentary, "Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson" was produced in 2016 by Bo Boudart Productions.

[Sep 18, 2019] This B's posting is further proof that the US of A (and it's flunky allies) are indeed led by the stupid, corrupt, and ignorant

The dangerous disease that inflict the USA neoliberal elite can be called "supremacism delirium"
As for quality of arms produced, when profit is the main motivation, the quality of design suffer. Still despite recent setbacks the USA remain the leader in new arm technologies.
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
GeorgeV , Sep 17 2019 20:09 utc | 8
B's posting is further proof that the US of A (and it's flunky allies) are indeed led by the stupid, corrupt, and ignorant.

While Russia and Iran are taking rational routes to protect themselves, the US and it's allies are pouring billions, if not trillions, of dollars (and thousands of lives) into a foreign policy that can only be described as the foreign policy of God, for it passes all human understanding.


karlof1 , Sep 17 2019 20:12 utc | 9

Thanks b! One way looking radar is so Pre-Second World War! The Patriot's MPQ-53 radar has a search sector of 90° and track capability of 120°--an amazingly inferior capability I wasn't aware of, nor is the vast majority of the public, which is why that twitter gif I linked to on the previous thread is humorous. In that comment, it was said that the radar's were reoriented to aim at Houthiland which is the given excuse as to why the Iranian attack wasn't detected. I don't buy that for an instant.

Houthi media's gone silent for now as it awaits a response from Saudis before launching there next attack in under 48 hours--yes, they did place an actual time, but were very general about the types of targets, although the top threat remains hydrocarbon infrastructure. RT reports :

"Saudi Arabia's energy minister said that its oil supplies had resumed and that its oil market would be 'fully back online' by the end of September following attacks which Washington blames on Iran while Riyadh is still probing.

"Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the media that oil production in October would reach 9.89 million barrels per day and 12 million bpd by the end of November."

We shall see if the output equals the boast, particularly if Houthis continue their attacks. No questions about providing better defenses reminds me of the Death Star Commandeer's famous last words about his weapon's invincibility.

Meanwhile, Nuttyahoo's coalition's narrowly losing the election.

Christian J Chuba , Sep 17 2019 20:18 utc | 11
Fighting Dirty w/Aysymmetric Warfare

I love how the warmongers on FOX / CNN make Iran / Russia sound nefarious that they call their strategy A2D2 or asymmetric warfare (aka actual defense of their country instead of power projection). How is using short / medium range missiles or a green water navy 'asymmetric'?

If we do go to war w/Iran the only way we win is by committing war crimes by bombing population centers until they surrender, we can't beat them in a straight up fight. I'm not a military wonk but I can see the relative competence levels. We can't even get a decent photo of a boat with a bomb on it after it's been sitting in broad daylight for 10hrs.

[Sep 18, 2019] F-35 Fighter as the ritual construction similar to Egyptian pyramids, the Cathedral for MIC.

Sep 18, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

The Egyptians had pyramids. The Romans had roads, aqueducts, and coliseums. The medieval Europeans had castles and cathedrals. These days, America's pyramids, aqueducts, and cathedrals are those warplanes, among other deadly weapons programs , including a $1.7 trillion one to "modernize" the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

... ... ...

As ephemeral as the F-35 stealth fighter may prove in historical terms, it's already a classic symbol of America's ever more fruitless forever wars . Like them , the F-35 program has proven staggeringly expensive, incredibly wasteful, and impossible to stop, no matter the woeful results . It has come to symbolize the too-big-to-fail, too-sacrosanct-to-reject part of America's militarized culture of technological violence.

... ... ...

Harper's Andrew Cockburn recently used it to illustrate what he termed "the Pentagon Syndrome ," the practice of expending enormous sums on weapons of marginal utility.

[Sep 17, 2019] Locked-And-Loaded For War With Iran Is Bolton's Soul Living On by Patrick Buchanan

Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org, ..."
"... "Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," ..."
"... "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen." ..."
"... The War Party is giddy with excitement over the prospect of war with Iran, while the nation does not want another war. ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

09/17/2019

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

"Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Putting America's credibility on the line, Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out the devastating attack on Saudi oil facilities that halted half of the kingdom's oil production, 5.7 million barrels a day.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump did not identify Iran as the attacking nation, but did appear, in a tweet, to back up the secretary of state:

"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) as to who they believe was the cause of this attack and under what terms we would proceed!"

Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have been fighting Saudi Arabia for four years and have used drones to strike Saudi airport and oil facilities, claim they fired 10 drones from 500 kilometers away to carry out the strikes in retaliation for Saudi air and missile attacks.

Pompeo dismissed their claim, "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."

But while the Houthis claim credit, Iran denies all responsibility.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif says of Pompeo's charge, that the U.S. has simply replaced a policy of "maximum pressure" with a policy of "maximum deceit." Tehran is calling us liars.

And, indeed, a direct assault on Saudi Arabia by Iran, a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack on the Saudis' crucial oil production facility, would be an act of war requiring Saudi retaliation, leading to a Persian Gulf war in which the United States could be forced to participate.

Tehran being behind Saturday's strike would contradict Iranian policy since the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal. That policy has been to avoid a military clash with the United States and pursue a measured response to tightening American sanctions.

U.S. and Saudi officials are investigating the sites of the attacks, the oil production facility at Abqaiq and the Khurais oil field.

According to U.S. sources, 17 missiles or drones were fired, not the 10 the Houthis claim, and cruise missiles may have been used. Some targets were hit on the west-northwest facing sides, which suggests they were fired from the north, from Iran or Iraq.

But according to The New York Times, some targets were hit on the west side, pointing away from Iraq or Iraq as the source. But as some projectiles did not explode and fragments of those that did explode are identifiable, establishing the likely source of the attacks should be only a matter of time. It is here that the rubber meets the road.

Given Pompeo's public accusation that Iran was behind the attack, a Trump meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering next week may be a dead letter.

The real question now is what do the Americans do when the source of the attack is known and the call for a commensurate response is put directly to our "locked-and-loaded" president.

If the perpetrators were the Houthis, how would Trump respond?

For the Houthis, who are native to Yemen and whose country has been attacked by the Saudis for four years, would, under the rules of war, seem to be entitled to launch attacks on the country attacking them.

Indeed, Congress has repeatedly sought to have Trump terminate U.S. support of the Saudi war in Yemen.

If the attack on the Saudi oil field and oil facility at Abqaiq proves to be the work of Shiite militia from inside Iraq, would the United States attack that militia whose numbers in Iraq have been estimated as high as 150,000 fighters, as compared with our 5,000 troops in-country?

What about Iran itself?

If a dozen drones or missiles can do the kind of damage to the world economy as did those fired on Saturday -- shutting down about 6% of world oil production -- imagine what a U.S.-Iran-Saudi war would do to the world economy.

In recent decades, the U.S. has sold the Saudis hundreds of billions of dollars of military equipment. Did our weapons sales carry a guarantee that we will also come and fight alongside the kingdom if it gets into a war with its neighbors?

Before Trump orders any strike on Iran, would he go to Congress for authorization for his act of war?

Sen. Lindsey Graham is already urging an attack on Iran's oil refineries to "break the regime's back," while Sen. Rand Paul contends that "there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran."

Divided again: The War Party is giddy with excitement over the prospect of war with Iran, while the nation does not want another war.

How we avoid it, however, is becoming difficult to see.

John Bolton may be gone from the West Wing, but his soul is marching on.

[Sep 16, 2019] President Trump Called Former President Carter To Talk About China

Sep 16, 2019 | www.wabe.org

- WABE , Apr 14, 2019

Carter suggested that instead of war, China has been investing in its own infrastructure, mentioning that China has 18,000 miles of high-speed railroad.

"How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?"

Zero, the congregation answered.

"We have wasted I think $3 trillion," Carter said of American military spending. " It's more than you can imagine. China has not wasted a single penny on war and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way."

[Sep 15, 2019] Trump's new world disorder: competitive, chaotic, conflicted by

The key to understanding the c
The collapse of neoliberalism naturally lead to the collapse of the US influence over the globe. and to the treats to the dollar as the world reserve currency. That's why the US foreign policy became so aggressive and violent. Neocons want to fight for the world hegemony to the last American.
Notable quotes:
"... US foreign policy is ever more unstable and confrontational ..."
"... Bolton's brutal defenestration has raised hopes that Trump, who worries that voters may view him as a warmonger, may begin to moderate some of his more confrontational international policies. As the 2020 election looms, he is desperate for a big foreign policy peace-making success. And, in Trump world, winning matters more than ideology, principles or personnel. ..."
"... Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has not merely broken with diplomatic and geopolitical convention. He has taken a wrecking ball to venerated alliances, multilateral cooperation and the postwar international rules-based order. ..."
"... The resulting new world disorder – to adapt George HW Bush's famous 1991 phrase – will be hard to put right. Like its creator, Trump world is unstable, unpredictable and threatening. Trump has been called America's first rogue president. Whether or not he wins a second term, this Trumpian era of epic disruption, the very worst form of American exceptionalism, is already deeply entrenched. ..."
"... driven by a chronic desire for re-election, Trump's behaviour could become more, not less, confrontational during his remaining time in office, suggested Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins university. ..."
"... "The president has proved himself to be what many critics have long accused him of being: belligerent, bullying, impatient, irresponsible, intellectually lazy, short-tempered and self-obsessed," Cohen wrote in Foreign Affairs journal . "Remarkably, however, those shortcomings have not yet translated into obvious disaster. But [that] should not distract from a building crisis of US foreign policy." ..."
"... This pending crisis stems from Trump's crudely Manichaean division of the world into two camps: adversaries/competitors and supporters/customers. A man with few close confidants, Trump has real trouble distinguishing between allies and enemies, friends and foes, and often confuses the two. In Trump world, old rules don't apply. Alliances are optional. Loyalty is weakness. And trust is fungible. ..."
"... The crunch came last weekend when a bizarre, secret summit with Taliban chiefs at Camp David was cancelled . It was classic Trump. He wanted quick 'n' easy, primetime credit for a dramatic peace deal, pushed ahead blindly, then changed his mind at the last minute. Furious over a debacle of his own making, he turned his wrath on others, notably Bolton – who, ironically, had opposed the summit all along. ..."
"... With Trump's blessing, Israel is enmeshed in escalating, multi-fronted armed confrontation with Iran and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Add to this recent violence in the Gulf, the disastrous Trump-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen, mayhem in Syria's Idlib province, border friction with Turkey, and Islamic State resurgence in northern Iraq, and a region-wide explosion looks ever more likely. ..."
"... "the bipartisan consensus forged in the 1990s – in which the US towered over the world and, at low cost, sought to remake it in America's image – has failed and cannot be revived", ..."
Sep 14, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

With John Bolton dismissed, Taliban peace talks a fiasco and a trade war with China, US foreign policy is ever more unstable and confrontational

It was by all accounts, a furious row. Donald Trump was talking about relaxing sanctions on Iran and holding a summit with its president, Hassan Rouhani, at this month's UN general assembly in New York. John Bolton, his hawkish national security adviser, was dead against it and forcefully rejected Trump's ideas during a tense meeting in the Oval Office on Monday.

...Bolton's brutal defenestration has raised hopes that Trump, who worries that voters may view him as a warmonger, may begin to moderate some of his more confrontational international policies. As the 2020 election looms, he is desperate for a big foreign policy peace-making success. And, in Trump world, winning matters more than ideology, principles or personnel.

The US president is now saying he is also open to a repeat meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, to reboot stalled nuclear disarmament talks. On another front, he has offered an olive branch to China, delaying a planned tariff increase on $250bn of Chinese goods pending renewed trade negotiations next month. Meanwhile, he says, new tariffs on European car imports could be dropped, too.

Is a genuine dove-ish shift under way? It seems improbable. Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has not merely broken with diplomatic and geopolitical convention. He has taken a wrecking ball to venerated alliances, multilateral cooperation and the postwar international rules-based order. He has cosied up to autocrats, attacked old friends and blundered into sensitive conflicts he does not fully comprehend.

The resulting new world disorder – to adapt George HW Bush's famous 1991 phrase – will be hard to put right. Like its creator, Trump world is unstable, unpredictable and threatening. Trump has been called America's first rogue president. Whether or not he wins a second term, this Trumpian era of epic disruption, the very worst form of American exceptionalism, is already deeply entrenched.

The suggestion that Trump will make nice and back off as election time nears thus elicits considerable scepticism. US analysts and commentators say the president's erratic, impulsive and egotistic personality means any shift towards conciliation may be short-lived and could quickly be reversed, Bolton or no Bolton.

Trump wanted quick 'n' easy, primetime credit for a dramatic peace deal in Afghanistan with the Taliban, pushed ahead blindly, then changed his mind at the last minute

Trump is notorious for blowing hot and cold, performing policy zigzags and suddenly changing his mind. "Regardless of who has advised Mr Trump on foreign affairs all have proved powerless before [his] zest for chaos," the New York Times noted last week .

Lacking experienced diplomatic and military advisers (he has sacked most of the good ones), surrounded by an inner circle of cynical sycophants such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and driven by a chronic desire for re-election, Trump's behaviour could become more, not less, confrontational during his remaining time in office, suggested Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins university.

"The president has proved himself to be what many critics have long accused him of being: belligerent, bullying, impatient, irresponsible, intellectually lazy, short-tempered and self-obsessed," Cohen wrote in Foreign Affairs journal . "Remarkably, however, those shortcomings have not yet translated into obvious disaster. But [that] should not distract from a building crisis of US foreign policy."

This pending crisis stems from Trump's crudely Manichaean division of the world into two camps: adversaries/competitors and supporters/customers. A man with few close confidants, Trump has real trouble distinguishing between allies and enemies, friends and foes, and often confuses the two. In Trump world, old rules don't apply. Alliances are optional. Loyalty is weakness. And trust is fungible.

As a result, the US today finds itself at odds with much of the world to an unprecedented and dangerous degree. America, the postwar global saviour, has been widely recast as villain. Nor is this a passing phase. Trump seems to have permanently changed the way the US views the world and vice versa. Whatever follows, it will never be quite the same again.

Clues as to what he does next may be found in what he has done so far. His is a truly calamitous record, as exemplified by Afghanistan. Having vowed in 2016 to end America's longest war, he began with a troop surge, lost interest and sued for peace. A withdrawal deal proved elusive. Meanwhile, US-led forces inflicted record civilian casualties .

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The US and Israeli flags are projected on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in May, marking the anniversary of the US embassy transfer from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/Getty

The crunch came last weekend when a bizarre, secret summit with Taliban chiefs at Camp David was cancelled . It was classic Trump. He wanted quick 'n' easy, primetime credit for a dramatic peace deal, pushed ahead blindly, then changed his mind at the last minute. Furious over a debacle of his own making, he turned his wrath on others, notably Bolton – who, ironically, had opposed the summit all along.

All sides are now vowing to step up the violence, with the insurgents aiming to disrupt this month's presidential election in Afghanistan. In short, Trump's self-glorifying Afghan reality show, of which he was the Nobel-winning star, has made matters worse. Much the same is true of his North Korea summitry, where expectations were raised, then dashed when he got cold feet in Hanoi , provoking a backlash from Pyongyang.

The current crisis over Iran's nuclear programme is almost entirely of Trump's making, sparked by his decision last year to renege on the 2015 UN-endorsed deal with Tehran. His subsequent "maximum pressure" campaign of punitive sanctions has failed to cow Iranians while alienating European allies. And it has led Iran to resume banned nuclear activities – a seriously counterproductive, entirely predictable outcome.

Trump's unconditional, unthinking support for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's aggressively rightwing prime minister – including tacit US backing for his proposed annexation of swathes of the occupied territories – is pushing the Palestinians back to the brink, energising Hamas and Hezbollah, and raising tensions across the region .

With Trump's blessing, Israel is enmeshed in escalating, multi-fronted armed confrontation with Iran and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Add to this recent violence in the Gulf, the disastrous Trump-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen, mayhem in Syria's Idlib province, border friction with Turkey, and Islamic State resurgence in northern Iraq, and a region-wide explosion looks ever more likely.

The bipartisan consensus forged in the 1990s – in which the US towered over the world and, at low cost, sought to remake it in America's image – has failed and cannot be revived

Stephen Wertheim, historian

Yet Trump, oblivious to the point of recklessness, remains determined to unveil his absurdly unbalanced Israel-Palestine "deal of the century" after Tuesday's Israeli elections. He and his gormless son-in-law, Jared Kushner, may be the only people who don't realise their plan has a shorter life expectancy than a snowball on a hot day in Gaza.

... ... ...

...he is consistently out of line, out on his own – and out of control. This, broadly, is Trump world as it has come to exist since January 2017. And this, in a nutshell, is the intensifying foreign policy crisis of which Professor Cohen warned. The days when responsible, trustworthy, principled US international leadership could be taken for granted are gone. No vague change of tone on North Korea or Iran will by itself halt the Trump-led slide into expanding global conflict and division.

Historians such as Stephen Wertheim say change had to come. US politicians of left and right mostly agreed that "the bipartisan consensus forged in the 1990s – in which the US towered over the world and, at low cost, sought to remake it in America's image – has failed and cannot be revived", Wertheim wrote earlier this year . "But agreement ends there " he continued: "One camp holds that the US erred by coddling China and Russia, and urges a new competition against these great power rivals. The other camp, which says the US has been too belligerent and ambitious around the world, counsels restraint, not another crusade against grand enemies."

This debate among grownups over America's future place in the world will form part of next year's election contest. But before any fundamental change of direction can occur, the international community – and the US itself – must first survive another 16 months of Trump world and the wayward child-president's poll-fixated, ego-driven destructive tendencies.

Survival is not guaranteed. The immediate choice facing US friends and foes alike is stark and urgent: ignore, bypass and marginalise Trump – or actively, openly, resist him.

Here are some of the key flashpoints around the globe

United Nations

Trump is deeply hostile to the UN. It embodies the multilateralist, globalist policy approaches he most abhors – because they supposedly infringe America's sovereignty and inhibit its freedom of action. Under him, self-interested US behaviour has undermined the authority of the UN security council's authority. The US has rejected a series of international treaties and agreements, including the Paris climate change accord and the Iran nuclear deal. The UN-backed international criminal court is beyond the pale. Trump's attitude fits with his "America First" isolationism, which questions traditional ideas about America's essential global leadership role.

Germany

Trump rarely misses a chance to bash Germany, perhaps because it is Europe's most successful economy and represents the EU, which he detests. He is obsessed by German car imports, on which protectionist US tariffs will be levied this autumn. He accuses Berlin – and Europe– of piggy-backing on America by failing to pay its fair share of Nato defence costs. Special venom is reserved for Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, most likely because she is a woman who stands up to him . Trump recently insulted another female European leader, Denmark's Mette Frederiksen, after she refused to sell him Greenland .

Israel

Trump has made a great show of unconditional friendship towards Israel and its rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has skilfully maximised his White House influence. But by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, officially condoning Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, and withdrawing funding and other support from the Palestinians, the president has abandoned the long-standing US policy of playing honest broker in the peace process. Trump has also tried to exploit antisemitism for political advantage, accusing US Democrat Jews who oppose Netanyahu's policies of "disloyalty" to Israel.

... ... ...

[Sep 12, 2019] The stars-and-stripes-wavers you meet in comment forums are usually blissfully ignorant, happy in their fool's paradise where everyone wants to be an American, and resistance to Uncle Sam's ruthless bullying is inspired by jealousy and inadequacy.

Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman September 10, 2019 at 8:42 am

One reaction Americans are unaccustomed to is pity. When I meet them on the boats, traveling, I am always extra nice to them, because I feel sorry for them. They have to go back. They're nice people, mostly, they've never done anything to me personally. But sooner or later, they have to go back to where those license plates were issued. They can't stay here. And I'm sorry for them. But I would imagine most of them feel they are envied, and their citizenship is coveted by the less-fortunate. That might be true in some third-world hellholes where people would go anywhere to get out, but it certainly isn't so here.

The stars-and-stripes-wavers you meet in comment forums are usually blissfully ignorant, happy in their fool's paradise where everyone wants to be an American, and resistance to Uncle Sam's ruthless bullying is inspired by jealousy and inadequacy. For them, simply acknowledging that Washington sometimes makes mistakes – which it's allowed to do, because it's exceptional – is the essence of responsibility and fairness. There, I said we aren't always right – what could be more fair? But when America invades a country that did nothing to provoke it except refuse when it was ordered to do this or that, sometimes things it couldn't do, like abandon the nuclear weapons program it didn't have well, that was a mistake, but it was an honest mistake because no end of smart people the world over agreed they did indeed have a nuclear weapons program. I mean, if you don't do something quick, the consequences could be a mushroom cloud, ya know. And when it orders the democratically-elected president of a country to stand down and make way for a hand-picked replacement, it's not being arrogant. No; it's taking necessary on behalf of that leader's benighted people, who suffer awful oppression at his hands, and America only wants them to be free to make good choices.

A lot of those comments go unanswered; some because many of those forums now insist you sign in with Facebook so they can go behind the scenes and see who and where you are and gain all sorts of personal information about you, because dimwits love to blabber their entire personal lives on Facebook. But some go unanswered simply because there is no real use in trying to change such made-up minds. You will never dent the my-country-right-or-wrong blathering of ignorant people who know nothing beyond what they see on CNN.

[Sep 11, 2019] Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us

Highly recommended!
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Free fall speed is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because free fall is impossible for a naturally collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001.

The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.

  1. Building.
  2. Seven.
  3. Freefall.
  4. Speed.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mamvq7LWqRU

Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building -- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).

This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.

Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building 7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.

Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence which points to the same conclusion.

Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).

However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.

For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.

Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.

I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the Guns and Butter podcast archive here . These interviews, from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.

Selected Articles: 9/11: Do You Still Believe that Al Qaeda Masterminded the Attacks?

I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of 9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.

In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019.

That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy -- even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken.

This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).

This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self, sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here .

The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo. Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.

Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the divine realm.

If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm. Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must be corrected.

In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.

Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution, forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes a very clear penalty for treason.

When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.

The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September 11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.

When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and women.

Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001 -- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 -- but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.

Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.

But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle still has us .

*

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David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © David W. Mathisen , Global Research, 2019 Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.

[Sep 11, 2019] Andrew Bacevich, Ending War, American-Style

Sep 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

September 11, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. Note that for all of Trump's considerable faults, including hiring John Bolton in the first place and taking too long to get rid of him, Bolton's opposition to finding a way for the US to extricate itself from the war in Afghanistan was reportedly the last straw.

By Andrew Bacevich, who serves as president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft . His new book The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory will be published in January. Originally published at TomDispatch

When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student body at any of our Army's myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

Since ARVN's founding two decades earlier, the United States had assigned itself the task of professionalizing that fledgling military establishment. Based on a conviction that the standards, methods, and ethos of our armed forces were universally applicable and readily exportable, the attendance of ARVN personnel at such Army schools was believed to contribute to the professionalizing of the South Vietnamese military.

Evidence that the U.S. military's own professional standards had recently taken a hit -- memories of the My Lai massacre were then still fresh -- elicited no second thoughts on our part. Association with American officers like me was sure to rub off on our South Vietnamese counterparts in ways that would make them better soldiers. So we professed to believe, even while subjecting that claim to no more scrutiny than we did the question of why most of us had spent a year or more of our lives participating in an obviously misbegotten and misguided war in Indochina.

For serving officers at that time one question in particular remained off-limits (though it had been posed incessantly for years by antiwar protestors in the streets of America): Why Vietnam? Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely encourages critical thinking.

On the day that Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, fell and that country ceased to exist, I approached one of my ARVN classmates, also a captain, wanting at least to acknowledge the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred. "I'm sorry about what happened to your country," I told him.

I did not know that officer well and no longer recall his name. Let's call him Captain Nguyen. In my dim recollection, he didn't even bother to reply. He simply looked at me with an expression both distressed and mournful. Our encounter lasted no more than a handful of seconds. I then went on with my life and Captain Nguyen presumably with his. Although I have no inkling of his fate, I like to think that he is now retired in Southern California after a successful career in real estate. But who knows?

All I do know is that today I recall our exchange with a profound sense of embarrassment and even shame. My pathetic effort to console Captain Nguyen had been both presumptuous and inadequate. Far worse was my failure -- inability? refusal? -- to acknowledge the context within which that catastrophe was occurring: the United States and its armed forces had, over years, inflicted horrendous harm on the people of South Vietnam.

In reality, their defeat was our defeat. Yet while we had decided that we were done paying, they were going to pay and pay for a long time to come.

Rather than offering a fatuous expression of regret for the collapse of his country, I ought to have apologized for having played even a miniscule role in what was, by any measure, a catastrophe of epic proportions. It's a wonder Captain Nguyen didn't spit in my eye.

I genuinely empathized with Captain Nguyen. Yet the truth is that, along with most other Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, I was only too happy to be done with South Vietnam and all its troubles. Dating back to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States and its armed forces had made a gargantuan effort to impart legitimacy to the Republic of Vietnam and to coerce the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to its north into giving up its determination to exercise sovereignty over the entirety of the country. In that, we had failed spectacularly and at a staggering cost.

"Our" war in Indochina -- the conflict we chose to call the Vietnam War -- officially ended in January 1973 with the signing in Paris of an "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam." Under the terms of that fraudulent pact, American prisoners of war were freed from captivity in North Vietnam and the last U.S. combat troops in the south left for home, completing a withdrawal begun several years earlier. Primary responsibility for securing the Republic of Vietnam thereby fell to ARVN, long deemed by U.S. commanders incapable of accomplishing that mission.

Meanwhile, despite a nominal cessation of hostilities, approximately 150,000 North Vietnamese regulars still occupied a large swathe of South Vietnamese territory -- more or less the equivalent to agreeing to end World War II when there were still several German panzer tank divisions lurking in Belgium's Ardennes Forest. In effect, our message to our enemy and our ally was this: We're outta here; you guys sort this out . In a bit more than two years, that sorting-out process would extinguish the Republic of Vietnam.

Been There, Done That

The course Captain Nguyen and I were attending in the spring of 1975 paid little attention to fighting wars like the one that, for years, had occupied the attention of my army and his. Our Army, in fact, was already moving on. Having had their fill of triple-canopy jungles in Indochina, America's officer corps now turned to defending the Fulda Gap, the region in West Germany deemed most hospitable to a future Soviet invasion. As if by fiat, gearing up to fight those Soviet forces and their Warsaw Pact allies, should they (however improbably) decide to take on NATO and lunge toward the English Channel, suddenly emerged as priority number one. At Fort Knox and throughout the Army's ranks, we were suddenly focused on "high-intensity combined arms operations" -- essentially, a replay of World War II-style combat with fancier weaponry. In short, the armed forces of the United States had reverted to "real soldiering."

And so it is again today. At the end of the 17th year of what Americans commonly call the Afghanistan War -- one wonders what name Afghans will eventually assign it -- U.S. military forces are moving on. Pentagon planners are shifting their attention back to Russia and China. Great power competition has become the name of the game. However we might define Washington's evolving purposes in its Afghanistan War -- "nation building," "democratization," "pacification" -- the likelihood of mission accomplishment is nil. As in the early 1970s, so in 2019, rather than admitting failure, the Pentagon has chosen to change the subject and is once again turning its attention to "real soldiering."

Remember the infatuation with counterinsurgency (commonly known by its acronym COIN) that gripped the national security establishment around 2007 when the Iraq "surge" overseen by General David Petraeus briefly ranked alongside Gettysburg as a historic victory? Well, these days promoting COIN as the new American way of war has become, to put it mildly, a tough sell. Given that few in Washington will openly acknowledge the magnitude of the military failure in Afghanistan, the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial becomes all but irresistible.

Only one thing is required to validate this reshuffling of military priorities. Washington needs to create the appearance, as in 1973, that it's exiting Afghanistan on its own terms. What's needed, in short, is an updated equivalent of that "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam."

Until last weekend, the signing of such an agreement seemed imminent. Donald Trump and his envoy, former ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, appeared poised to repeat the trick that President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pulled off in 1973 in Paris: pause the war and call it peace. Should fighting subsequently resume after a "decent interval," it would no longer be America's problem. Now, however, to judge by the president's twitter account -- currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy -- the proposed deal has been postponed, or perhaps shelved, or even abandoned altogether. If National Security Advisor John Bolton has his way , U.S. forces might just withdraw in any case, without an agreement of any sort being signed.

Based on what we can divine from press reports, the terms of that prospective Afghan deal would mirror those of the 1973 Paris Accords in one important respect. It would, in effect, serve as a ticket home for the remaining U.S. and NATO troops still in that country (though for the present only the first 5,000 of them would immediately depart). Beyond that, the Taliban was to promise not to provide sanctuary to anti-American terrorist groups, even though the Afghan branch of ISIS is already firmly lodged there. Still, this proviso would allow the Trump administration to claim that it had averted any possible recurrence of the 9/11 terror attacks that were, of course, planned by Osama bin Laden while residing in Afghanistan in 2001 as a guest of the Taliban-controlled government. Mission accomplished , as it were.

Back in 1973, North Vietnamese forces occupying parts of South Vietnam neither disarmed nor withdrew. Should this new agreement be finalized, Taliban forces currently controlling or influencing significant swaths of Afghan territory will neither disarm nor withdraw. Indeed, their declared intention is to continue fighting.

In 1973, policymakers in Washington were counting on ARVN to hold off Communist forces. In 2019, almost no one expects Afghan security forces to hold off a threat consisting of both the Taliban and ISIS. In a final insult, just as the Saigon government was excluded from U.S. negotiations with the North Vietnamese, so, too, has the Western-installed government in Kabul been excluded from U.S. negotiations with its sworn enemy, the Taliban.

A host of uncertainties remain. As with the olive branches that President Trump has ostentatiously offered to Russia, China, and North Koea, this particular peace initiative may come to naught -- or, given the approach of the 2020 elections, he may decide that Afghanistan offers his last best hope of claiming at least one foreign policy success. One way or another, in all likelihood, the deathwatch for the U.S.-backed Afghan government has now begun. One thing only is for sure. Having had their fill of Afghanistan, when the Americans finally leave, they won't look back. In that sense, it will be Vietnam all over again.

What Price Peace?

However great my distaste for President Trump, I support his administration's efforts to extricate the United States from Afghanistan. I do so for the same reason I supported the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Prolonging this folly any longer does not serve U.S. interests. Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at stake.

In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing. In Afghanistan, we have lost more than 2,300 troops , with another 20,000 wounded, again for next to nothing. Last month, two American Special Forces soldiers were killed in a firefight in Faryab Province. For what?

That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country's new leaders.

Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000 casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.

For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy.

As to what will follow if Washington does succeed in cutting a deal with the Taliban, well, don't count on President Trump (or his successor for that matter) welcoming anything like 1.3 million Afghan refugees to the United States once a "decent interval" has passed. Yet again, our position will be: we're outta here; you guys sort this out.

Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as "careless people" who "smashed up things and creatures" and then "retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness" to "let other people clean up the mess they had made." That description applies to the United States as a whole, especially when Americans tire of a misguided war. We are a careless people. In Vietnam, we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our money, leaving others to clean up the mess in a distinctly bloody fashion.

Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan.


RBHoughton , September 11, 2019 at 1:05 am

Bacevich is right. Vietnam was a tragedy. Here we are at Ground Hog Day in Afghanistan.

I was touched by the author's recollection of Capt Nguyen. I well know that awful moment when , reflecting on some past event, I have recognised my own actions as insensitive, crass and unfeeling. How do we get so wrapped-up in ourselves that the feelings of others hardly impinge on our sensitivities? What happened to society? Is that where the West has gone wrong?

Btw, quote "to judge by the president's twitter account -- currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy" unquote. I hope those owning the Twitter Nest note the future use of their archive.

VietnamVet , September 11, 2019 at 3:42 am

Andrew Bacevich is right. However, there is an amazing human disinclination to face facts but live with delusions which risk extinction for immediate gratification. The lessons from Vietnam were never learned. The Bush/Cheney fateful decision to occupy Afghanistan at the same time as invading Iraq ultimately led to the current predatory corporate military rule that will never voluntarily withdraw from overseas. The intent of the media/intelligence coup against the President is to prevent peace from breaking out. Executives and wealthy shareholders would lose their taxpayer gravy train. The troops and contractors now in Eastern Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are expendable. They will not have two years to get out. No planning, deep-sixing science, and profits over safety all assure that sooner or later there will be another black swan event. Be it Brexit, closure of Strait of Hormuz, subprime auto loans, WWIII, or climate change, assuredly something will give the final push and the American Empire will collapse.

Mattski , September 11, 2019 at 7:43 am

"Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society."

No Pasaran , September 11, 2019 at 5:05 am

Prof. Bacevich is very perceptive and he writes well; his essays are always worth reading. Nevertheless, he is a retired US Army officer after all and there is that thing about leopards and spots. There is a tell in this article, when he speaks of the day that Saigon 'fell'. I too remember well that day in April of '75. I was studying in Madison, on the GI Bill. My friends and I all rejoiced on that day, as Saigon had finally been 'liberated'.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 11:13 am

I was at high school in the UK, and my friends and I also rejoiced on that day.

Donald , September 11, 2019 at 12:29 pm

Why rejoice? The point should be that the US had no business in Vietnam, not that one group finally succeeded in uniting the country under the rule of one dictatorial party. Not all Vietnamese welcomed the "liberation" and many died fleeing the country.

I am sure this will be misunderstood, so I'll add that I think that the US role was one massive war crime and we never should have been there at all, that Ho Chi Minh probably would have won a fair election in the 1950's etc

Being antiwar has nothing necessarily to do with favoring the side our government opposes. It simply means that there is no moral justification for the US invading Vietnam or Iraq, supporting jihadists in Syria, helping the Saudis and the Israelis bomb civilians, and so on.

The Rev Kev , September 11, 2019 at 6:39 pm

Prof. Bacevich has an personal stake in what he writes about. His son, Lt. Andrew John Bacevich, was killed in action by an IED during the occupation back in 2007. He was already a severe critic of the war at the time but I am guessing that this underlined the futility of it tall.

Ignacio , September 11, 2019 at 6:01 am

Although it is true that the willing of Trump to put an end to the Afghan occupation must be seen as a positive, his policy of ever increasing military budgets make this affirmation from Bacevich "the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial becomes all but irresistible" truer that ever. These expenditures must be justified in practical terms and It worries me what the new enemies in Trump's brain are.

fajensen , September 11, 2019 at 8:17 am

One was hoping that the Space Marines would focus The Decider's attention firmly on those pesky Centaurians .

Ignacio , September 11, 2019 at 9:23 am

Ha, ha hah!
Yes, Hollywood has made a big effort to explain us, the common people, that US's military expenses will protect us from Centaurians, Klingons, meteorites and some other rogue invaders. I cannot imagine any other reason.

Steve H. , September 11, 2019 at 6:37 am

> Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely encourages critical thinking.

John Boyd: "And you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go." He raised his hand and pointed. "If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments." Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. "Or you can go that way and you can do something -- something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?" [Robert Coram]

Jesper , September 11, 2019 at 7:42 am

Which is worse? Living in a cave in Afghanistan or living in a prison in Europe/US?
If the invasion of Afghanistan was about capturing some people and then imprisoning them then that question might possibly be relevant.
If the invasion was about prestige then sometimes the best revenge and biggest insult is to treat that someone as irrelevant and insignificant. If the opportunity presents itself to do something then by all means do something, do what prestige demands but if that does not happen then what?
Sometimes the measure of someone is had by the measure of his/her enemies. Giving someone the significance of being the enemy might provide that someone with a better life. There are people with money who'd be willing to fund the enemy of their enemy. But how do those financiers know if they are funding some chancers/charlatans or the real thing? Spread some uncertainty about who are charlatans/chancers and see what happens to the funding . Maybe the guilty ones might feel it necessary to publicly provide the necessary proof of their guilt, doubtful but & if the location of them is found then threaten closure of the diplomatic missions of the nation where they are unless they are handed over. The diplomatic missions are cushy positions and closing them will only hurt the 'elite', the general population is left unharmed.

Afghanistan is unlikely to change anytime soon. As with all predictions of the future that one might be very wrong. However, the ones predicting that Afghanistan can and will change due to military occupation are in my opinion the ones who need to somehow provide support for their prediction.

The Rev Kev , September 11, 2019 at 9:11 am

A few predictions here. After the US and the rest of the Coalition leaves Afghanistan, not much happens for awhile. But then the government starts to lose ground. Slowly at first, and then quickly. Eventually Kabul falls. Long before then the US and other countries would have had evacuated their embassies so that there is no repeat of the frantic helicopter evacuations like happened in Saigon. There is a swell of refugees, particularly those who worked with the Coalition but Trump refuses all entry of them into the US saying that there are "very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers" in Afghanistan.
Five years after the last troops are out of Afghanistan the war is all but forgotten in the same way that the vets of the Korean War were forgotten. Not for nothing did they call Korea the "Forgotten War.' By then the US is immersed in another campaign – probably in Africa – and news about what is happening in Afghanistan is relegated to the back pages. The vets will remember, but the nation will ignore them in the same way that Vietnam vets were forgotten after that war ended until the striking Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built in Washington by the vets themselves. In West Point text books, the war is relegated to the back pages as the cadets will instead study peer warfare with Russia and China.

Alex Cox , September 11, 2019 at 1:50 pm

One very important question remains.
By 2001 the Taliban had reduced opium production to virtually zero. Every year since the US/NATO invasion, opium production has increased.
What will the Afghans do when the US and British are no longer around to facilitate the heroin trade? Perhaps that's why negotiations are proving so difficult.

ewmayer , September 11, 2019 at 4:56 pm

"By 2001 the Taliban had reduced opium production to virtually zero."

You need to update things past 2001 :

The Taliban banned the cultivation of opium in 2001, shortly before being ousted by the US-led NATO coalition. However, after 2005, the Taliban began to regroup, and encouraged opium production to finance its insurgency by forcing locals to grow opium and punishing those who refused. Besides, major opium traffickers annually pay vast amounts to the Taliban in exchange for safe transport routes secured by the group.

The Taliban uses the money it collects from the opium trade to pay fighters' salaries, buy fuel, food, weapons and explosives. Based on some reports, around 40% of the Taliban's funding comes from opium production, while the rest of its expenditure is borne by foreign patrons and tax collections. The group's annual income from the opium trade was estimated to be $400 million in 2011, but it is believed to have significantly increased in recent years.

The Taliban collect two types of taxes from opium businesses: a transportation tax from drug trafficking and a 10% tax from opium cultivation. In exchange, the group provides security for the drug convoys and carries out attacks on government institutions like checkpoints in order to allow drug convoys to pass. The group has also launched attacks on government forces to safeguard drug labs and factories.

The Taliban don't need US/UK to facilitate things. In fact, getting the US out of the country might eliminate one of their major Heroin-related business rivals, the CIA.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 11:10 am

Bacevich states, "Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at stake. In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing."
Why does he find his rule especially applicable to the paltry number of US dead, given that at least fifty times as many Indochinese died?
This attitude is surely one reason for the loathing felt by much of the world toward the USA. People are justifiably sick of hearing how US lives are inherently more valuable than their own.

juliania , September 11, 2019 at 12:24 pm

I guess you missed this part of the article:

" That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country's new leaders.

Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000 casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.

For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy ."

Note in particular the phrase "the people of Vietnam" in the last sentence. I find your criticism to be unwarranted.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 1:01 pm

I neither missed nor ignored Bacevich's caveat.
I was focusing on his 'rule number one', which seems to make the lives of a few US soldiers more sacred than those of the many people – civilians as well as soldiers – they kill.
I am not trying to say that Bacevich is as evil and abhorrent as say Bolton. I don't think he is, though I suspect he's on the same side when it comes down to it.
I am suggesting that the USA will fail to win the hearts and minds of the world's people while killing them and belittling their deaths.

(and you might note the phrase "can hardly be said to make up for" in the last sentence!)

John Wright , September 11, 2019 at 6:38 pm

As I remember the movie Dr. Strangelove, as the USA nuclear weapon was launched toward Russia, Russia was given an option to destroy some USA cities as a way of the USA doing fair and suitable penance.

I don't imagine the USA's military is viewed in the world as other than operating in the USA elites' interests, despite any media (Cable, internet, print,Hollywood films) verbiage about "bringing democracy" or "bringing freedom" to other nations.

I believe the Peace Corps was established as a way to make the world a better place with USA's expertise and as a way to win "hearts and minds of the world's people".

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps , the Peace Corps budget in 2018 was 398 million.

The USA defense budget for 2019 is shown as 686 billion putting the Peace Corps budget as 0.058% of the, perhaps understated, defense budget.

I believe winning the world's hearts and minds via USA military action is very unlikely at best.

The small Peace Corps budget is evidence that concern about winning hearts and minds in foreign countries is a very small priority in Washington D.C.

Ford Prefect , September 11, 2019 at 11:44 am

If you fund, arm, and train an army for a decade and it still can't defend itself against insurgents, then you have to wonder whose side is right? If it actually had the backing of the people on the ground and dedicated troops and government, then it should be able to hold its ground well.

The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the respective armies.

In Iraq, it is largely coherent tribal entities of Kurds and Shiites that have been providing the backbone of relatively successful military organizations (not the same one despite being in the same country). Both groups have their own independent goals. The US forefeited its abiltiy to create a true national army in Iraq when they disbanded the former Iraqi Army shortly after invading. That resulted in a well-trained insurgency.

Ian Perkins , September 11, 2019 at 12:27 pm

"The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the respective armies."
Hardly. From 1979 the US funded, armed and trained the Mujaheddin, who won. I'm not aware of them funding, arming or training the Viet Cong or Viet Minh.
They didn't win when they backed the losing sides, that's true. But it isn't saying much beyond the obvious.

Susan the other` , September 11, 2019 at 3:12 pm

I like Bacevich but he really demurred from making his underlying point. He asked "Why Vietnam" and then he proceeded to fluff through that question. But the analogy to Afghanistan remains at a much deeper level. That level (imo) is this: Why Vietnam? Because, at that hysterical cold war turning point, Vietnam was the gateway to Southern China (Gore Vidal). Our main objective was to position ourselves to invade Southern China and protect the old imperialist interests of the UK and France (aka Nato). But we dithered and hesitated. Thank god. It could have been a much worse debacle. So here it is: We invaded Afghanistan and sent a zillion dollars worth of materiel to Iraq in order to take over the Middle East. And that meant invading Iran. But just like China, Iran was a dangerous plan. Too many things could go wrong, so everyone knew they would go wrong. Duh. And so we dithered and hesitated. And made up for it by blatant propaganda for 15 years. We're "outta there" because we should never have been in there. And one of the tragedies is our abandonment of the Kurds. Just like the South Vietnamese. Bacevich didn't mention the Kurds. He implied our abandonment would upset the poor Afghans. But, they won't care at all. They'll be flipping all of our departing helicopters the bird. Still there was a point to be made about our fecklessness. Interesting aside here that Bacevich, a well thought-out moral person, is the new President of the Quincy Institute. It will probably become famous for deep, murky contradictions. And pompous rationalizations without ever really making the point. Just to the taste of Soros and the Kochs.

Susan the other` , September 11, 2019 at 3:25 pm

I suspect, re Afghanistan, there is an upside that will never be made into a finer point. That is, we have worn out the appetite for a wider war for all concerned and managed to come to agreement with all parties of interest in Middle East oil. Including Russia. And Israel. And nobody will make much fuss about it, but we will still leave a very high-tech military contingent in Afghanistan because Eurasia is a vast opportunity.

barrisj , September 11, 2019 at 7:30 pm

Vietnam War strictly motivated by the "Domino Theory" and "monolithic Asian communism", per Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, et al. Kennedy was said to be having "second thoughts" about expanded US presence at the time of his assassination; however, LBJ went all-in, urged on by McNamara and the generals 11 years later it all went tits-up, Nixon ended the draft, all relatively quiet on the war front, then Carter and Brzezinski funded Islamic militants in Afghanistan to harry the Russkies and ca. 20yrs later, Cheney-Bush repeat the Russian quagmire plus ça change etc" .

stan6565 , September 11, 2019 at 3:55 pm

The author is too limited in his appraisals of USA wars, and the commentariat here too polite to expand on the list of the criminal wars waged by the USA since Vietnam.

Iraq and Afghanistan were mentioned, yes, but there were also open wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, then Serbia, Grenada and Libya as well as clandestine wars against a good chunk of the globe, Israel/Palestine, Russian backyard countries, China, Venezuela, a swathe of Central American countries, and so on ad infinitum.

USA's holy grail of subjugating all oil producing countries in the world, except for those that can fight back, and purported payment to those unable to fight back, with readily printable papers of questionable value, is not a long term strategy. Not long term as in 10 or 20 more years. Then what? John Bolton or his clone on a cocktail of steroids and amphetamine, lobbing nuclear weapons indiscriminately all over the place?

The Indispensable Nation.

[Sep 10, 2019] The msm , Hollywood, etc. all sing from the same song-sheet. "USA is great", ignore all the wars they have lost, ignore the astronomical military financial expenditure (declared and hidden)

Sep 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sally Snyder | Sep 5 2019 19:04 utc | 18

The American military is advanced over both Russia and China in one sense - they have access to endless taxpayers' dollars to fund their programs, many of which are complete failures.

Ike , Sep 5 2019 19:45 utc | 23
Putin can offer Trump hyper-sonic missiles knowing he cannot accept. To accept these would display the USA's technical military inferiority for all to see. The msm , Hollywood, etc. all sing from the same song-sheet. "USA is great", ignore all the wars they have lost, ignore the astronomical military financial expenditure (declared and hidden).

Just like Reagan's star-wars program public perception is everything

[Sep 10, 2019] If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons, US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam

Sep 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Paw , says: September 10, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT

If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons , US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ..And elsewhere.

On its own population as well..

[Sep 10, 2019] Behaving like a normal country

Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Martin , Sep 10 2019 4:56 utc | 24

As newly appointed US Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, was reported to have claimed about wanting for Russia to ''behave like a normal country'', Sergey Lavrov urged for him to clarify what he means by ''normality'' during a press conference in the Russian capital; if Russia was to behave like the US, it would have had to bomb Iraq, Libya, supporting an armed, anti-constitutional coup in Kiev, and allocating millions in the interference in the affairs of other countries, as in the ''promotion of democracy'' in Russia.

Sergey Shoygu did not have much to add, but what he did add could not be clearer: Russia will probably have to remain being ''not normal''.

[Sep 10, 2019] A recurring theme in international relations and diplomacy is that dealing with the Americans is like dealing with children. Of course when the American is trying to kill you, as they a often want to do, the actions of the petulant child take on new meaning.

Notable quotes:
"... For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in the world at large. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase as applied to Russia. Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be ..."
"... I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similar phrase as applied to Russia. ..."
"... Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties, or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ted01 , Sep 10 2019 7:17 utc | 26

"...and hope an adult wins."

This can never happen. All Americans are inherently childish. They are all a product of the same environment, the same educational system and the same all pervasive 'cultural' influences. This transcends ethnic boundaries for those born in the US or those who arrived at an early age.

For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in the world at large.

A recurring theme in international relations and diplomacy is that dealing with 'the Americans' is like dealing with children. Of course when the American is trying to kill you, as they a often want to do, the actions of the petulant child take on new meaning.

Taras77 11 hours ago
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase as applied to Russia.
Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law "
Chris in Appalachia 10 hours ago
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be."

I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.

Taras77 11 hours ago
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similar phrase as applied to Russia.

Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law "

Chris in Appalachia 10 hours ago
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be."

I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.

Humboldt Octopus 7 hours ago
Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties, or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption.

This is also a thing about leftists with Trump Derangement Syndrome, who are oh-so-upset about Trump, either ignorant or lying that he's at all an aberration. The US has consistently flouted international law, waged illegal wars and staged violent coups and assassinations, and killed tens of thousands of innocents, under nearly all Presidents, including Obama.

[Sep 10, 2019] Trump has, unfortunately, shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage

Notable quotes:
"... I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Kent19 hours ago

I think it is highly unlikely Trump can pull off detente with the Chinese or anyone else before the next election. He has, unfortunately, shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage. Under what circumstance are the Chinese going to sign some agreement with him, when he might just throw out new tariffs a week later?

What are the Taliban going to agree to when the US wants to leave thousands of troops in Afghanistan?

I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this.

[Sep 09, 2019] American exceptionalism, for example, takes it for granted that we in the West are good, and therefore the East must become more like us

Sep 09, 2019 | off-guardian.org

wardropper

And we certainly must stop talking about "taking down" the Chinese, and instead actually try to understand where they come from, with their roots in a far more ancient civilized society than ours.

. But we are logically, and morally, obliged to look at this from the opposite perspective too: What if the Chinese take it for granted that they are good, and therefore the West must become more like them?

I have been to China, and found the people there to consist of the same mixtures of honest, good, nondescript, sinister and deplorable as we have here at home.

They also share exactly the same fundamental problem as we do: Their politicians and their people, like ours, are two entirely separate things. Of course the origins of Chinese, or Russian, society are different from ours, but that is no reason to despise them. Our origins are often pretty despicable too.

[Sep 09, 2019] "'The New Normal': Trump's 'China Bind' Can Be Iran's Opportunity" by Alastair Crooke, and "Who Is Holding Back the Russian Economy?" by Tom Luongo.

Notable quotes:
"... Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran. ..."
"... This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down ..."
"... [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last. ..."
"... "And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'. ..."
"... "If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)." ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Speculation's abounded about the political loyalty of the head of Russia's central bank Elvira Nabullina. Luongo simply explains:

"Nabullina has always been a controversial figure because she is western trained and because the banking system in Russia is still staffed by those who operate along IMF prescriptions on how to deal with crises.

"But those IMF rules are there to protect the IMF making the loans to the troubled nation, not to assist the troubled nation actually recover....

"The fundamental problem is a miseducation about what interest rates are, and how they interact with inflation and capital flow. Because of this, the medicine for saving an economy in trouble is, more often than not, worse than the disease itself.

"If Argentina's fourth default in twenty years doesn't prove that to you, nothing will."

It sounds like he's been reading Hudson's J is for Junk Economics !

The real rescue is Putin's aggressive de-dollarization policy that's finally rid Russia of "dollar-dependency":

"She [Nabullina] keeps jumping at the shadows of a dollar-induced crisis. But the Russian economy of 2019 is not the Russian economy of 2015. Dollar lending has all but evaporated and the major source of demand for dollars domestically are legacy corporate loans not converted to rubles or euros."

The key for me is to weave the content emphasis of Putin's Eastern Economic Conference speech with his increasing pressure on Nabullina for the bank to support this very important development policy direction and show China and other nations that Russia's extremely serious about the direction being taken. Just Putin's language about mortgage rate reductions as an attracter ought to be a huge message for Nabullina to respond properly. And a further kick in the pants was provided by the massive deal announced between China and Iran. Luongo briefly alludes to foreign policy in his article, its regional economic aspects, while omitting aspects hidden by the US-China Trade War, specifically Russia's now very clear technological supremacy to the Outlaw US Empire.

This brings us to Crooke's article in which he inadvertently tells us the #1 false assumption in Trump's Trade War policy with China:

"To defend America's technology leadership , policymakers must upgrade their toolkit to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks." [My Emphasis]

Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran.

I could write further about the supposed handcuffing of POTUS by the unconstitutional and illegal sanction regime "imposed" by the US Congress. Crooke mentions as a significant hindrance--but if it was indeed a hindrance, any POTUS could break it by suing to prove its unconstitutional, illegal standing, yet no effort is put into that, begging the question Why? Crooke spends lots of space about this but fails to see the above solution:

"The pages to that chapter have been shut. This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down , and not the 'clock' of US domestic politics. The old adage that the 'sea is always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy.

And [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last.

"And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'.

"If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)."

Being British, we should excuse Crooke for not knowing about the crucial Supremacy Clause within the US Constitution, but that doesn't absolve any POTUS if that person is really intent on talking with Iran--or any other sanctioned nation. IMO, the Iranians know what I know and have finally decided the Outlaw US Empire's marriage to Occupied Palestine won't suffer a divorce anytime soon. The result is the recent very active change in policy direction aimed at solidifying the Arc of Resistance and establishing a Persian Gulf Collective Security Pact that will end in check mating the Empire's King thus causing further economic problems for the Empire.

Crooke does a good job of summarizing my comment and many more made over the year regarding the reasons for the utter failure of Outlaw US Empire policy:

"Well, here is the key point: Washington seems to have lost the ability to summon the resources to try to fathom either China, or the Iranian 'closed book', let alone a 'Byzantine' Russia. It is a colossal attenuation of consciousness in Washington; a loss of conscious 'vitality' to the grip of some 'irrefutable logic' that allows no empathy, no outreach, to 'otherness'. Washington (and some European élites) have retreated into their 'niche' consciousness, their mental enclave, gated and protected, from having to understand – or engage – with wider human experience."

The only real way for the Outlaw US Empire to regain its competitive "niche" with the rest of the world is to mount a massive program of internal reform verging on a revolution in its outcome. It's patently obvious that more of the same will yield more of the same--FAILURE--and the chorus of inane caterwauling by BigLie Media over where to place the blame.

Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 9 2019 17:24 utc | 118

[Sep 08, 2019] The Case for Restraint Drawing the Curtain on the American Empire by Stewart M. Patrick

Notable quotes:
"... " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. ..."
"... Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ... ..."
Aug 26, 2019 | www.worldpoliticsreview.com

In a provocative new book, three scholars from the libertarian Cato Institute -- John Glaser, Christopher A. Preble and A. Trevor Thrall -- counsel the United States to abandon the pursuit of global primacy for a policy of prudence and restraint. " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. American foreign policy professionals may cast the United States as a benevolent hegemon, defending the liberal or "rules-based" international order. But this self-serving argument is hard to take seriously, they write, given the hubris, hypocrisy and coerciveness of the American imperium.

The most surprising argument in "Fuel to the Fire" is that this misguided orientation has persisted under Donald Trump. This seems counterintuitive. Washington's mandarins have recoiled in bipartisan horror as the president dismantles their handiwork and pursues his "America First" agenda. Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ...

[Sep 06, 2019] Didn't I tell you American get their reality from their Plato's Cave screens?

Sep 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Sep 5 2019 20:00 utc | 28

"Do you really think they spend $400 on a hammer?"

That line comes straight out of a movie . Didn't I tell you American get their reality from their Plato's Cave screens?

I briefly worked in a machine shop that did DoD contract work. We would buy washers by the pound from the hardware store down the street, heat seal them individually into little plastic baggies with the part number printed on them, and then sell them to the Navy for $50 each .

Yeah, the military pays $400 each, if not a good deal more, for their hammers.

[Sep 06, 2019] The Myopia of American Strategic Planning

they will spend a lot of money replicating Russian technology...
Sep 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Grieved , Sep 6 2019 2:14 utc | 103
I actually had read that news report in Tass about Putin's offer to Trump and I didn't regard it as trolling until I saw b's article. Putin's logic was that Russia had already invested the money and could make some back, and meanwhile the US could save some money and move towards a strategic parity - which I believe Russia would actually prefer over a superiority, since a stable balance is far less frantic than an arms race.

So it all made sense to me.

This has been a fun thread but it's all a nonsense here tonight of course. Pity. I liked what I was reading from Putin:

Putin told the plenary session of the fifth Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) on Thursday that at the last meeting with his American partners in Osaka, Japan "the issue was raised as to how and in what way it would be possible to count Russian modern weapons, including the hypersonic missile systems, into the common agreements, considering that so far not a single country in the world possesses these weapons, not even the US."

"I told Donald the following: "if you want, we can sell you some and this way we will balance everything out. But truth be told, they are saying that they will soon produce it themselves.

Perhaps they will, but why waste money when we already have spent some and can get something back, and at the same time not harm our security but rather create a situation where there is a balance," Putin elaborated.

G'night all.


Tonymike , Sep 5 2019 17:54 utc | 8

In reading this excellent brief analysis, I would suggest that followers read the also excellent books, Losing Military Supremacy "The Myopia of American Strategic Planning" by Andrei Martyanov and In the Shadows of the American Century "The Rise and Decline of US Global Power," by Alfred w. McCoy, to get an understanding of the minds of the Military Industrial Complex. The book by Mr. Martyanov provides examples of why the American military can't win battles against 2nd and 3rd peer adversaries (Vietnam (The American War as the Vietnamese call it), Korean War (The UN Police Action), Afghanistan War, and their future inability to win any future wars against a 1st peer adversary (Russia, China). The American military tells itself it is a great fighting force without peer but it also believes it's own press that the US military brought the German Werhmarcht to their knees, when we know the Russians won War World II. McCoy's book, which is well researched, also states the same premise but from an american perspective.

The MIC will be the downfall of the US and it the deepest of the Deep State. The 1 TRILLION dollar yearly military budget (minus the unknown Black budget) will bankrupt this country. It is also unfortunate that the noble peace prize winner Obama, authorized a Trillion dollar upgrade to the US nuclear arsenal, when he could have halved the number of warheads and still had plenty to destroy the planet a hundred times over. So much for the prince of peace.
We would also do well to stop giving other countries billions in military aid (israhell, saudi barbaria, UAE, etc) to drop bombs and snipe poor people attempting to live free. Hopefully the end is near.

PS: If you want to read a near term fictional book on the demise of the MIC and changes to the culture in America, the book "Twilight's Last Gleaming" by John Michael Greer is spellbinding and a great read. Interestingly enough, he has written over thirty books and writes about post industrial collapse and their outcomes.

steven t johnson , Sep 5 2019 20:01 utc | 29
Carriers are floating air bases for attacking weaker nations with miniscule inexperienced air forces and skimpy ground air defense. They are for force projection in wars of aggression, not general wars in defense of the nation. The only sense in which they are weaknesses is that high losses for the master race that expects easy victory are doubly shocking.

Stealth aircraft are equally first strike weapons aimed at knocking out radar, hitting enemy planes on the ground and sowing confusion. As they are not tactical aircraft such flaws as rain shadow, etc. that render them unfit combat aircraft against an enemy in the air may be irrelevant.

Missile defenses have a lousy record against missiles in flight, but the radar targeting makes them very adaptable as first strike weapons against enemy launch sites. All "antimissile" missile defense systems should be regarded as being an effort in that direction. Air defense systems that concentrate on electronic warfare, confusing the air with flak, taking down manned aircraft, camouflage, etc. are something else, unromantic but vital.

Nobody can effectively use mass drone attacks or cruise missile attacks for strategic victory, because strategic bombing does not actually work without ground attacks interdicting supplies and/or actively preventing rebuilding/reorganization. Thus it is not a meaningful failure for US air defenses to fail against Houthi air attacks. The Houthi air attacks are also not going to win the war. The inability of the Saudis to win ground loses it for them, meaning endless war is financially debilitating, plus, again, self-sacrifice is not something the Saudi monarchy can call upon.

Lastly, the Russians do no have hypersonic weapons. Even if they did, the notion that weapon systems largely useful in first strikes indicates a horrible misreading of Russia's military situation. There is no reasonable strategy for them that involves a first strike.

Bemildred , Sep 6 2019 7:23 utc | 120
Meanwhile, in reality:
WASHINGTON: Yesterday, the Army awarded two key contracts to catch up to Russia and China in the race to field battle-ready hypersonic missiles. After years of one-off experimental prototypes, the US plans to produce and field actual weapons.

Hypersonics: Army Awards $699M To Build First Missiles For A Combat Unit

Barovsky , Sep 6 2019 11:35 utc | 131
FYI:

https://southfront.org/us-army-awards-two-key-hypersonic-missile-contracts/

Originally appeared at ZeroHedge

The race for hypersonic missiles heated up last week when the US Army awarded two key contracts to catch up to Russia and China. After a decade of experimental prototypes, the Army is expected to get its hands on hypersonic missiles that will be fielded in the next four years, reported Breaking Defense.

Harry Law , Sep 6 2019 12:36 utc | 136
"Carriers are today, at least for Russia, India and China, not threats but large and juicy targets".

Gary Brecher 'the war nerd' said years ago that carriers were obsolete this article both informative and witty is a must read...

"The Chinese military has developed a ballistic missile, Dong Feng 21, specifically designed to kill US aircraft carriers: "Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes." That's the US Naval Institute talking, remember. They're understating the case when they say that, with speed, satellite guidance and maneuverability like that, "the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased."

You know why that's an understatement? Because of a short little sentence I found farther on in the article -- and before you read that sentence, I want all you trusting Pentagon groupies to promise me that you'll think hard about what it implies. Here's the sentence: "Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack." http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/

[Sep 04, 2019] US army now and then: Today s soldiers aren t too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome

Sep 04, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

VietnamVet , September 3, 2019 at 11:13 pm

This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how they got there.

Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit. Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.

[Sep 04, 2019] Veterans Mattis Spent Career Tending the Status Quo The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation? ..."
"... You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers. ..."
"... This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside. ..."
"... Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare ..."
"... "[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests." ..."
"... "By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy op-ed written by former secretary of defense James Mattis, his first public statement since his resignation in December. The article is adopted from his forthcoming book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead , out this week.

The former Pentagon chief opens a window into his decision making process, explaining that accepting President Trump's nomination was part of his lifelong devotion to public service: "When the president asks you to do something, you don't play Hamlet on the wall, wringing your hands. So long as you are prepared, you say yes." Mattis's two years at DoD capped off 44 years in the Marine Corps, where he gained a popular following as a tough and scholarly leader.

Mattis received widespread praise from the foreign policy establishment when he resigned in protest over President Trump's directive for a full U.S. military withdrawal from Syria and a partial withdrawal from Afghanistan. "When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution," he writes.

But did Mattis really offer "concrete solutions and strategic advice" regarding America's two decades of endless war? spoke with four military experts, all veterans, who painted a very different picture of the man called "Mad Dog."

"I think over time, in General Mattis's case a little over 40 years, if you spend that many years in an institution, it is extremely hard not to get institutionalized," says Gil Barndollar, military fellow-in-residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Barndollar served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps and deployed twice to Afghanistan. "In my experiences, there are not too many iconoclasts or really outside-the-box people in the higher ranks of the U.S. military."

It's just that sort of institutionalized thinking that makes the political establishment love Mattis. "[A] person with an institutional mind-set has a deep reverence for the organization he has joined and how it was built by those who came before. He understands that institutions pass down certain habits, practices and standards of excellence," wrote David Brooks in a hagiographic New York Times column .

But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation?

"The problem is, from at least the one-star the whole way through, for the last two decades, you've seen them do nothing but just repeat the status quo over and over," observes Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, who served 21 years in the U.S. Army and deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. "I mean every single general that was in charge of Afghanistan said almost the same boilerplate thing every time they came in (which was nearly one a year). You see the same results, nothing changed."

"And if those guys took someone from a major to a two-star general, we'd probably have a lot of better outcomes," he adds.

Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, agrees:

You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers.

Barndollar says: "The vast majority of military leaders, up to and including generals at the three-, four-star level, are not operating at the strategic level, in terms of what that word means in military doctrine. They're not operating at the level of massive nation-state resources and alliances and things like that. They're at the operational level or often even at the tactical level."

This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside.

The only component of national security policy Mattis discusses in his op-ed is America's system of alliances, which he believes is the key to our preeminence on the world stage. "Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together," he writes.

"Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare," counters Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who served 28 years in the U.S. Army. "He lives in denial of the technological breakthroughs that make the World War II force structure (that he as SecDef insisted on funding) an expensive tribute to the past."

Mattis muses that the Department of Defense "budget [is] larger than the GDPs of all but two dozen countries." Yet having acknowledged that disparity, how can such underpowered foreign nations possibly contribute to American security?

"He has that line in there about bringing as many guns as possible to a gun fight. What are those guns?" asked Barndollar. For example, the British Royal Navy is the United States' most significant allied naval force. But the United Kingdom has only seven vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf and they're "stretched to the absolute limit to do that."

"Our problem has been double-edged," says Davis of America's reliance on others. "On the one hand, we try to bludgeon a lot of our allies to do what we want irrespective of their interests as an asset. And then simultaneously, especially in previous administrations, we've almost gone too far [in] the other direction: 'we'll subordinate our interests for yours.'"

"[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests."

Sjursen says:

Mattis's view is the old Einstein adage: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Well that's all he's proposed. He has no new or creative solutions. For him, it's stay the course, more of the same, stay in place, fight the terrorists, maintain the illegitimate and corrupt governments that we back. That's what he's been talking about for 18 years. It's all the same interventionist dogma that's failed us over and over again since September 12, 2001.

"In the two years he was in office, what did he do that changed anything? He was a caretaker of the status quo. That's the bottom line," says Davis, adding, "you need somebody in that job especially that is willing to take some chances and some risk and is willing to honestly look at 18 consecutive years of failure and say, 'We're not doing that anymore. We're going to do something different.' And that just never happened."

Barndollar is more generous in his estimation of Mattis: "He needs to be lauded for standing for his principles, ultimately walking away when he decided he could no longer execute U.S. national security policy. I give him all the credit for that, for doing it I think in a relatively good manner, and for trying to do his best to stay above the fray and refuse to be dragged in at a partisan level to this point."

Mattis ends his Wall Street Journal op-ed by recounting a vignette from the 2010 Battle of Marjah, where he spoke with two soldiers on the front lines and in good cheer. But his story didn't sit well with Sjursen, who says it encapsulates Mattis' inability to ask the bigger questions: "He never talks about how those charming soldiers with the can-do attitude maybe shouldn't have been there at all. Maybe the mission that they were asked to do was ill-informed, ill-advised, and potentially unwinnable."

All this suggests that a fair evaluation of Mattis is as a soldier who is intelligent but unoriginal. A homegrown patriot, but one who'd like to plant the Stars and Stripes in Central Asia forever. A public servant, but one who would rather resign than serve the cause of restraint.

"By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor.

Hunter DeRensis is a reporter for The National Interest . Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis .

[Sep 04, 2019] America's-Own Ministry Of Truth Unleashes The Military To Fight Disinformation

Notable quotes:
"... The Soviets tried to police thought but it was an embarrassing failure. What makes America think they can achieve better results? ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

When "disinformation" is redefined to include all potentially polarizing stories that don't conform to the establishment narrative, reality is discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved pablum ...

... ... ...

But perhaps the worst part about all of this is that the government itself, including the Pentagon, has an extensive history of running fake social media profiles to collect data on persons of interest , including through the NSA's JTRIG information-war program revealed in the Snowden documents. Agents regularly deploy reputational attacks against dissidents using false information. Fake identities are used to cajole unsuspecting individuals into collaborating in fake FBI "terror" plots, a phenomenon which might once have been called entrapment but is merely business as usual in the post-9/11 U.S.SA.

All of this begs the question: how will DARPA determine the "intent" behind any meme or bit of information? Will they punish journalists who push fakes for the political establishment? Probably not. This is where the "impact" and "intent" fields come in handy for them: fakes from "trusted sources" will be let through, while fakes and real stories designed to "undermine key individuals and organizations" (dissent and those who seek freedom from the political class) will be terminated before they have an impact on the thoughts of others. When "disinformation" is redefined to include all potentially polarizing stories that don't conform to the establishment narrative, reality is discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved pablum.


beijing expat , 40 minutes ago link

The Soviets tried to police thought but it was an embarrassing failure. What makes America think they can achieve better results? Rather than risk the embarrassment of failure, perhaps the pentagon should simply exterminate the human population and replace us with robots programmed to consume and obey. Consume and obey. That's all they want from us. And in refusing to do so, the people have failed the ruling class.

07564111 , 39 minutes ago link

Plan B ;-)

TheFQ , 32 minutes ago link

Or GULAGS...

[Sep 04, 2019] A Debauched Culture Leads to a Debauched Foreign Policy

The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true, should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate "policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.

When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.

All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.

The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?

Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency protection initiatives. They might run up staggering debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.

It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.

While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.

As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.

Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on national conservatism with some skepticism . The retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to be conservatism.

One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.

Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.

William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University of America, and author of the new book Democracy and Imperialism .


Chris in Appalachia 21 hours ago

Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism. The two opposing teams loathe each other.

Other than that, a good analysis.

Wayne Lusvardi 19 hours ago
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.

Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position? This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers in the Exodus from Egypt.

The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out.

The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.

The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched' foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.

tweets21 12 hours ago
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms. Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
chris chuba 11 hours ago
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others"


I love this.

We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.

This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...

"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."

I could never get this out of my head.

It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.

Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.

TruthsRonin 10 hours ago
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5

"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive. Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.

The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall inherit the Earth."

Sid Finster 10 hours ago
The problem is that we are led by sociopaths.
fedupindian 10 hours ago
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted.

The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.

PAX 9 hours ago
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.

The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide (subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been doing.

NotCatholic 11 hours ago
I find it interesting the author is at Catholic u. I wonder how he feels about the Crusades or the Inquisition as an example of debauchery of power.
Joe R. 8 hours ago
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.

This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed Society is otherwise un-governable.

And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society" [J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.

If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he acts are well founded and justified by success;

still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks, where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.

(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)

Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS, 2012 Pg. 80]

Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.

LFC 8 hours ago
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?

Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry. They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.

Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."

Clyde Schechter 6 hours ago
"...in other words, a continuation of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. "

And the Clinton administration before it, and the Obama and Trump administrations following it.

Stephen J. 5 hours ago
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”

The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage

Evil reprobates in positions of power
Anything that’s good they devour
Destroying countries and families too
This is the satanic work they do

Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?

Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid
Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed
Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise
Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze

Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...

[much more info on this at link below]

http://graysinfo.blogspot.c...

[Aug 31, 2019] A few more words on neocon war propaganda

Aug 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Donald , August 31, 2019 at 8:35 am

A few more words

"Saddam Hussein has WMD's."

"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."

"Israel is just defending itself."

I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from personal experience that getting liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On the part of politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was the usual partisan tribal hypocrisy.

[Aug 27, 2019] How to Enlarge NATO The Debate inside the Clinton Administration, 1993 95

The main problem was the the USA elite after the dissolution of the USSR was hell-bent on world dominance. And Clinton was in the vanguard of this trend.
Clinton has pretty destructive, toxic legacy, is not he? He and his administration essentially acted as a short sited and greedy gangster and he sowed the teeth of dragon into US-Russia relations.
Clinton tried to exploit Russian weakness during this period to the fullest extent possible,. This is the policy similar to policy of GB toward Germany after WWI. In short Clinton was a typical imperialist from the very beginning and like all subsequent Presidents valued international treaties and obligation only when they benefited the USA. The stance that illegal bombing of Serbia only confirmed. At this point by Nuremberg standards he and all top official ion his administration and first of all Madeline not so bright Albright became war criminals. The fact they they were not prosecuted is just a historical aberration stemming from the dominant USA position at this time.
Essentially Clinton transformed NATO into aggressive alliance which is an expansion of the USA military.
Notable quotes:
"... As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement were when and how ..."
Aug 27, 2019 | www.mitpressjournals.org

Newly available sources show how the 1993–95 debate over the best means of expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization unfolded inside the Clinton administration. This evidence comes from documents recently declassified by the Clinton Presidential Library, the Defense Department, and the State Department because of appeals by the author.

As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement were when and how . The sources make apparent that, during a critical decision making period twenty-five years ago, supporters of a relatively swift conferral of full membership to a narrow range of countries outmaneuvered proponents of a slower, phased conferral of limited membership to a wide range of states.

Pleas from Central and Eastern European leaders, missteps by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and victory by the pro-expansion Republican Party in the 1994 U.S. congressional election all helped advocates of full-membership enlargement to win.

The documents also reveal the surprising impact of Ukrainian politics on this debate and the complex roles played by both Strobe Talbott, a U.S. ambassador and later deputy secretary of state, and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian foreign minister.

Finally, the sources suggest ways in which the debate's outcome remains significant for transatlantic and U.S.-Russian relations today.

... ... ...

In other words, the Bush administration performed the first “ratcheting down” of options, a process not without its costs. It raised the question, controversial to this day, of whether the Bush administration promised Moscow that, in exchange for tolerating the extension of NATO across a united Germany, the alliance would not seek further expansion eastward. Opinions on this topic range from absolutely not to absolutely yes.15

... ... ...

Without advance warning, Yeltsin decided to vent his frustrations publicly at the Budapest summit with Clinton in attendance. The Russian president accused the United States, in the interest of NATO expansion, of risking a “‘cold peace’” to follow the Cold War.108 On the flight back from Budapest to Washington, Talbott recalled that the president “was furious at his foreign-policy team for dragging him across the Atlantic to serve as a punching bag for Yeltsin.”

... ... ...

The shift in U.S. thinking unsurprisingly contributed to more tensions with Moscow, as evidenced by Talbott's subsequent negotiations. Kozyrev tried to convince Talbott that a better idea would be to transform NATO into “a collective security organization rather than a vehicle for containment” by amending the North Atlantic Treaty.122 Talbott rejected the idea, saying “no way are we going to entertain the possibility of redefining NATO in any way that compromises its basic mission.”123 Put bluntly, “We're not in the business of having to ‘compensate’ Russia or buy it off. Russia is not doing us a favor by allowing NATO to expand.”124

...Finally, interacting with the other five factors was President Clinton's increasing sympathy to the appeals of CEE leaders, which inclined him toward those aides pushing for full Article 5 expansion, and his personal optimism that Russia would eventually tolerate enlargement.

...In Perry's view, arms control—most notably, START II, which would have eliminated two-thirds of the U.S. and Russian arsenals, but never went into effect—ended up being “‘a casualty of NATO expansion’” and of fighting between the Kremlin and the Duma.139 START III suffered a similar fate, not even progressing to a signing. Looking back in 2015, Perry concluded: “The downsides of early NATO membership for Eastern European nations were even worse than I had feared.”140

.... Viewed from twenty-five years on, with U.S.-Russian confrontation on the rise, democracy crumbling in Hungary and Poland, and U.S. tanks returning to Europe, there is room for doubt. Given that the window of opportunity for changes is now firmly shut, however, NATO must make the best of the status quo; for the foreseeable future, confrontation with Russia is once again the order of the day.

[Aug 24, 2019] Putin strongly objects to the USA start of production of midrange rockets which can be used from Romania s and Poland s existing launching facilities

While this is a Russian site with specific audience, comments show that people reject the USA policy which might creates problems for the USA in the future. Not the USA neoliberal/neocon elite cares.
This decisions just had shown to the whole would that Trump is a clown capable of twitting, not much more. Other people make key decisions for the county.
Aug 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Drew Hunkins , August 23, 2019 at 13:33

off topic:

Putin's taking the gloves off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAfyftONbFY&list=LLWzo4sS343MNLWEG7VvwJ_Q&index=3&t=222s

Franz Bauer , 1 day ago

The deep state that controls the US are lying criminal psychopaths. Any agreements and treaties negotiated with them aren't worth the time or paper they are written on.

Narayana Narayana , 1 day ago

We love honourable putin's each decision because he always gives with legal proof. Love you honourable putin and Russia people. From India.

rafael albizu , 1 day ago (edited)

Super hypersonic russian rockets need just 5 minutes to hit target, & they're in Russian land, not in foreign usurped countries

Brian Ahern , 1 day ago

all.putin wants world peace but the Americans whats to tell everyone what to do and start wars what.they.sould buid a wall.around america stop them getting out

394pjo , 1 day ago (edited) div tabindex="0" role="artic

le"> We can certainly expect Poland and Romania to be targeted with Nuclear munitions at the very least. There will likely be an official Russian announcement of this fact as well. In the event of a breakout of hostilities with Nato then Russia will target the military infrastructure in both countries and vaporise them immediately. Unfortunately a very large number of Polish and Romanian civilians will be caught in the blasts. That will be tragic of course.

pulaat , 1 day ago

I live in the Netherlands and I am on the side of Russia. Europe is disgusting for not condemning the USA intentions. Eu will regret it. When bombs fall on Europe because of these incompetent leaders we will not forget.

Drew Hunkins , 1 day ago div tabindex="0" role="art

icle"> The Western public MUST, MUST become very familiar pronto with the few intellectuals, scholars, journalists, writers and authors who have been at the forefront for global peace and world justice for decades! It's our only hope! Right now the only sane voice on the national stage is Tulsi Gabbard. People must start reading: John Pilger, James Petras, Diana Johnstone, Stephen Lendman, Ray McGovern, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek, Michael Parenti, Stephen Cohen, The Saker, Caitlin Johnstone, Paul Craig Roberts.

Techno Tard , 1 day ago

Good one U.S.A. government! Lets try to instigate a fkn war where we can actually be attacked on our home land!

Luis martins , 1 day ago (edited)

tit-for-tat that was the right words from Putin

Madaleine , 1 day ago

USA a decadent nation run by global mafia . Cannot trust what they say , is proven by their actions Sold their soul to the devil for money and power. Yet they will fail God is in charge!

Drew Hunkins , 1 day ago div tabindex="0" role="articl

e"> The double standard in the West is breathtaking. It's as simple as the Golden Rule: merely try to imagine the reaction in New York, London, Washington, Paris, Chicago, Boston if Russia or China were to do the exact same thing in southern Canada or the Caribbean. The Washington military empire builders could possibly destroy humanity with their reckless and imperial behavior. They simply cannot accept any sovereign nation-states that 1.) give the finger to Wall Street or the idea of the uni-polar world Washington's intent on establishing, or 2.) gives diplomatic support to the Palestinians or is even a mild thorn in the side of Israel. For further reading, see the following scholars, intellectuals, journalists and writers: James Petras, Diana Johnstone, John Pilger, Stephen Lendman, Michael Parenti, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek and a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.

George Mavrides , 1 hour ago

US ramping up for a war before dollar collapse. However, a war against Russia and China is not one they can win.

JimmyRJump , 1 day ago (edited) div tabindex="0" role="articl

e"> Under Trump the USA are rapidly steering towards an open dictatorship, something they've been doing for years but more covertly. The USA have always been shouting the loudest about democracy and freedom but that's just a façade while they bully the world and their own people into submission. The curtain is falling faster and faster now. Oh, and ask the American Natives what the Americans do with treaties...

orderoutofchaos621 , 20 hours ago

The US does not want friendship with Russia, it seeks to either control it or destroy it. Since the first option isn't going to happen, it's obvious what's next and it'll start with more sanctions, expanding NATO into Georgia and Ukraine and placing nuclear missiles on Russia's Eastern and Western border.

Bernt Sunde , 1 day ago div class=

"comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> All it takes, is 1 single warhead fired from ex. Poland to reach Moscow. How many launchers do USA have placed in these countries near Russia? Is Moscow more than 500 KM away from any NATO border? If the enemy sets up catapults outside your city walls, isn't that a clear sign the enemy intend to fire those catapults against your walls? So what do you do? Do you sit and wait? Or do you take out the catapults before they break down your walls? As far as any strategist see this, it can be only one solution for survival.

joshron99 , 1 day ago div class="c

omment-renderer-text-content expanded"> During FDR's 'Pearl Harbor' speech he said, "It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago." There are echoes of this speech in Putin's words ( 02:18 ) and the type of treachery referred to by Roosevelt applies to the American exit from the INF. America has become a nation holding "a big stick" and loudly shouting about it (contrary to an earlier Roosevelt's advice). The White House acknowledged (and the NYT reported) that we are involved in seven wars right now (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger). We have 38 "named" foreign military bases as well as upwards of 600 overseas military installations of some sort including "lily pads," i.e., "cooperative security locations" and an undisclosed number of "black" locations. Our military budget is pushing towards a trillion dollars per year ($717 billion this year). We are threatening small countries such as Venezuela with military action (and yes, something needs to be done for the good of the people there but that should not include an American military attack which President Trump, our Secretary of State ("and his colleague") have said is "on the table." And now, we are dumping nuclear weapons treaties. We have truly become a country which "lives by the sword." Good luck to us all.

Deon Richards , 10 hours ago

Okay , so this is a broadcast of the President of Russia speaking to his security council right , this is official researched factual intel ....has to be on that level ...right . Now to the few negative responses I have come across ,what intel do you have and where did you get it...

Mad Rooky , 4 hours ago

Poland and Romania wanted to be on the safe side, but now they are getting a crosshair painted on their countries. What irony.

Drew Hunkins , 1 day ago

Instead of addressing and trying to ameliorate this most dangerous development, let's instead focus on Trump's idiotic and diversionary comments and tweets about buying Greenland or some such other nonsense.

[Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison

Highly recommended!
The problem with Trump is that everything in him is second rate. Even bulling. and many americans were aware of that and voted for him just because that thought that Hillary was worse. Much worse.
Actually Madeleine (not so bright) Albright was of the same mold... Gangster style bulling and extortion as the only Modus operandi
And Daniel Larison is correct: when Trump faces strong backlash he just declare the partner in negotiation "terrible" and walks out and try to justify his defeat ex post facto.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation. ..."
"... The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender. ..."
"... he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up. ..."
"... "Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas." ..."
"... The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price. ..."
"... "Trump has always been a lousy negotiator." ..."
"... But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself. ..."
Aug 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Michael Hirsh reminds us that Trump has always been a lousy negotiator:

Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer who interviewed him many times, agrees with Lapidus that there is no discernible difference in the way Trump negotiates today, as president, compared to his career in business. "His style involves a hostile attitude and a bullying method designed to wring every possible concession out of the other side while maximizing his own gain," D'Antonio said. "As he explained to me, he's not interested in 'win-win' deals, only in 'I win' outcomes. When I asked if he ever left anything on the table as a sign of goodwill so that he might do business with the same party in the future he said no, and pointed out that there are many people in the world he can work with, one at a time."

As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation.

The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender.

He seems particularly obsessed with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) because the trade-off inherent in any agreement made with Iran was that they would regain access to frozen assets, and he ignorantly equates this with "giving" them money. The fact that the JCPOA heavily favored the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 doesn't interest Trump. Iran was allowed to come away with something at the end, and even the little bit they were able to get is far too much for him. This is one reason he has been so closely aligned with Iran hawks over the last four years, and it helps explain why he endorses absurd, unrealistic demands and "maximum pressure" of collective punishment. He is doing more or less the same thing he has always done, and he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up.

Here is another relevant point from the article:

"Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas."

The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price.


JSC2397 8 hours ago

Pulling off that "greatest trick" was amazing easy, actually: all Trump and his creatures had to do was go on the assumption that most Americans will readily believe what they see on television. Especially when it jibes with their prejudices.
david 8 hours ago
"Trump has always been a lousy negotiator."

But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself.

Martin Ranger 6 hours ago
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it."

While I agree with pretty much all of the article, let us not forget that a majority of Americans was not, in fact, fooled.

Zsuzsi Kruska 6 hours ago
He can negotiate, but the thugs in Wash. don't want to. They are doing everything they can to start a war somewhere.
me 5 hours ago
Americans are certainly paying a price Benjamin Franklin warned about. But as for other countries, theirs is due strictly to their own doing, for relying excessively on the goodwill of America and turning a blind-eye to our imperialism. Quite frankly, up to now, US allies have been enablers.
Gary Rosenberg 5 hours ago
Add to that, " When someone hits me, I hit them back ten times harder."
This is not what we teach our children. It is a miserable way to live, or to run a country. No wonder the President is longer referred to as "the leader of the free world." He gave up that title. These are sad days.
d_hochberg 3 hours ago
Yes, he is utterly incompetent on his main selling point, his supposed skill at negotiating. It is very inconvenient having Trump as our standard-bearer.
Alan Vanneman 3 hours ago
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it."

Actually, the people who voted for Trump and who support him now love him for being a bully. That's what they want. They want a Tony Soprano as their president, a guy who will go out and beat up all the people they hate. They don't want "negotiation". They want a guy who has a baseball bat and knows how to use it. What's "interesting" is that despite all of Trump's appeals to violence, and his willingness to support violence (for example, Saudi Arabia), he largely shrinks from it himself. We've seen far fewer Tomahawks than one might have expected, particularly considering the great press he received the first time around. Will we continue to be lucky? I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic.

[Aug 22, 2019] The US Can't 'Get' Iran to 'Shut Down' Its Nuclear Program

That's how polls distort public opinion and promote militarism...
Aug 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
survey shows that most Americans don't want war with Iran. Only 18% of all American adults favor military action against Iran, and even among Republicans that number is just 25%. 78% favor economic and diplomatic efforts. That's fine as far as it goes, and it shows that there is very little support for a new war at this time. The framing of the question is the bigger problem and makes the results from the poll much less useful.

The poll asks, "What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its nuclear program -- take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts?" The question assumes that it is within our government's power to "get Iran to shut down its nuclear program," when the experience of the last twenty years tells us that it is not. The nuclear negotiations that produced the JCPOA show beyond any doubt that there are limits to what Iran is willing to concede on this point. It is good that most Americans prefer non-military options to pursue this fantastical goal, but the assumption that Iran will one day "shut down" its nuclear program is completely unrealistic. On the contrary, the more pressure that the U.S. puts on Iran in an attempt to force such a shutdown, the more inclined Iran's government is to build up its program.

If Iran's nuclear program remains peaceful, there is no need for them to shut it down. The long-term goal of the JCPOA has been to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all parties that Iran's nuclear program is and will remain peaceful, and then at that point Iran will be treated like any other member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The U.S. doesn't need to do anything to "get" Iran to do this because the goal of shutting down the program is a foolish and impossible one. Perceiving Iran's possession of a peaceful nuclear program as a problem to be solved is one of the reasons why our debate over Iran policy is so warped and biased in favor of coercive measures. The idea that Iran has to "shut down" a program that it is legally entitled to have under the NPT is bizarre, but it is obviously a common view here in the U.S.

The question is misleading in another way, since it suggests that military action could be effective in forcing Iran to "shut down" the program. In reality, attacking Iran's nuclear facilities would at most set back the program, but it would give the Iranian government a strong incentive to develop and build a deterrent that would discourage the U.S. from launching more attacks in the future. Attacking a country when it doesn't have nuclear weapons is a good way to encourage them to acquire those weapons as quickly as possible.

That makes the results to the follow-up question all the more dispiriting. The poll also asks, "Suppose U.S. economic and diplomatic efforts do not work. If that happens, do you think the United States should -- or should not -- take military action against Iran?" Once again, the question assumes that getting Iran to "shut down" its nuclear program is both a legitimate and realistic goal. If non-military measures "do not work," there is additional support for military action from a depressing 42% of those who initially favored "economic and diplomatic efforts." Put them together with the initial supporters of military action, and you have a narrow majority of all American adults that thinks the U.S. should take military action:

The 42% of those who favor military action if nonmilitary efforts fail translates to 35% of all U.S. adults. Combining that group with the 18% who favor military action outright means a slim majority of Americans, 53%, would support military action against Iran if diplomatic and economic efforts are unsuccessful.

There is a disturbingly high level of support for launching an illegal attack on another country for something it is legally permitted to have. The assumption that "economic and diplomatic efforts" will be "unsuccessful" if they don't force Iran to abandon its nuclear program helps to push respondents to give that answer, but they wouldn't endorse a military option if they hadn't been led to think that Iran's nuclear program is an intolerable danger. That is partly because of the bad framing of the questions, but it is also a product of decades of relentless propagandizing about a supposed threat from Iran's nuclear program that is completely divorced from reality. We need better poll questions on this subject, but we also need better, more informed debate about Iran and we have to stamp out the threat inflation that poisons and distorts the public's perceptions of threats from other states.

[Aug 19, 2019] Rest assured "The Great War" did not mean "The Splendid war"

Aug 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

It was the World's largest war at that time and surpassed WW II in many statistics, although probably not "tonnage of bombs dropped". That latter was WW II, not surpassed until the Gulf War when USAF used up all it's old arsenal (the better to let more contracts, my dear).
To be fair, military aviation was in its infancy then. The slaughter on the Western front broke England's Social Structure and paved the way for the destruction of the British Empire. Four other empire's died as a consequence of WW I (German, Austrian, Russian, and Turkish)
Note: "Kaiser" derives from "Caesar" which was an Imperial title of the late Roman Empire besides being Gaius Julius Caesar's family name). Promises made to both Arabs and Jews by the two-faced British Foreign Office paved the way for today's Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
It was a shattering event which tend to occur at 100 year intervals. The one previous was the Napoleonic Wars. I forget the one before that. War of the Spanish succession? And coincidentally, we are now living a hundred years later in the Middle east Forever war, which I fully expect to have similar consequences. The rights and civil liberties of free Americans are already a casualty.

The Great War set the stage for the Great Depression. I think a similar depression occurred after the War of 1812 (Napoleonic War in Europe). I'd have to consult a history text to see about others, but our 1970's economic travails were mirrored after the Civil war and the dot com bust is eerily similar to the Depression of 1890.

There is a theory that wars and revolutions occur at two cycles of approximately 100 and 170 years based on temperature and rainfall cycles. Every 500 years they coincide in a 5-3 resonance and whole civilizations fall or are transformed. Toynbee's 1000 year cycles can be seen as two such resonances. Following his analysis, the first crisis turns the civilization inwards and autocratic. The second breaks it entirely. Religions change too. I forget how. My Toynbee is packed away. does anyone here know what were the religious changes? Interestingly, the next 500 year supercycle fell in 2000 AD, so we are now in the first major crisis of Western Technical Civilization? (my name for the Renaissance and beyond, usually prosaically called "Modern"). this should turn WTC inward and autocratic, eventually dying in the next event around 2500 AD which should entire the collapse of civilization and a great folk-wandering sparked by environmental collapse. (loss of Eurasian pasture in the case of 500AD, turning steppe peoples westward (China was having a civilization peak, no way were the Huns turning east. In fact, they were expelled from China.

Ain't history fun? unless you are living it.

[Aug 19, 2019] There Once Was a President Who Hated War. American elites used to see war as a tragic necessity. Now they're completely addicted to it by Stephen M. Walt

Notable quotes:
"... Stephen M. Walt ..."
"... Steven A. Cook ..."
"... Jeffrey Lewis ..."
Aug 18, 2019 | foreignpolicy.com
A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his dog Fala are seen at the FDR Memorial September 20, 2012 in Washington, DC. KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

Along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt is often hailed as one of the United States' greatest presidents. FDR gave Americans hope during the Great Depression, created key institutions like Social Security that remain broadly popular today, led the country to victory in World War II, and created a broad political coalition that endured for decades. He made mistakes -- as all presidents do -- but it's no wonder he's still regarded with reverence.

On Aug. 14, 1936 -- 83 years ago -- FDR gave a speech at Chautauqua in upstate New York, fulfilling a promise he had made at his inauguration in 1933. It is a remarkable speech, where FDR lays out his thoughts on the proper American approach to international affairs. He explains his "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America, along with his belief that although a more liberal international trade may not prevent war, "without a more liberal international trade, war is a natural sequence."

For me, the most remarkable feature of this speech is Roosevelt's blunt, vivid, and passionate denunciation of war, expressed with a candor that is almost entirely absent from political discourse today. After making it clear that "we are not isolationists, except insofar as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war," he acknowledges that "so long as war exists on Earth, there will be some danger that even the nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war."

But then he goes on:

"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line -- the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."

Roosevelt then reminds his listeners that war can result from many causes (including, in a passage that surely speaks to us today, "political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds"). He hopes to preserve U.S. neutrality should conflict erupt elsewhere and warns against the few selfish men who would seek to embroil the country in war solely to reap war profits. To make sure the country does not foolishly choose profits over peace, he calls for the "meditation, the prayer, and the positive support of the people of America who go along with us in seeking peace."

Yet, for all that, FDR leaves no doubt that the American people will defend themselves and their interests if war is forced on them. In his closing paragraph, he declares: "If there are remoter nations that wish us not good but ill, they know that we are strong; they know that we can and will defend ourselves and defend our neighborhood." And it is precisely what Roosevelt ultimately did.

Seriously, can you think of a recent U.S. president who spoke of war and peace in similar terms, with equal passion and frankness?

Bill Clinton was no militarist, but he was so worried about being labeled a dove that he kept boosting defense spending, firing off cruise missiles without thinking, and blindly assuming that exporting democracy, expanding trade, and issuing open-ended security guarantees would suffice to bring peace around the world. And when he had a golden opportunity to broker a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, he whiffed.

By contrast, George W. Bush was a swaggering frat boy who brought wars to several places and peace nowhere. He liked to pose in a nifty flight suit and give high-minded, tough-talking speeches, but the unnecessary wars he launched killed hundreds of thousands of people and severely damaged America's global position.

Barack Obama may have agonized over every targeted killing and major military decision, but he also ramped up the drone war, sent additional troops to Afghanistan to no good purpose, helped turn Libya into a failed state, and tacitly backed the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (!), his acceptance speech focused as much on defending America's role in the world -- including its widespread use of military force -- as it did on extolling the virtues of peace and the measures that must be taken to advance it.

Ironically, though Donald Trump loves military parades, flybys, and the other visible trappings of military power, he seems rather leery of war. Like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought and received five separate deferments from the draft during Vietnam, Trump (or his father) apparently saw military service as something that only less fortunate people ought to participate in. As president, he does seem to recognize that starting some new war could hurt him politically, even as his more hawkish advisors keep pushing him in that direction. And we've yet to hear him extolling the virtues of peace as candidly as Roosevelt did in 1936.

Look, you don't have to tell a realist like me that we live in an imperfect world and that perpetual peace is a pipe dream. But the difficulty of the task is precisely why it merits serious attention. Yet instead of embracing peace as a virtue, U.S. politicians go to great lengths to show how tough they are and how ready they are to send Americans into harm's way in order to take out some alleged enemy. But how often do they talk about trying to understand the complex origins of most contemporary conflicts? How often do they try to empathize with the United States' adversaries, not in order to agree with them but so as to understand their position and to figure out a way to change their behavior without resorting to threats, coercion, or violence? How often do prominent politicians say, as Roosevelt did, that they "hate war"?

As I've said before , the U.S. disinterest in peace isn't just morally dubious; it's strategically myopic.

The United States should not shrink from fighting if such fighting is forced on it, but it should be the country's last resort rather than its first impulse. The United States is remarkably secure from most external dangers, and apart from political malfeasance at home (see: the Trump administration), the only thing that could really screw things up in the short term is a big war. War is bad for business (unless you're Boeing or Lockheed Martin), and it tends to elevate people who are good at manipulating violence but not so good at building up institutions, communities, or companies. When you're already on top of the world, encouraging the use of force isn't prudent; it's dumb. Peace, in short, is almost always in America's strategic interest.

Which makes it even more surprising that the word has mostly vanished from Americans' strategic vocabulary, and here I think two big factors are responsible. First, fewer politicians (and especially presidents) have "seen war" in the way that Roosevelt had. Harry Truman did, and so did Dwight D. Eisenhower (obviously), John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Needless to say, none of the post-Cold War presidents ever saw war in the same way.

Equally important, both the political class and the public have been imbibing an intoxicating brew of militarist rhetoric, imagery, and argument for decades. Americans cheer the troops at baseball games, wave giddily at thunderous aerial flybys, and finance all of their military adventures by borrowing money so that no one has to make obvious sacrifices now.

In Roosevelt's era, Americans were still reluctant to "go abroad in search of monsters to destroy," but they fought with unexpected ferocity when attacked. They were slow to anger but united in response. The situation today is the exact opposite -- they are quick on the trigger provided that none of them have to do very much once the bullets are flying. Instead of seeing war as a tragic necessity that is to be avoided if at all possible, Americans regard it as a rather sanitary "policy option" that takes place in countries most of them cannot locate and is conducted primarily by drones, aircraft, and volunteers. Americans fight all the time but without clear purpose or firm resolve. As one would expect, they usually lose, although others often pay a much larger price than they do.

There are faint signs that this situation is changing, after nearly 25 years of mostly failed adventures abroad. The foreign-policy elite may have acquired a certain addiction to war , but longtime addicts sometimes decide to turn their lives around and kick the habit. As noted above, Trump hasn't started any new wars yet, and his various Democratic challengers aren't pushing for more war either. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard have pretty fair ( but not perfect ) records on this broad issue, and each has been vocal in opposing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Pete Buttigieg wants the United States to rely less on military force in some places (but not others), Kamala Harris has been mostly silent on the issue, and the other leading candidates have more mixed records. Don't forget that Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War, and both Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar lean in more hawkish directions.

I'm waiting for one of them to start talking openly and intelligently about peace. What is needed to promote it, and how can the United States use its still considerable power to keep itself out of war and to help others escape its destructive clutches? If any of the 2020 candidates decide to tackle this issue head-on, they might start by reading what a great president once said, 83 years ago.

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. View
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Tags: Peace , U.S. Foreign Policy , United States , Voice , War

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Voices There Once Was a President Who Hated War Stephen M. Walt Erdogan Plays Washington Like a Fiddle Steven A. Cook A Mysterious Explosion Took Place in Russia. What Really Happened? Jeffrey Lewis ❌

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[Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Aug 17, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war, the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.

So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo, betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to the east.

Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.


Disturbed Voter , July 30, 2018 at 6:32 am

Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.

Jerri-Lynn Scofield , July 30, 2018 at 8:15 am

Here's the RNN link to part one: The Russia "National Security Crisis" is a U.S. Creation .

integer , July 30, 2018 at 7:12 am

AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about

Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder appears to have first started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.

Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains to the Clinton campaign. Putin retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.

Blue Pilgrim , July 30, 2018 at 11:39 am

The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.

Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other interests, values, and goals.

integer , July 30, 2018 at 12:03 pm

Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment. From the Russia Insider link:

Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000, not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.

JohnnyGL , July 30, 2018 at 2:54 pm

I hadn't heard about the revision/edit to the $400M, thanks!

Seems crazy to think how much Russo-phobia seems to have been ginned up by one tax-dodging hedgie with an axe to grind.

Procopius , July 31, 2018 at 1:11 am

There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.

Eureka Springs , July 30, 2018 at 7:58 am

In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media (again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies never happens again.

It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.

CenterOfGravity , July 30, 2018 at 12:52 pm

Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.

integer , July 30, 2018 at 9:28 am

we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe

Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like Greenwald's definition of the term :

"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.

Rojo , July 30, 2018 at 12:25 pm

Invoking "whataboutism" is a liberal team-Dem tell.

Amfortas the Hippie , July 30, 2018 at 2:20 pm

aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites attempting to diss apostates and heretics.

Jonathan Holland Becnel , July 30, 2018 at 8:22 pm

Eh, probably

John Oliver, whos been completely sucking lately with TDS, did a semi decent segment on Whataboutism.

Eureka Springs , July 30, 2018 at 9:52 am

The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level. That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we do.

Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?

You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?

rkka , July 30, 2018 at 9:52 am

You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has, and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?

" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and his oligarchs?"

The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semibankirschina

Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting the death of Russia.

So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.

Blue Pilgrim , July 30, 2018 at 12:17 pm

"While it's true that power corrupts"

I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation, the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money. Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.

I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.

There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.

Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.

Not every culture and person are the same.

BenX , July 30, 2018 at 3:28 pm

The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.

rkka , July 31, 2018 at 9:11 am

The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.

But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.

Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes Putin a dictator.

Plenue , July 30, 2018 at 3:54 pm

"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"

Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support this basic assumption.

The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by 20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of the rest of NATO or the US.

Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself, he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?

"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."

What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?

witters , July 31, 2018 at 1:30 am

Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian (UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.

I warn you – it is terrifying!

http://npetro.net/resources/Petro-FF+Spring+2018.pdf

Carolinian , July 30, 2018 at 8:55 am

Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.

Thye Rev Kev , July 30, 2018 at 9:04 am

It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing dragon's teeth – it never ends well.

NotTimothyGeithner , July 30, 2018 at 9:45 am

The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace" would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat" except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.

Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact. The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.

John Wright , July 30, 2018 at 11:11 am

>which is oddly not easy to locate on its site

It appeared to me that Aaron Mate knew he was dealing with a weak hand by the end of the interview.

When Mate stated "it's widely held that Putin is responsible for the killing of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him."

There are many widely held beliefs in the world, and that does not make them true.

For example, It was widely held, and still may be believed by some, that Saddam Hussein was involved in the events of 9/11.

It is widely believed that humans are not responsible, in any part, for climate change.

Mate may have been embarrassed when he saw the final version and as a courtesy to him, the interview was made more difficult to find.

pretzelattack , July 30, 2018 at 11:35 am

iirc he didn't say it was true.

Elizabeth Burton , July 30, 2018 at 7:18 pm

The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of the native population. Your comparison is invalid.

vato , July 31, 2018 at 3:37 am

"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion of Nato was a fault and against international law!

Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?

ewmayer , July 31, 2018 at 6:05 pm

"Somebody called it Trump derangement syndrome."

I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].

Symptoms include:

o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example, the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;

o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people, spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer Brennan;

o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican patriots";

o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.

[Aug 17, 2019] Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome (PTDS)

Highly recommended!
Aug 17, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

ewmayer , July 31, 2018 at 6:05 pm

"Somebody called it Trump derangement syndrome."

I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].

Symptoms include:

[Aug 16, 2019] Two key questions facing the nation is the unchecked power of MIC and financial oligarchy. Unless they are tamed the USA will follow the road of the USSR sooner or later

Notable quotes:
"... The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in their denunciations of whites in general by the hour. ..."
Aug 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

swamped , says: August 16, 2019 at 8:20 am GMT

"the Great Arsenal of Democracy was looted by" the military-industrial complex Arsenal & it's unending wars & nothing short of nuclear annihilation is going to change that. There is no Democrat who is willing to bet their chance at the presidency on pulling it down.

And the American public, by and large, is put to sleep by lengthy discussions of the intricacies of trade policy.

The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in their denunciations of whites in general by the hour.

There's no telling where it all may lead but it's becoming clearer day by day that the hostility will outlast the primaries & the general election will be a very ugly affair. There's no turning back to the soothing center now, it will be an us-vs.-them type election & hopefully, Pat Buchanan, still America's shrewdest pundit, will keep us fully apprised.

[Aug 06, 2019] The Declining Empire Of Chaos Is Going Nuts Over Iran

Notable quotes:
"... Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. ..."
"... As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".) ..."
"... Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker. ..."
"... With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals. ..."
"... These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict. ..."
"... The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias. ..."
"... In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies. ..."
"... Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces. ..."
"... An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake. ..."
"... With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. ..."
"... Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran. ..."
Aug 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d'etat supported and funded by NATO and involving extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe's inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine's destabilization, only to get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.

With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.

Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves. The Russians also ensured control of the skies through their network of Pantsir-S1, Pantsir-S2, S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems, together with their impressive jamming (Krasukha-4), command and control information management system (Strelets C4ISR System) and electronic-warfare technologies (1RL257 Krasukha-4).

As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".)

Since Trump became president, the rhetoric of war has soared considerably, even as the awareness remains that any new conflict would sink Trump's chances of re-election. Despite this, Trump's bombings in Syria were real and potentially very harmful to the Syrian state. Nevertheless, they were foiled by Russia's electronic-warfare capability, which was able to send veering away from their intended target more than 70% of the latest-generation missiles launched by the British, French, Americans and Israelis.

One of the most terrifying moments for the future of humanity came a few months later when Trump started hurling threats and abuses at Kim Jong-un , threatening to reduce Pyongyang to ashes. Trump, moreover, delivered his fiery threats in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker.

With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.

The difference between the case of Iran and the aforementioned cases of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea is precisely the direct involvement of these two lobbies in the decision-making process underway in the US.

These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict.

What readers can be assured of is that in the cases of Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and Iran, the US is unable to militarily impose its geopolitical or economic will.

The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias.

In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies.

In North Korea, the country's tactical and strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence discourages any missile attack. Any overland attack is out of the question, given the high number of active as well as reserve personnel in the DPRK army. If the US struggled to control a completely defeated Iraq in 2003, how much more difficult would be to deal with a country with a resilient population that is indisposed to bowing to the US? The 2003 Iraq campaign would really be a "cakewalk" in comparison. Another reason why a missile attack on North Korea is impossible is because of the conventional power that Pyongyang possesses in the form of tens of thousands of missiles and artillery pieces that could easily reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. This would then lead to a war between the US and the DPRK being fought on the Korean Peninsula. Moon Jae-in, like Merkel and Sarkozy in the case of Ukraine, did everything in his power to prevent such a devastating conflict.

Concerning tensions between the US and Iran and the resulting threats of war, these should be taken as bluster and bluff. America's European allies are heavily involved in Iran and depend on the Middle East for their oil and gas imports. A US war against Iran would have devastating consequences for the world economy, with the Europeans seeing their imports halved or reduced. As Professor Chossudovsky of the strategic think tank Global Research has so ably argued , an attack on Iran is unsustainable, as the oil sectors of the UAE and Saudi Arabia would be hit and shut down. Exports would instantly end after the pipelines going West are bombed by the Houthis and the Strait of Hormuz closed. The economies of these two countries would implode and their ruling class wiped out by internal revolts. The state of Israel as well as US bases in the region would see themselves overwhelmed with missiles coming from Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Iran. The Tel Aviv government would last a few hours before capitulating under the pressure of its own citizens, who, like the Europeans, are unused to suffering war at home.

Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces.

An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake.

With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. And finally, US military planners do not intend to suffer a humiliating defeat in Iran that would reveal the extent to which US military power is based on propaganda built over the years through Hollywood movies and wars successfully executed against relatively defenceless countries. Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is telling that Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh have to resort to numerous but ultimately useless provocations against Iran, as they can only rely on hybrid attacks in order to economically isolate it from the rest of the world.

Paradoxically, this strategy has had devastating consequences for the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency together with the SWIFT system. In today's multipolar environment, acting in such an imperious manner leads to the acceleration of de-dollarization as a way of circumventing sanctions and bans imposed by the US.

A reserve currency is used to facilitate transactions. If the disadvantages come to exceed the benefits, it will progressively be used less and less, until it is replaced by a basket of currencies that more closely reflect the multipolar geopolitical reality.

The warmongers in Washington are exasperated by their continuing inability to curb the resilience and resistance of the people in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Donbass, countries and regions understood by the healthy part of the globe as representing the axis of resistance to US Imperialism.


Batman11 , 14 minutes ago link

A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis Fukuyama said it was the end of history.

That didn't last long, did it?

The US came up with a great plan for an open, globalised world.

China went from almost nothing to become a global superpower.

It was a great plan for China, which is now the problem for the US.

Batman11 , 24 minutes ago link

The cry of US elites can be heard across the world.

Mummy.

What's gone wrong?

I am used to always getting my own way.

Thought.Adjuster , 55 minutes ago link

If Folks would just accept a unipolar World, we could all live together in peace.

ZeroPorridge , 6 minutes ago link

Monopoly means utter slavery.

Like in a living body, each cells on their own, grouped by function, none really being the boss of the rest.

uhland62 , 1 hour ago link

America must always threaten someone with war. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia, so many to choose from.

Conflicts must never be resolved; they must always kept simmering, so a hot war can be triggered quickly. All Presidents are turned in the first three months after sworn in.

Jazzman , 1 hour ago link

Without required air superiority they are what? Say it! Say it loud!

Dude-dude , 49 minutes ago link

It's what happens as empires mature. Governance becomes bloated, corrupt and inept (often leading to wars). Maturity time has become significantly reduced due to the rate of information technology advance. America is five years away from going insolvent according to most models and forecasts. All new debt after 2024 will be used to pay the interest on existing debts and liabilities. There is simply no stopping it. The US already pays close to 500 billion in annual interest on debts and liabilities. Factor in a 600 billion or 700 billion dollar annual military budget, and unrestrained deficit spending clocking in at over a trillion, and, well, it isn't going to work for long. Considering most new well paying jobs are government jobs... The end is either full socialism / fascism (folks still don't get how similar these are), a currency crisis and panic, depression and institutional deterioration. The only good news to libertarians I guess - if you can call it good - is that the blotted government along with the crony corporations will mostly and eventually collapse. Libertarian governance might not be a choice by an electorate, it might simply become fact in the aftermath.

-- ALIEN -- , 3 hours ago link

As the falling EROEI of oil gets worse; countries will collapse... It's all downhill from here

...what few are left.

Lokiban , 3 hours ago link

I guess Trump eventually will understand this lesson in politics that friendship, mutual respect and helping each other accomplishes way way more then threatening countries to be bombed back into the stoneage.
Noone likes to do a cutthroat deal enforced upon them by thuggery. Trump's got to learn that you can't run politics like you do your bussinesses, it's not working unles that was his plan all this time, to destroy America.

NumbersUsa , 3 hours ago link

"The Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.

These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict."

Excellent and Factual points! Thank You!

Scaliger , 3 hours ago link

https://www.jta.org/2019/07/01/united-states/the-israel-projects-ceo-is-leaving-amid-advocacy-groups-fundraising-difficulties

Minamoto , 3 hours ago link

America is increasingly looking like Ancient Rome towards the end. It is overstretched, nearly insolvent, fewer allies want to be allies, it's population is sick, physically and mentally. Obesity, diabetes, drug use/addiction make it impossible for the Pentagon to meet recruitment goal. Mental illness causes daily mass killing. The education system is so broken/broke that there is little real education being done. Americans are among the most ignorant, least educated and least educate-able people in the developed world.

Militarily, the USA can bomb but that's about it... defeats upon defeats over the past two decades demonstrate the US military is a paper tiger of astonishing incompetence.

Boeing can't make planes anymore. Lockheed is not much better. Parts of the F-35 are made by Chinese subsidiaries. The most recently built aircraft carrier cannot launch fighter jets.

-- ALIEN -- , 3 hours ago link

We gots NASCAR, big trucks, free TV, fast food, and endless ****.

Go 'Merica!

Justin Case , 2 hours ago link

Recent estimates indicate that more than 550,000 people experience homelessness in the US on any given night, with about two-thirds ending up in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, and one-third finding their way to unsheltered locations like parks, vehicles, and metro stations. According to the Urban Institute, about 25% of homeless people have jobs.

I find that it is difficult for me to wrap my head around pain and suffering on such an immense scale. Americans often think of the homeless as drug-addicted men that don't want to work, but the truth is that about a quarter of the homeless population is made up of children.

foxenburg , 2 hours ago link

Seriously, why would Iran want to hijack a German ship? Iran took the UK one in retaliation for the Brits seizing the one at Gibraltar. Had that not happened, no Brit ships in the Persian Gulf would have been touched. This is all a carefully engineered USA provocation designed to, inter alia, increase tension in the Persian Gulf, put more nails in coffin of JCPOA...and most importantly give UK an excuse, as remaining signatory, to call for the original UN sanctions on Iran to be snapped-back.

terrific , 4 hours ago link

Federico, let me explain it simply: the U.S. is allied with Israel, and Iran hates Israel. Why, I don't know (nor do I care), but that's why the U.S. needs to keep Iran in check.

Grouchy-Bear , 4 hours ago link

You are confused...

Israel hates Iran and it is Israel that needs to be kept in check...

CatInTheHat , 4 hours ago link

Yet CONGRESS just passed the largest defense bill in history. The WAR industry is bankrupting us financially spiritually and morally.

A war is coming. But upon whom this time (or STILL?), because with President Bolton and Vice President Adelson in power, China Iran or Russia or maybe all three, are open options.

Ofelas , 4 hours ago link

Interview with a Russian I saw 2 years ago "USA wants to create local conflicts on foreign shores, ...on our borders, we will not allow that to happen and make the war international" I will translate: Russia will not be pulled in to some stupid small war draining their resources while the US sits comfortable, they will throw their missiles around - no escape from nuclear winter.

libtears , 3 hours ago link

Us pays more in interest than defense spending now. You'll need to factor that into your predictions

UBrexitUPay4it , 3 hours ago link

If spending has reached the limit now, during peacetime....what will happen during a protracted war? Even if it stays conventional, it would appear that a huge war effort, comparable to WWII, just won't be possible. The US seems to be in a pre-war Britain position, but there isn't a friendly giant across the water to bail them out with both cash and resources.

Either things become insane in fairly short order, or wiser heads will prevail and the US will step back from the brink. Do we have any wiser heads at the moment?

I keep seeing John Bolton's moustache, Andi am not filled with confidence.

[Aug 06, 2019] The Military-Industrial Jobs Scam naked capitalism

Aug 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. This is a very important post, documenting how despite defense contractor claims to the contrary, increased military spending has been accompanied by job losses in the US. This should come as no surprise. Military contracting is an exercise in pork, and regularly flagrantly disregards national security. A classic example: US uniforms and boots are made in China.

Another example of the benefits of military pork going outside the US was the use of contractors during the war in Iraq. From a 2007 Vanity Fair story:

In one place the job of laundering soldiers' uniforms, for example, might be performed by a company working directly for KBR. But in another a subcontractor will have sub-subcontracted the work to someone else, and sometimes even sub-sub-sub-subcontracted it. "I've come across examples where you get down four or five levels," says a government auditor who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There's the U.S. prime, the subcontractor from the Middle East, then a sub-subcontractor from Pakistan, then a shell corporation with a box number in Michigan, and finally the Iraqis who're actually doing the work -- for next to nothing."

This system has created great difficulties for anyone attempting to oversee the process on behalf of American taxpayers. It has also substantially increased the overall costs of the war by creating the conditions for obscene markups between contract levels. "There is an enormous need to get a closer handle on the detail in the field," says the auditor. "If you go ask one of the inspectors general, 'Tell me about the subcontracts,' they can't tell you anything. It's a black hole. What this means for oversight, and basic issues of fairness, is that there is none."

On top of that, inflating the number of people tasked to an activity was routine, and the article has first hand accounts from individuals who tried opposing the practice.

In other words, the contracting fraud results in US taxpayers paying way more than it would have cost for US personnel to do the work with the added insult that the tasks were performed by locals for a pittance.

By Nia Harris, a Research Associate at the Center for International Policy, Cassandra Stimpson, a Research Associate at the Center for International Policy and Ben Freeman, Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy and Co-Chair of its Sustainable Defense Task Force. Originally published at TomDispatch

A Marilyn has once again seduced a president. This time, though, it's not a movie star ; it's Marillyn Hewson, the head of Lockheed Martin, the nation's top defense contractor and the largest weapons producer in the world. In the last month, Donald Trump and Hewson have seemed inseparable. They " saved " jobs at a helicopter plant. They took the stage together at a Lockheed subsidiary in Milwaukee. The president vetoed three bills that would have blocked the arms sales of Lockheed (and other companies) to Saudi Arabia. Recently, the president's daughter Ivanka even toured a Lockheed space facility with Hewson.

On July 15th, the official White House Twitter account tweeted a video of the Lockheed CEO extolling the virtues of the company's THAAD missile defense system, claiming that it "supports 25,000 American workers." Not only was Hewson promoting her company's product, but she was making her pitch -- with the weapon in the background -- on the White House lawn. Twitter immediately burst with outrage over the White House posting an ad for a private company, with some calling it "unethical" and "likely unlawful."

None of this, however, was really out of the ordinary as the Trump administration has stopped at nothing to push the argument that job creation is justification enough for supporting weapons manufacturers to the hilt. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, he was already insisting that military spending was a great jobs creator. He's only doubled down on this assertion during his presidency. Recently, overriding congressional objections, he even declared a national "emergency" to force through part of an arms sale to Saudi Arabia that he had once claimed would create more than a million jobs. While this claim has been thoroughly debunked , the most essential part of his argument -- that more money flowing to defense contractors will create significant numbers of new jobs -- is considered truth personified by many in the defense industry, especially Marillyn Hewson.

The facts tell a different story.

Lockheed Locks Down Taxpayer Dollars, While Cutting American Jobs

To test Trump's and Hewson's argument, we asked a simple question: When contractors receive more taxpayer money, do they generally create more jobs? To answer it, we analyzed the reports of major defense contractors filed annually with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ). Among other things, these reveal the total number of people employed by a firm and the salary of its chief executive officer. We then compared those figures to the federal tax dollars each company received, according to the Federal Procurement Data System, which measures the "dollars obligated," or funds, the government awards company by company.

We focused on the top five Pentagon defense contractors, the very heartland of the military-industrial complex, for the years 2012 to 2018. As it happened, 2012 was a pivotal year because the Budget Control Act (BCA) first went into effect then, establishing caps on how much money could be spent by Congress and mandating cuts to defense spending through 2021. Those caps were never fully adhered to. Ultimately, in fact, the Pentagon will receive significantly more money in the BCA decade than in the prior one, a period when the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were at their heights.

In 2012, concerned that those caps on defense spending would cut into their bottom lines, the five top contractors went on the political offensive, making future jobs their weapon of choice. After the Budget Control Act passed, the Aerospace Industries Association -- the leading trade group of the weapons-makers -- warned that more than one million jobs would be at risk if Pentagon spending were cut significantly. To emphasize the point, Lockheed sent layoff notices to 123,000 employees just before the BCA was implemented and only days before the 2012 election. Those layoffs never actually happened, but the fear of lost jobs would prove real indeed and would last.

Consider it mission accomplished, since Pentagon spending was actually higher in 2018 than in 2012 and Lockheed received a sizeable chunk of that cash infusion. From 2012 to 2018, among government contractors, that company would, in fact, be the top recipient of taxpayer dollars every single year, those funds reaching their zenith in 2017, as it raked in more than $50.6 billion federal dollars. By contrast, in 2012, when Lockheed was threatening its employees with mass layoffs , the firm received nearly $37 billion .

So what did Lockheed do with those additional $13 billion taxpayer dollars? It would be reasonable to assume that it used some of that windfall (like those of previous years) to invest in growing its workforce. If you came to that conclusion, however, you would be sorely mistaken. From 2012 to 2018, overall employment at Lockheed actually fell from 120,000 to 105,000 , according to the firm's filings with the SEC and the company itself reported a slightly larger reduction of 16,350 jobs in the U.S. In other words, in the last six years Lockheed dramatically reduced its U.S. workforce, even as it hired more employees abroad and received more taxpayer dollars.

So where is all that additional taxpayer money actually going, if not job creation? At least part of the answer is contractor profits and soaring CEO salaries. In those six years, Lockheed's stock price rose from $82 at the beginning of 2012 to $305 at the end of 2018, a nearly four-fold increase. In 2018 , the company also reported a 9% ($590 million) rise in its profits, the best in the industry. And in those same years, the salary of its CEO increased by $1.4 million, again according to its SEC filings .

In short, since 2012 the number of taxpayer dollars going to Lockheed has expanded by billions, the value of its stock has nearly quadrupled, and its CEO's salary went up 32%, even as it cut 14% of its American work force. Yet Lockheed continues to use job creation, as well as its employees' present jobs, as political pawns to get yet more taxpayer money. The president himself has bought into the ruse in his race to funnel ever more money to the Pentagon and promote arms deals to countries like Saudi Arabia, even over the nearly unified objections of an otherwise incredibly divided Congress.

Lockheed Is the Norm, Not the Exception

Despite being this country's and the world's top weapons maker, Lockheed isn't the exception but the norm. From 2012 to 2018, the unemployment rate in the U.S. plummeted from roughly 8% to 4%, with more than 13 million new jobs added to the economy. Yet, in those same years, three of the five top defense contractors slashed jobs. In 2018, the Pentagon committed approximately $118 billion in federal money to those firms, including Lockheed -- nearly half of all the money it spent on contractors. This was almost $12 billion more than they had received in 2012 . Yet, cumulatively, those companies lost jobs and now employ a total of 6,900 fewer employees than they did in 2012, according to their SEC filings .

In addition to the reductions at Lockheed, Boeing slashed 21,400 jobs and Raytheon cut 800 employees from its payroll. Only General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman added jobs -- 13,400 and 16,900 employees, respectively -- making that total figure look modestly better. However, even those "gains" can't qualify as job creation in the normal sense, since they resulted almost entirely from the fact that each of those companies bought another Pentagon contractor and added its employees to its own payroll. CSRA, which General Dynamics acquired in 2018, had 18,500 employees before the merger, while Orbital ATK, which General Dynamics acquired last year, had 13,900 employees. Subtract these 32,400 jobs from the corporate totals and job losses at the firms become staggering.

In addition, those employment figures include all company employees, even those now working outside the U.S. Lockheed is the only top five Pentagon contractor that provides information on the percentage of its employees in the U.S., so if the other firms are shipping jobs overseas, as Lockheed has done and as Raytheon is planning to do, far more than 6,900 full-time jobs in the U.S. have been lost in the last six years.

Where, then, did all that job-creation money really go? Just as at Lockheed, at least part of the answer is that the money went to the bottom-line and to top executives. According to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consulting firm that provides annual analyses of the defense industry, "the aerospace and defense (A&D) sector scored record revenues and profits in 2018" with an "operating profit of $81 billion, surpassing the previous record set in 2017." According to the report, Pentagon contractors were at the forefront of these profit gains. For example, Lockheed's profit improvement was $590 million, followed closely by General Dynamics at $562 million. As employment shrank, CEO salaries at some of these firms only grew. In addition to compensation for Lockheed's CEO jumping from $4.2 million in 2012 to $5.6 million in 2018, compensation for the CEO of General Dynamics increased from $6.9 million in 2012 to a whopping $20.7 million in 2018.

Perpetuating the Same Old Story

This is hardly the first time that these companies have extolled their ability to create jobs while cutting them. As Ben Freeman previously documented for the Project On Government Oversight, these very same firms cut almost 10% of their workforce in the six years before the BCA came into effect, even as taxpayer dollars heading their way annually jumped by nearly 25% from $91 billion to $113 billion.

Just as then, the contractors and their advocates -- and there are many of them, given that the weapons-making outfits spend more than $100 million on lobbying yearly, donate tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of members of Congress every election season, and give millions to think tanks annually -- will rush to defend such job losses. They will, for instance, note that defense spending leads to job growth among the subcontractors used by the major weapons firms. Yet research has repeatedly shown that, even with this supposed "multiplier effect," defense spending produces fewer jobs than just about anything else the government puts our money into. In fact, it's about 50% less effective at creating jobs than if taxpayers were simply allowed to keep their money and use it as they wished.

As Brown University's Costs of War project has reported , "$1 billion in military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs, compared with 26,700 in education, 16,800 in clean energy, and 17,200 in health care." Military spending actually proved to be the worst job creator of any federal government spending option those researchers analyzed. Similarly, according to a report by Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for every $1 million of spending on defense, 6.9 jobs are created both directly in defense industries and in the supply chain. Spending the same amount in the fields of wind or solar energy, she notes, leads to 8.4 or 9.5 jobs, respectively. As for the education sector, the same amount of money produced 19.2 jobs in primary and secondary education and 11.2 jobs in higher education. In other words, not only are the green energy and education areas vital to the future of the country, they are also genuine job-creating machines. Yet, the government gives more taxpayer dollars to the defense industry than all these other government functions combined .

You don't, however, have to turn to critics of defense spending to make the case. Reports from the industry's own trade association show that it has been shedding jobs. According to an Aerospace Industries Association analysis , it supported approximately 300,000 fewer jobs in 2018 than it had reported supporting just three years earlier.

If the nation's top defense contractor and the industry as a whole have been shedding jobs, how have they been able to consistently and effectively perpetuate the myth that they are engines of job creation? To explain this, add to their army of lobbyists, their treasure trove of campaign contributions, and those think tanks on the take, the famed revolving door that sends retired government officials into the world of the weapons makers and those working for them to Washington.

While there has always been a cozy relationship between the Pentagon and the defense industry, the lines between contractors and the government have blurred far more radically in the Trump years. Mark Esper, the newly minted secretary of defense, for example, previously worked as Raytheon's top lobbyist in Washington. Spinning the other way, the present head of the Aerospace Industries Association, Eric Fanning , had been both secretary of the Army and acting secretary of the Air Force. In fact, since 2008, as the Project On Government Oversight's Mandy Smithberger found , "at least 380 high-ranking Department of Defense officials and military officers shifted into the private sector to become lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for defense contractors."

Whatever the spin, whether of that revolving door or of the defense industry's publicists, the bottom line couldn't be clearer: if job creation is your metric of choice, Pentagon contractors are a bad taxpayer investment. So whenever Marillyn Hewson or any other CEO in the military-industrial complex claims that spending yet more taxpayer dollars on defense contractors will give a jobs break to Americans, just remember their track record so far: ever more dollars invested means ever fewer Americans employed.


JBird4049 , August 5, 2019 at 1:01 am

I seem to recall reading repeatedly that half of the American combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were private contractors hired by such upstanding companies like Blackwater as well as much, or perhaps mostly, were the staffing in such as cooks, janitors, even drivers. Workers doing gig work in a war zone.

The American government got to use statistical legerdemain to cut the number of Americans fighting, dying, and being injured, which means that the official numbers of American military casualties is a lie, but it played well in the "news" stories sound bites.

The funds to pay for the hidden forces were used to pay the inflated contracts with the money often going more to companies' profits than in paying the workers. Sometimes, as in the case of the "retired" combat veterans, the pay was very, very good, but too often it was chump pay especially as the wounded did not qualify for the benefits of the military such as long term medical care or disability payments. This last bit also reduces the long term costs of the wars for the government as any help that they might get would be something like Social Security.

There are probably a fair number of disabled Americans wasting away from their unofficial military service without any of the support, problematic as it is sometimes, that the military veterans get. Then there are the lack of survivors benefits.

And yes, many people took those jobs because they were none to be had that paid the bills, but the companies made bank.

sd , August 5, 2019 at 3:01 am

To be clear, it wasn't combat troops. It was logistics support which was contracted out to Halliburton under LOGCAP. Halliburton in turn used a subsidiary and subbed it out further. USAID and various "reconstruction" contracts further inflated the number of contractors.

The significance of participating in the "Coalition" of nations was that their citizens would not be considered mercenaries under UN agreements. Hence everyone jumping on board for a piece of the pie.

JCC , August 5, 2019 at 9:39 am

True, the vast majority were logistical support personnel. I was one of them, IT services.

The layers were 3 to 5 deep, everything from laundry services and kitchen people from Pakistan and electricians and carpenters from the Philippines. KBR made bank while paying these people squat. And not only was KBR/Haliburton getting rich over over there, they failed to deliver on many of the services they were paid to provide.

Oh the stories I could tell. I learned the true meaning of War Profiteering courtesy of companies like KBR.

The Rev Kev , August 5, 2019 at 9:56 am

Then I suppose that the contents of this old 2010 article would be no surprise to you-

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/09/arianna-huffington/halliburton-kbr-and-iraq-war-contracting-history-s/

JCC , August 5, 2019 at 10:49 am

I thought about doing a list of just what I saw, including the illegal billed for "force protection" mentioned in this article:

In April 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil fraud case against KBR over the issue of using private security forces in Iraq to protect its workers and subcontractors. Private security wasn't allowed under the LOGCAP contract because the U.S. military was supposed to provide protection.

Not only did Haliburton/KBR bill for it, they never provided it, at least not at the largest post there, Balad Air Base.

This article is a decent summary of the big picture, on the ground level it looked a lot worse, including costing some their lives as a direct result of incompetence and worse.

Oh , August 5, 2019 at 6:49 pm

A small biz without Cheney connections would have been nailed to the wall with the management going to prison for a crime like this.

David in Santa Cruz , August 5, 2019 at 1:20 am

This used to be called the "self-licking ice cream cone." These people have no morals, and don't care about anyone but themselves. They are merchants of death.

Off The Street , August 5, 2019 at 10:39 am

That sweet tooth got extended once the perps could brag about drinking your milkshake . Strange how they didn't get any cavities but the rest of the populace did.

skippy , August 5, 2019 at 4:05 am

Sniff I remember all the Bush Jr years of buddies getting sweetheart contracts and doing nada besides shuffling some papers .

Joe Well , August 5, 2019 at 10:14 am

>>A classic example: US uniforms and boots are made in China.

New Balance, the sneaker company with a small but significant US manufacturing capability, has been protesting this vociferously for years.

After the most recent presidential election, one of their executives told a trade publication that they were still optimistic for the future (what else were they supposed to say?) and said specifically that they were hopeful that the new administration would enforce Made-in-USA rules more forcefully (which they had been saying like a mantra forever).

And you can probably guess what happened. There was a Twitter storm of people burning New Balance sneakers. The Intercept columnist Sean King put New Balance on a list of companies to boycott.

And that is how this particular scam-laden military empire perpetuates itself: with a fake opposition stuffed with scams of its own. How much do you wanna bet that the current holders of said military contracts were astroturfing this opposition?

shinola , August 5, 2019 at 10:14 am

From the article:
As Brown University's Costs of War project has reported, "$1 billion in military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs, compared with 26,700 in education "
This implies that a job in the MIC sector making WMD pays nearly 2.4x more than a job educating our children. What's wrong with this picture?

Trump throws billion$ more into the "defense" budget than was requested. MIC related stock prices seem to be doing rather well. Mr. President, what's in your portfolio?

Eugene , August 5, 2019 at 12:23 pm

At least we get to voice our concerns – free speech – guaranteed so far, but that's all. One day, the Ponzi will collapse, probably sooner than we think. And who will get blamed? None other then the POTUS, but he'll escape any legal hassle's because he'll be diagnosed with the dreaded "DEMENTIA". Where have we heard that before.

[Aug 06, 2019] Congress Spending Surge is National Suicide by Ron Paul

Aug 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

With a national debt approaching $23 trillion and a trillion dollar deficit for this year alone, Congress last week decided to double down on suicidal spending, passing a two year budget that has the United States careening toward catastrophe. While we cannot say precisely when the economic crash will occur, we do know that it is coming. And last week Congress pounded down on the accelerator.

We are told that the US economy is experiencing unprecedented growth, while at the same time the Fed is behaving as it does when we are in recession by cutting rates and dodging insults from the President because it's not cutting fast enough. This is not economic policy – it's schizophrenia!

But that's only the beginning.

Take what they call "national defense" spending. This is the misnomer they use to try and convince us that pumping trillions into the military-industrial complex will make us safe and free. Nothing could be further from the truth: probably ninety percent of the "defense" budget is aggressive militarism and welfare for the rich.

Under this budget deal the military budget would increase to nearly $1.4 trillion for two years. Of course that's only a fraction of real military spending, which is, all told, well over one trillion dollars per year.

What do we get for this money? Are we safer? Not at all. We are more vulnerable than ever. We spend billions fighting "terrorism" in Africa while terrorism has actually increased since the creation of the US Africa Command – "AFRICOM" – in 2007. Meanwhile we continue to spend to maintain our illegal military occupation of a large section of Syria – which benefits terrorist groups seeking to overthrow Assad.

We're sending thousands more troops to the Middle East including basing US troops in Saudi Arabia for the first time since 2003. Back then, even neocon Paul Wolfowitz praised our departure from Saudi Arabia because, as he rightly stated, US troops on Saudi soil was a great recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.

Now we've pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty so that we can deploy once-forbidden missiles on China's front door. A new arms race with China will mean a new boon for our new Defense Secretary's former colleagues at Raytheon!

[Aug 05, 2019] Don t Underestimate Iran s Ability to Fight a Bloody War

Aug 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Don't Underestimate Iran's Ability to Fight a Bloody War They already proved themselves against Iraq during the 1980s -- and they're far stronger today. By Pouya Alimagham August 6, 2019

Circa 1980's; an Iranian soldier wearing gas mask during Iran-Iraq War. Iraq used chemical weapons against military and civilian targets throughout the eight year war. Declassified reports indicate that Saddam Hussein had international assistance in obtaining the weapons, including from the U.S. and U.K, and the CIA assisted in targeting. (Creative Commons/Wikipedia) On July 29, President Trump tweeted: "Just remember, Iranians never won a war, but never lost a negotiation." In just 12 words, Trump leveled a multi-layered, ahistorical insult against both his predecessor, Barack Obama, and Iran.

More importantly, the remarks betray a dangerously ignorant understanding of Iran that could result in another careless Middle East war of choice.

The tweet invokes a clichéd, colonial-era stereotype that Iranians, like other Middle Eastern peoples, are wily swindlers -- rapacious, greedy bazaar merchants who aim to take advantage of honest and unsuspecting Westerners. Trump is hardly the first American leader to dabble in such denigrating stereotypes. Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official and former lead negotiator who helped forge the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, infamously quipped that Iranians could not be trusted because they have "deception in their DNA."

The president deployed the stereotype of Iranian cunning to imply that they tricked a naïve president, Barack Obama, into signing a flawed nuclear deal. According to the world's foremost nuclear security experts , however, the accord was ensuring Iran's compliance, thereby preventing a nuclear weapons program -- that is, until Trump subverted the agreement in 2018.

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More importantly, Trump's words underscore the idea that Iranians are cowardly and militarily ineffectual, but make up for such unflattering character flaws by swindling their foes during negotiations to achieve victory.

Iran's last war, however, should dispel any notion of cowardice and military weakness -- a history President Trump and anti-Iran hawks like National Security Adviser John Bolton must face with clear eyes if the United States is to avoid another needless, catastrophic war in the Middle East.

Iraq Invades Iran

In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran faced one of its most vulnerable moments in modern times. During the revolutionary upheaval, many arms depots were raided and weapons were distributed to volunteers ready to deliver the monarchy its coup de grace .

After the watershed moment, the Revolutionary Council feared that, given the Anglo-American coup in 1953 through the Iranian military, Iran's generals could not be trusted. The subsequent purge resulted in the decimation of the country's military leadership. Moreover, political infighting between revolutionary factions also led to unrest. To make matters worse, militant students were fearful that the U.S. was planning to undermine the revolution through a coup -- as it did the nationalist government of Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 -- so they resolved to ward off any such attempts. Consequently, they seized the U.S. embassy and held its personnel hostage. The international community responded by isolating Iran for its blatant disregard for international norms.

Capitalizing on Iran's internal post-revolutionary chaos, military disarray, and international isolation, Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of his neighboring rival on September 22, 1980. Shortly after, Iran's internal power struggle between the various revolutionary factions erupted into open warfare.

So devastating was the power struggle that many of the leading personalities of the Iranian Revolution died in assassinations and bomb blasts, including Iran's president and prime minister. Thus, the Iranian state was forced to fight on two battlefronts -- internally against its challengers and externally against Iraqi invaders. The government did not, however, collapse under the weight of its domestic rivals and foreign aggressors. In fact, the war enlivened Charles Tilly's timeless words: "War makes states."

Iranian Resilience

The Iranian state harnessed a powerful ideology that intertwined nationalism with Islamic revolutionary zeal in order to prompt Iranians to close rank behind it, marshaling hundreds of thousands of soldiers to liberate Iranian territory occupied by the Iraqi military. By May 24, 1982, and after tens of thousands of deaths, Iran freed the border city of Khorramshahr after a brutal two-year siege.

Soon after Khorramshahr's liberation, the invading Iraqis were on the defensive, and Saddam's wartime financiers, namely Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, offered Iran a multi-billion dollar reparations package to end the war. Iran's leader refused, declaring that the only way the war would end was with Saddam Hussein's bloody demise. He then spearheaded the conflict onto Iraqi soil for the first time. Time captured the moment by phrasing the counter-invasion as " Iran on the march ."

Iran Versus the World

Iraq enjoyed the support of the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and the Arab League -- with the exception of Syria and Libya -- and even used chemical weapons on Iranian troops. Yet Iran persisted despite such horrible odds, and hundreds of thousands continued to go to the battlefront knowing it was possible that they, too, could fall victim to Iraq's horrific chemical weapons.

The violence dragged on for eight bitter years, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century -- with an Iranian death toll estimated between half a million to a million. To put that staggering number into perspective, the conservative estimate exceeds the total American loss of life in World War II.

The war's conclusion was a failure in Iranian eyes, as it did not end in Saddam Hussein's overthrow and Iraqis and the region would continue to suffer at his hands. Two years later, he refused to demobilize his million-man army to a jobless future in a war-ravaged economy, and instead dispatched them across Iraq's border again -- this time to Kuwait.

Yet neither did Iran lose the war. In fact, it was the first conflict since the two 19th-century wars with Czarist Russia in which Iran did not lose any territory. Above all, the country survived a genocidal conflict -- and survival was its own victory.

Iran Today

Today, Iran's population is more than double what it was in 1980 -- estimated at roughly 83 million . After lacking military support from abroad during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran now has extensive domestic weapons manufacturing capabilities. Also unlike 1980, it has more allies in the region. In other words, if Iran fought so stubbornly under such dire circumstances during the '80s, it will only fight more effectively today. It has already proven itself militarily by coordinating the fight alongside the U.S. to defeat ISIS in Iraq while simultaneously working with Russia to help the Syrian government win an unrelenting civil war.

The Iranian military budget may be a fraction of America's, but the Trump administration -- especially anti-Iran hawks John Bolton and Mike Pompeo -- should consider this history and current reality objectively. If they don't, if they continue to underestimate Iran the same way the Bush administration did with a far weaker Iraq in 2003, they risk another war of choice. Indeed, on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously stated : "I think it will go relatively quickly weeks rather than months." To be sure, history has been unkind to his rosy assessment.

Thinking a war with Iran will be over before it begins -- or that it will, as Senator Tom Cotton boasted , not require more than "two strikes, the first strike and the last strike" -- is the first step towards another needless, ruinous war.

Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the modern Middle East at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and author of the forthcoming Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings (Cambridge University Press). Follow him on Twitter @iPouya .

[Aug 03, 2019] Democratic Party under Clinton and Obama was converted into the party of war and neocolonialism

Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

nottheonly1 , Aug 2 2019 19:08 utc | 9

While I am aware of Eric Zuesse being somewhat controversial to some people, I do concur with his assessment of the party that should be stripped of the 'Democratic' prefix. There is nothing democratic in this organization and its members are either willful stooges, or the most gullible people on earth - responsible for heinous crimes against humanity under the cover of 'humanitarian aid'.

To even consider to allow this organization to continue in its deception of the American electorate, shows the deepest infiltration of foreign influence, for whom this deception is not only natural, but also compulsive. You may have guessed it, it's not the Russians.

The Democratic Party's AIPAC Candidates

However, an article by the Strategic Culture Organization, linked to on MOA yesterday

The 'Special Relationship' is collapsing , goes even further. It makes obvious the unholy filth that has been plaguing humanity for a very long time. And while some may find it questionable, it turns out that the Queen does appear to be the longest sitting Fascist in the history of mankind.

Sometimes it is necessary to connect the dots beyond personal beliefs in regards to the real conspiracy against working people all over the world.

[Aug 03, 2019] Democratic party now is a war party. As such it does not need to win the elections to stay in power

Aug 03, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Emma Peele , August 2, 2019 at 16:05

Pro war democrats are now using the Russian ruse to go after anti war candidates like Gabbard.

It's despicable to even insinuate Gabbard is working for Putin or had any other rationale for going to Syria than seeking peace.

This alone proved Harris unfit for the presidency.

Her awful record speaks for itself.

[Aug 03, 2019] Russian General recently remarked specific to electronic countermeasures/jammers that the more complex they are, the easier they are to confound or defeat.

Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Walter , Aug 3 2019 11:27 utc | 76

@ # 41 > "With the USAF and the military as a whole, increasing amounts of money are thrown at ever increasingly complex weapons systems yet performance in all sectors deteriorates while the ability to recruit also degrades. The problems are widely written..."

Indeed, Ruskie General recently remarked specific to electronic countermeasures/jammers that the more complex they are, the easier they are to confound or defeat.

The general principle operates in all realms.

I did make a note of the guy's name...but it is obvious, isn't it? I mean one has only to look...

[Aug 02, 2019] A lot of US debt is "invested" in bombing sand piles for Prince bin Salman.

Aug 02, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , July 23, 2019 at 04:05 AM

A lot of US debt is "invested" in bombing sand piles for Prince bin Salman.

The budget deal raises the pentagon's budget from $733 to 738B the 733B the glut that got through the House.

The total US G debt is pretty close to the sum of pentagon largesse since 1947.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , July 23, 2019 at 04:22 AM
According to Tim Taylor we should save some of that sand. Maybe sand will be the next oil for funding ME dictators.

Hey, everyone loves a parade and what's a parade without tanks? If gives us something in common with the commies. On the one hand, this is a paranoid world and on the other hand, people love to see stuff get blown up. Battling against empire is an uphill battle with a long historical track record of failures so obscure that mostly no one has even ever heard of them. I guess if someone is committed to fighting a losing battle then they might as well go for losing big.

mulp -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , July 24, 2019 at 05:50 AM
"According to Tim Taylor we should save some of that sand. Maybe sand will be the next oil for funding ME dictators"

Wrong kind of sand. Not sure why, but water borne sand is jagged, but wind borne sand is smooth.

RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to mulp ... , July 24, 2019 at 09:52 AM
[Good to know. Thanks. Do you think that finite (made from desert sand) will eventually be formulated to last long enough for general construction use?]

https://materialdistrict.com/article/finite-concrete-desert-sand/

Finite: a more sustainable alternative to concrete made from desert sand


26 March 2018

Sand is worldwide in high demand and heavily used in many industries, especially construction. With deserts full of it, one can easily be fooled into thinking that sand is an almost infinite resource. However, desert sand has little use; the grains are too smooth and fine to bind together, so it is not suitable for the making of for instance concrete. The start-up Finite, founded by researchers from Imperial College London, created a material composite made with desert sand that serves as a more sustainable alternative to concrete.

The supply of construction-grade sand is dwindling worldwide. This type of sand is stripped from beaches and riverbeds, but because of the heavy use, the supply is diminishing rapidly. Desert sand, on the other hand, is plentiful. This sand is not used in construction, as its grains are too smooth and fine to bind together for building materials.

The newly developed composite makes use of desert sand and "other abundant fine powders that traditionally have no use". According to the inventors, Finite can be turned into structures that have the same strength as housing bricks and residential concrete.

The material is more environmentally friendly than concrete, with a concrete footprint that is less than half that of concrete. Unlike concrete, which must be either downcycled or sent to the landfill at the end of its life, the new material can easily be reused as it can be remoulded for multiple lifecycle uses. The material can be coloured using natural dyes.

Finite can be used in desert areas, made with local sand rather than imported concrete. For now, the material is only suitable for temporary constructions, after which the material can be reused or left to decompose. For permanent structures, the material still has to pass rounds of testing and regulations...

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to ilsm... , July 23, 2019 at 05:59 AM
As ice melts, Greenland could become big sand
exporter: study https://reut.rs/2Gmryx1

Alister Doyle - February 11, 2019

OSLO (Reuters) - Greenland could start to export sand in a rare positive spinoff from global warming that is melting the island's vast ice sheet and washing large amounts of sediment into the sea, scientists said on Monday.

Mining of sand and gravel, widely used in the construction industry, could boost the economy for Greenland's 56,000 population who have wide powers of self-rule within Denmark but rely heavily on subsidies from Copenhagen.

By mining sand, "Greenland could benefit from the challenges brought by climate change," a team of scientists in Denmark and the United States wrote in the journal Nature Sustainability.

The study, headlined "Promises and perils of sand exploitation in Greenland", said the Arctic island would have to assess risks of coastal mining, especially to fisheries.

Rising global temperatures are melting the Greenland ice sheet, which locks up enough water to raise global sea levels by about seven meters (23 ft) if it ever all thawed, and carrying ever more sand and gravel into coastal fjords.

"You can think of it (the melting ice) as a tap that pours out sediment to the coast," said lead author Mette Bendixen, a researcher at the University of Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

Worldwide demand for sand totaled about 9.55 billion tonnes in 2017 with a market value of $99.5 billion and is projected to reach almost $481 billion in 2100, driven by rising demand and likely shortages, the study said.

That meant a rare opportunity for the island. ...


RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , July 23, 2019 at 09:56 AM
"As you be muche the worse. and I cast awaie.
An yll wynde, that blowth no man to good, men saie.
Wel (quoth he) euery wind blowth not down the corn
I hope (I saie) good hap [luck] be not all out worn." - John Heywood - 1546
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , July 24, 2019 at 03:57 AM
Hmmm. "It's an Ille Wynde
that blows no Bodye Goode?"
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , July 24, 2019 at 05:03 AM
Mister Sandman brings dream to Greenland.
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , July 24, 2019 at 05:06 AM
Mister Sandman is moving into Frosty the Snowman's old digs in uptown Nuuk.
anne , July 23, 2019 at 04:11 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/opinion/biden-sanders-health-care.html

July 22, 2019

Biden and Sanders, Behaving Badly
A bad-faith debate over health care coverage.
By Paul Krugman

Health care was a key factor in Democrats' victory in the 2018 midterm elections, and it should be a big plus in 2020 as well. The shared Democratic position -- that every legal resident should have access to affordable care, regardless of income or health status -- is immensely popular. The de facto Republican position -- that we should go back to a situation in which those whose jobs don't come with health benefits, or who suffer from pre-existing medical conditions, can't get insurance -- is so unpopular that G.O.P. candidates consistently lie about their own proposals.

But right now, two of the major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, are having an ugly argument about health care that could hurt the party's chances. There are real, important differences between the two men's policy proposals, and it's fine to point that out. What's not fine is the name-calling and false assertions. Both men are behaving badly. And for their party's sake, and their country's, they need to stop it.

Let's back up. There are, broadly speaking, two ways a country can try to achieve universal health insurance. One is single-payer: The government simply pays the bills. The other retains a role for private insurance but relies on a combination of regulations and subsidies to ensure that everyone gets covered.

We don't have to speculate about how these systems would work in practice, because every advanced country except the U.S. has some form of universal coverage. Some, like Canada and Britain, use single-payer (in Britain the government also operates the hospitals and pays the doctors). Others, like Switzerland and the Netherlands, have a large role for private insurers.

The clean little secret of health care is that both approaches work when countries try to make them work. In fact, we can see both systems at work right here in America.

More than 100 million Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, which are both single-payer programs; despite Ronald Reagan's ominous warnings back in 1961, neither destroyed American freedom. Since 2014, millions more have been covered by the Affordable Care Act, which was underfunded and has been subject to extensive Republican sabotage; nonetheless, states like California that have tried to make the act work have experienced huge declines in the number of residents without insurance.

Which brings us back to the Democratic quarrel.

Sanders, of course, has made Medicare for All his signature proposal. Could such a plan work? Absolutely. But there are two valid criticisms of his proposal.

First, it would have to be paid for with higher taxes. While many people would find the increased tax burden offset by lower premiums, the required tax increases would be daunting. And while Sanders has in fact proposed a number of new taxes, independent estimates say that the revenue they'd generate would fall far short of what his plan would cost.

Second, the Sanders plan would require that roughly 180 million Americans give up their current private insurance and replace it with something different. Persuading them that this would be an improvement, even if true, would be a tall order. Indeed, there's good reason to believe that eliminating the option of retaining private insurance would be an electoral loser. (Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, take heed.)

On the other side, Biden is proposing to build on Obamacare. That can sound like tinkering at the edges. But his actual plan is much bigger and better than is widely realized, with large increases in funding, a public option, and more. It would, arguably, bring the A.C.A. close to the standards of successful European systems.

That said, the Biden plan would preserve the crazy-quilt, Rube Goldberg aspects of our current system, which impose a lot of unnecessary costs and make it too easy for people to fall through the cracks.

So there's plenty of room for a good-faith Sanders-Biden argument. Unfortunately, that's not the argument they're having.

Instead, Sanders is arguing that only single-payer can purge "corporate greed" from the system -- an assertion belied by European experience -- and broadly hinting that Biden is in the pocket of corporate interests. That's a criticism you can level about some of Biden's past policy positions, like his advocacy of the 2005 bankruptcy law. But it's not a fair criticism of a health plan that's actually pretty good, and which most people would have considered radical just a few years ago.

For his part, Biden is declaring that the Sanders plan would undermine Medicare. In fact, it would enhance current recipients' benefits. And it's a bad sign that Biden, who poses as Obamacare's great defender, is using a G.O.P. scare tactic familiar from the utterly dishonest campaign against the A.C.A. No Democrat should be stooping to that level.

Unfortunately, Biden and Sanders will be appearing on different nights during the next Democratic debates. So it will be up to other candidates, or the moderators, to put them on the spot. It's time for both men to stop poisoning their own party's well.

ilsm -> anne... , July 23, 2019 at 04:18 AM
It may get ugly if Sanders points to the elephant in the room......

US remains, and Obamacare did nothing to alter it, the only "developed" country where establishments that finance the health of human beings are run as profit generating businesses.

ilsm -> ilsm... , July 23, 2019 at 01:47 PM
The established democrats are against any progress, as they diss Bernie they are done with me.
mulp -> ilsm... , July 24, 2019 at 06:41 AM
Medicare is a bad model for health care because its based on a piece work production system, ie, payment only for doing medical work, and no payment for preventing preventable medical treatment.

For example, prescribing opiates repeatedly was paid for each and every time, but working to not prescribe opiates is not.

And now getting people off it opiate addiction is paid for, but not working with patients to prevent addiction to opiates.

Thanks to Nixon, a number of very good HMOs were created and required to be options in employer benefit programs, in NH, this resulted in half of all NH residents picking the HMO Mathew Thornton health plan over BCBS which in 1970 covered 80% of NH residents. The HMO only had clinics covering only 60-70% of the population while BCBS paid almost any doctor in the four state region.

MTHP was extremely well liked. It provided great health care. Doctors ran it, not bean counters. Doctors didn't need to invent diseases to get paid for spending time with patients.

But Bernie has stated that HMOs are bad because they seek to not provide medical treatments, as if health care is about making patients suffer both illnesses and then the treatments.

HMOs operate on the Deming model. Design the system for high quality so less work is required, thus lower cost to deliver the best outcome, whether a qualty car, walkman, TV, health.

JohnH -> anne... , July 23, 2019 at 07:46 AM
Coming from Krugman, with a view of how he trashed Bernie's plan on behalf of Hillary in 2016, this is pretty rich.

I guess it's up to Krugman to decide when it's OK to behave badly

And then he attacks Bernie's plan: people won't want to pay more in taxes to fund Medicare for All. Nowhere is it mentioned that the taxes would be in lieu of insurance premiums and as we all know (!!!) people are just delighted to pay those insurance companies because, you know it's better to be ripped off by private enterprise than to pay taxes for real insurance coverage with no deductibles and co-pays!!!

Krugman just can't seem to wean himself of those industry talking points

Christopher H. said in reply to anne... , July 23, 2019 at 07:58 AM
Krugman has gone back to his 2016 ways. It is really sad. I'm surprised Kurt and EMike haven't joined him yet. There's still time.

"It's time for both men to stop poisoning their own party's well."

You need to turn out your base to win, not soft-peddle to win in purple and red states.

Hillary tried EMike's and the centrists' strat and she lost.

If Biden is the nominee, there's a chance he could lose, but then Krugman was never serious about beating Trump despite his overheated rhetoric.

Julio -> anne... , July 23, 2019 at 10:27 AM
"And while Sanders has in fact proposed a number of new taxes, independent estimates say that the revenue they'd generate would fall far short of what his plan would cost."

Mealy-mouthed way of saying that Sanders is lying.

JohnH -> anne... , July 23, 2019 at 01:11 PM
It seems that Krugman is programmed to object strenuously to anything that does not preserve the inefficient, Rube Goldberg health insurance system were have in place today. And here I thought that economists were all about efficiency!!!

I guess industry talking points override efficiency!!!

anne , July 23, 2019 at 04:13 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/opinion/2020-trump-economy.html

July 18, 2019

Deficit Man and the 2020 Election
The Trump bump probably peaked too early.
By Paul Krugman

I've seen a number of people suggest that the 2020 election will be a sort of test: Can a sufficiently terrible president lose an election despite a good economy? And that is, in fact, the test we'd be running if the election were tomorrow.

On one side, Donald Trump wastes no opportunity to remind us how awful he is. His latest foray into overt racism delights his base but repels everyone else. On the other side, he presides over an economy in which unemployment is very low and real G.D.P. grew 3.2 percent over the past year.

But the election won't be tomorrow, it will be an exhausting 15 months from now. Trump's character won't change, except possibly for the worse. But the economy might look significantly different.

So let's talk about the Trump economy.

The first thing you need to know is that the Trump tax cut caused a huge rise in the budget deficit, which the administration expects to hit $1 trillion this year, up from less than $600 billion in 2016. This tidal wave of red ink is even more extraordinary than it looks, because it has taken place despite falling unemployment, which usually leads to a falling deficit.

Strange to say, none of the Republicans who warned of a debt apocalypse under President Barack Obama have protested the Trump deficits. (Should we put Paul Ryan's face on milk cartons?) For that matter, even the centrists who obsessed over federal debt during the Obama years have been pretty quiet. Clearly, deficits only matter when there's a Democrat in the White House.

Oh, and the imminent fiscal crisis people like Erskine Bowles used to warn about keeps not happening: Long-term interest rates remain very low.

Now, the evidence on the effects of deficit spending is clear: It gives the economy a short-run boost, even when we're already close to full employment. If anything, the growth bump under Trump has been smaller than you might have expected given the deficit surge, perhaps because the tax cut was so badly designed, perhaps because Trump's trade wars have deterred business spending.

For now, however, Deficit Man is beating Tariff Man. As I said, we've seen good growth over the past year.

But the tax cut was supposed to be more than a short-run Keynesian stimulus. It was sold as something that would greatly improve the economy's long-run performance; in particular, lower corporate tax rates were supposed to lead to a huge boom in business investment that would, among other things, lead to sharply higher wages. And this big rise in long-run growth would supposedly create a boom in tax revenues, offsetting the upfront cost of tax cuts.

None of this is happening. Corporations are getting to keep a lot more of their profits, but they've been using the money to buy back their own stock, not raise investment. Wages are rising, but not at an extraordinary pace, and many Americans don't feel that they're sharing in the benefits of a growing economy.

And this is probably as good as it gets.

I'm not forecasting a recession. It could happen, and we're very badly positioned to respond if it does, but the more likely story is just a slowdown as the effects of the deficit splurge wear off. In fact, if you believe the "nowcasters" (economists who try to get an early read on the economy from partial data), that slowdown is already happening. For example, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York believes that the economy's growth was down to 1.5 percent in the second quarter.

And it's hard to see where another economic bump can come from. With Democrats controlling the House, there won't be another big tax cut. The Fed may cut interest rates, but those cuts are already priced into long-term interest rates, which are what matter for spending, and the economy seems to be slowing anyway.

Which brings us back to the 2020 election.

Political scientists have carried out many studies of the electoral impact of the economy, and as far as I know they all agree that what matters is the trend, not the level. The unemployment rate was still over 7 percent when Ronald Reagan won his 1984 landslide; it was 7.7 percent when Obama won in 2012. In both cases, however, things were clearly getting better.

That's probably not going to be the story next year. If we don't have a recession, unemployment will still be low. But economic growth will probably be meh at best -- which means, if past experience is any guide, that the economy won't give Trump much of a boost, that it will be more or less a neutral factor.

And on the other hand, Trump's awfulness will remain.

Republicans will, of course, portray the Democratic nominee -- whoever she or he may be -- as a radical socialist poised to throw the border open to hordes of brown-skinned rapists. And one has to admit that this strategy might work, although it failed last year in the midterms. To be honest, I'm more worried about the effects of sexism if the nominee is a woman -- not just the sexism of voters, but that of the news media, which still holds women to different standards.

But as far as the economy goes, the odds are that Trump's deficit-fueled bump came too soon to do him much political good.

ilsm -> anne... , July 23, 2019 at 04:21 AM
There remains time for democrats to preside over a new debt ceiling crisis...... anything to oust Trump!

Cover will be provided by the, 30 months too long, Mueller circus.

Christopher H. said in reply to anne... , July 23, 2019 at 09:12 AM
Krugman was predicting overheating in 2016. It would be nice if he admitted when he was wrong.

He's very dismissive of monetary policy and the Fed here. Maybe the Fed has been overly tight?

Maybe Trump's jawboning on the Fed pushed it to stop tightening?

You won't get honest objective answers from Krugman. He's much like the Republicans who are always lying.

mulp -> Christopher H.... , July 24, 2019 at 06:48 AM
Right, zero inflation, just housing prices going up 10% per year.

Hey, you are getting richer as the house you can't buy because your savings and income isn't rising faster than 10% per year so you can finally go into debt and then do cash out refis so you have a constant 80% debt in rising "wealth".

Constantly increasing debt on constantly incressing "wealth" is not inflation.

Just keep saying "there is no inflation, just higher living costs".

Christopher H. said in reply to mulp ... , July 24, 2019 at 08:15 AM
asset appreciation isn't *inflation*

inflation is all prices going up like in the 1970s.

This is why I skip your comments

kurt -> mulp ... , July 25, 2019 at 04:12 PM
You are correct in that housing should be included in CPI. It is now most families biggest cost and housing insecurity is a thing.
Christopher H. said in reply to kurt... , July 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM
Dean Baker disagrees with you and I'd take his opinion over yours and mulps any time of the day. He called the housing bubble.

My guess is that you have no idea but just wanted to try to troll me.

http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/inflation-housing-2018-06.pdf

Measuring the Inflation Rate:
Is Housing Different?

anne , July 23, 2019 at 04:20 AM
http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/the-aging-crisis-is-actually-just-a-labor-crisis-for-the-wealthy

July 22, 2019

The "Aging Crisis" Is Actually Just a Labor Crisis for the Wealthy
By Dean Baker

The New York Times told us * last week that China is running out of people. That might seem an odd concern for a country with a population of more than 1.4 billion, but you can read it for yourself:

"Driving this regression in women's status is a looming aging crisis, and the relaxing of the draconian 'one-child' birth restrictions that contributed to the graying population. The Communist Party now wants to try to stimulate a baby boom."

What exactly is supposed to be China's "aging crisis?" China has had a low birth rate for the last four decades, as the government consciously tried to slow the country's population growth. As a result, it does have an aging population and a declining ratio of workers to retirees, but this raises the obvious question, "So what?"

We see endless news articles and columns implying that the prospect of a declining number of workers supporting a growing population of retirees is some sort of crisis. The people making such assertions really need some knowledge of demographics.

The United States and other wealthy countries have been seeing drops in the ratio of workers to retirees for many decades. In the U.S. case, we went from having 5.1 workers for every Social Security retiree in 1960 to just 2.8 workers for each retiree today.

We pay higher taxes for Social Security and Medicare today than we did in 1960 (Medicare did not yet exist), but few would say that current tax rates are a crisis. If China has to see equivalent increases in taxes in the next decade or two to support its retirees, it is hard to see it as a major problem.

Reporters and media commentators like to report on taxes as the biggest concern for working people, but as economists like to point out, the main factor determining living standards is what goes into workers' paychecks, not what the government takes out in taxes.

The Social Security payroll tax rose by 6.4 percentage points between 1960 and 1990. The Medicare tax rose by 2.95 percentage points, for a total increase in federal payroll taxes of 9.35 percentage points.

In spite of this large increase in payroll taxes over this period, workers enjoyed considerably higher after-tax wages in 1990 than in 1960. This was true because real wages rose, especially in the first part of this period (1960 to 1973), when real wages for the typical worker rose at a 2.2 percent annual rate.

The story is even more dramatic in China. Real wages have risen just over 7.0 percent annually over the last decade. Suppose wage growth slows to 5.0 percent over the next two decades. Suppose the country has to raise taxes on workers by 20 percentage points over this period to cover the cost of its aging population. In that case, after taxes, wages would still be more than twice as high as they are today. What is the problem?

The basic story is that if an economy maintains a healthy rate of productivity growth, which allows for healthy real wage growth, then the demographic changes are a relatively small matter. This doesn't mean that society will not face some problems in adjusting for the needs of an aging population ― the U.S. faced many problems associated with the care and education of the Baby Boomers when we were children ― but these problems are far from insoluble.

If simple arithmetic shows that the people shortage story is nonsense, then why does it continually appear in the media? The most obvious explanation is that the concerns over a smaller workforce fall into the well-known "it's hard to get good help" problem.

This is the standard refrain of rich people, employers and major media outlets. A smaller labor market could present employers with a world where workers have more bargaining power and can therefore demand wage increases that are equal to, possibly even greater than, the rate of productivity growth.

As workers move from lower-paying to higher-paying ― and therefore higher productivity ― jobs, it will be harder to get people to work at many of the lowest-paying jobs, such as domestic workers, valets in restaurants, and other jobs that primarily involve providing services to the wealthy.

That probably does look like a crisis to a small segment of the population. The wealthy may really have some cause to be concerned about the prospect of a declining population and workforce. The rest of us, not so much.

* https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/world/asia/china-women-discrimination.html

mulp -> anne... , July 24, 2019 at 06:57 AM
The workers in fast food serve primarily the wealthy???

The workers in dollar stores serve primarily the wealthy?

The workers serving the wealthy are primarily middle class, whether food service, retail, child care, etc.

The problem for China is providing opportunity for the young entrepreneurs. Without an abundant eager labor force, the old established businesses will dominate and slow change. Thhey won't be challenged to do better.

Joe , July 23, 2019 at 04:31 AM
Modern money theory and its challenges - VoxEU
---------

Some misperceptions.

MMT is not modern, it is standard generational practice.
Given the nearly unlimited history of humans doing MMT some rules have emerged:
1) MMTs generally last anywhere from three days to three months.
2) The exception to rule 1 is war time where MMT hangs around with price controls.
3) We have a legal issue. This is the first time we have done a good old MMT using double accounting money, we usually do it by repricing gold or exiting the gold market.

I am not sure we have the brains in DC to pull this off without a nightmare result, due to MMT becoming a tribal slogan with no real definition attached.

im1dc , July 23, 2019 at 04:52 AM
The 'Bond Market' agrees with S. Warren, to a point...

S. Warren does not have a friend in Bond World yet they agree...interesting

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/454198-the-bond-market-agrees-with-elizabeth-warren-up-to-a-point

"The bond market agrees with Elizabeth Warren, up to a point"

By Desmond Lachman, Opinion Contributor...07/23/19...07:30 AM EDT

'The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill'

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is not known for her enthusiasm for the financial markets in general and for the bond market in particular. But there seems to be one important point on which Warren and the world's bond markets currently agree: both the U.S. and the rest of the world could soon be heading for a nasty economic recession.

In a recent article, Warren warned that the odds of another economic downturn were high and growing. In her view, this is due to the precarious state of our economy, which is built on an excessive amount of household and corporate debt. That makes the U.S. economy particularly vulnerable to a number of serious shocks that she now sees on the horizon and that she thinks "could cause our economy's shaky foundation to crumble."

By its nature, the bond market does not spell out the reasons why it prices bonds in any particular manner. But we can infer the bond market's economic outlook from market bond prices.

One indication that the government bond markets now seem to be sharing Warren's gloomy economic prognosis is the fact that long-term U.S. Treasury bond rates have declined to significantly below the Federal Reserve's short-term policy rate. This so-called yield curve inversion implies that the U.S. Treasury bond market is expecting that the U.S. economy will soon go into a recession that will keep interest rates low for a long time.

A more dramatic indication of sovereign bond market pessimism is the fact that a record US$13 trillion of global sovereign bonds, and around one half of all European sovereign bonds, now offer negative interest rates."...

RC (Ron) Weakley , July 23, 2019 at 04:54 AM
RE: Acknowledging and pricing macroeconomic uncertainties

Lars Peter Hansen, Thomas Sargent 22 July 2019


False pretences of knowledge about complicated economic situations have become all too common in public policy debates. While we do know some things, we don't know everything. We believe that prudent decision-making should acknowledge what we don't know. Decision makers should strive to quantify dimensions of their ignorance and adjust their decisions accordingly. This essay describes a tractable approach for acknowledging, characterizing, and responding to the limited understandings discovered by researchers' efforts to interpret existing evidence by using theories and statistical methods available at any particular moment.

An economic model tells how chance, occurrences, and purposeful decisions influence future outcomes. Economic researchers use formal statistical models to describe and interpret data and to formulate policy advice for government and private decision makers. Whether they acknowledge it explicitly or not, real world decision makers also use models or 'views' about how their decisions affect future outcomes. Because they ignore some forces and oversimplify others, all models are just approximations to reality, some better than others depending on the purposes to which they are put. Furthermore, at any time, we can choose among multiple models and are unsure how much credibility to assign to each of them.

Data can surely help us assess the credibility of alternative models, but the real world is so complicated and data are so limited that data can only tell us so much. Therefore, economic modellers and decision makers require ways to express their opinions about the plausibility and usefulness of alternative models for the problem at hand. Because data are only partially informative about a model's plausibility, a decision-maker's purpose as well as his or her 'subjective beliefs' play important roles too. The more complex the situation, the bigger the challenge of confronting uncertainty.

Economists and other scholars have created theoretical foundations for uncertainty. For instance, both John Maynard Keynes (1921) and Frank Knight (1921) wrote on the subject, but mostly in literary ways that are challenging to interpret and to make operational so that they can be applied in quantitative work. The eminent statistician Abraham Wald (1950) introduced a theoretic framework for making decisions under uncertainty. Leonard J. Savage (1954) constructed a complete axiomatic approach to Bayesian decision theory by including subjective probabilities that are entirely in the mind of a decision maker. Itzhak Gilboa and David Schmeidler (1989) extended this approach in ways that acknowledged that a decision maker might not have a unique subjective probability distribution. Recent research in control theory and in dynamic decision theory provides useful practical tools for assessing and coping with various sources of uncertainty. We have worked on these topics for a number of years. Along with others, we have used mathematics and statistics to construct operational quantitative tools that shed light on how financial markets and the macroeconomy work and how alternative fiscal and monetary policies affect them.

In a recent paper (Hansen and Sargent 2019), we propose ways to categorise and respond to the multiple forms of uncertainty that confront decision makers and model builders. Thus, we distinguish among (1) uncertainty within a model; (2) uncertainty across a set of available known models; and (3) uncertainty about each model. We refer to (1) as risk – uncertainty about future outcomes that is described by a single known probability distribution. (This is the type of uncertainty assumed up until now in most work in theoretical and applied finance and macroeconomics.) We call uncertainty of type (2) ambiguity and represent it as being unsure about what weights or probabilities to attach to the available models. We call (3) model misspecification and represent it by surrounding each available model with a vast cloud statistical models with unknown forms that nevertheless fit the available data nearly as well as does an available model.

The models that we economists build and use are highly stylised

*

[These guys both need a new stylist.

Just how certain can they be about uncertainty? If uncertainty were quantifiable then how uncertain would it be? Uncertainty is a lot more than just confidence intervals on statistical data sets. Operators and relationships among interdependent variables are often uncertain while data is just distributed within variance. The past may not be a reliable indicator of the future. I will take Keynes on uncertainty and stay out of the deep end of the pool.]

[Jul 30, 2019] Empires in decline tend to behave badly

Notable quotes:
"... Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior. ..."
Jul 30, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

"Empires in decline tend to behave badly. Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be they refugees or migrants.

Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.

Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...

It's all connected. The empire -- all empires -- eventually come home."

Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad

[Jul 30, 2019] The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy The American Conservative

Jul 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy Andrew Bacevich on his new left-right group, which is going hammer and tongs against the establishment on foreign policy. By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos July 30, 2019

Andrew J. Bacevich participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Naval War College in 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Christian S. Eskelund/Released) For the last month, the foreign policy establishment has been abuzz over the new kid on the block: the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , named for John Quincy Adams. Adams, along with our first president George Washington, warned of foreign entanglements and the urge to go abroad in "search of monsters to destroy," lest America's fundamental policy "insensibly change from liberty to force . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit ."

Those in the foreign policy Blob have had different reactions to the "upstart" think tank. These are the preeminent organizations that stand imperious in size and square footage, but have lacked greatly in wisdom and clarity over the last 20 years. Quincy will stand apart from them in two significant ways: it is drawing its intellectual and political firepower from both the anti-war Left and the realist and restraint Right. And it is poised to support a new "responsible statecraft," one that challenges the conditions of endless war, including persistent American militarism here and abroad, the military industrial complex, and a doctrine that worships primacy and a liberal world order over peace and the sovereignty of other nations.

Quincy, which is rolling out its statement of principles this week (its official launch will be in the fall), is the brainchild of Trita Parsi, former head of the National Iranian-American Council, who saw an opening to bring together Left and Right academics, activists, and media disenchanted by both sides' pro-war proclivities. Together with Vietnam veteran and former Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (also a longtime TAC contributor), the Carnegie Endowment's Suzanne DiMaggio, Columbia University's Stephen Wertheim, and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, the group wants to serve as a counterweight to both liberal interventionists like the Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations, and the war hawks and neoconservatives of the Heritage Foundation and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

They've already taken hits from both sides of the establishment, dismissed brusquely as naive , or worse, isolationist (that swipe from neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose now-defunct Weekly Standard once ran a manifesto headlined "The Case for American Empire" ). The fact that Quincy will be funded by both George Soros on the Left and the Charles Koch Foundation on the Right has brought some rebuke from unfriendlies and even some friendlies. The former hate on one or the other powerful billionaire, while the latter are wary of Soros' intentions (he's has long been a financial supporter of "soft-power" democracy movements overseas, some of which have encouraged revolution and regime change).

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But Quincy's timing couldn't be more perfect. With a president in the White House who has promised to draw down U.S. involvement overseas (with the exception of his Iran policy, he has so far held to much of that pledge), and national conservatives coming around to TAC's long-held worldview on realism and restraint (and an increasing willingness to reach across the aisle to work with like-minded groups and individuals), Quincy appears poised to make some noise in Washington.

According to the group's new statement of principles , "responsible statecraft" 1) serves the public interest, 2) engages the world, 3) builds a peaceful world, 4) abhors war, and 5) is democratic.

Andrew Bacevich and Trita Parsi expanded on this further in a recent Q&A with TAC.

(Full disclosure: the author is on Quincy's steering committee and TAC also receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.)

TAC : Quincy's principles -- and thus it's name -- are rooted in the mission of "responsible statecraft." Can you give me a sense of what that means in practical terms, and why you settled on this phrasing for the institute?

AB: With the end of the Cold War, policy elites succumbed to an extraordinary bout of hubris, perhaps best expressed in the claim that history had designated the United States as its "indispensable nation." Hubris bred recklessness and irresponsibility, with the Iraq war of 2003 as Exhibit A. We see "responsible statecraft" as the necessary antidote. Its abiding qualities are realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement. While the QI is not anti-military, we are wary of war except when all other alternatives have been exhausted. We are acutely conscious of war's tendency to produce unintended consequences and to exact unexpectedly high costs.

TAC : Quincy is a trans-partisan effort that is bringing together Left and Right for common cause. Is it a challenge?

AB: It seems apparent to us that the myriad foreign policy failures and disappointments of the past couple of decades have induced among both progressives and at least some conservatives a growing disenchantment with the trajectory of U.S. policy. Out of that disenchantment comes the potential for a Left-Right coalition to challenge the status quo. The QI hopes to build on that potential.

TAC : Two of the principles take direct aim at the current foreign policy status quo: responsible statecraft abhors war, and responsible statecraft is democratic (calling out a closed system in which Americans have had little input into the wars waged in their names). How much of what Quincy aims to do involves upending conventional norms, particularly those bred and defended by the Washington "Blob"?

AB: In a fundamental sense, the purpose of the QI is to educate the American people and their leaders regarding the Blob's shortcomings, exposing the deficiencies of old ideas and proposing new ones to take their place.

TAC: That said, how much blowback do you anticipate from the Washington establishment, particularly those think tanks and individuals whose careers and very existence depend on the wheels of militarism forever turning?

AB : Plenty. Proponents of the status quo are entrenched and well-funded. Breaking old habits -- for example, the practice of scattering U.S. military bases around the world -- will not come easily.

TAC : There has been much ado about your two primary funders -- Charles Koch and George Soros. What do you say to critics who suggest you will be tied to/limited by their agendas?

AB: Our funding sources are not confined to Koch and Soros and we will continue to broaden our support base. It's not for me to speak for Koch or Soros. But my guess is they decided to support the QI because they support our principles. They too believe in policies based on realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement.

TAC : Better yet, how did you convince these two men to fund something together?

TP: It is important to recognize that they have collaborated in the past before, for instance on criminal justice reform. This is, however, the first time they've come together to be founding funders of a new entity. I cannot speak for them, but I think they both recognize that there currently is a conceptual deficit in our foreign policy. U.S. elite consensus on foreign policy has collapsed and the void that has been created begs to be filled. But it has to be filled with new ideas, not just a repackaging of old ideas. And those new ideas cannot simply follow the old political alignments. Transpartisan collaboration is necessary in order to create a new consensus. Koch and Soros are showing tremendous leadership in that regard.

TAC : The last refuge of a scorned hawk is to call his critics "isolationist." It would seem as though your statement of principles takes this on directly. How else does Quincy take this often-used invective into account?

AB : We will demonstrate through our own actions that the charge is false.

TAC : Critics (including James Traub, in his own piece on Quincy ) say that Washington leaders, once in office, are "mugged by reality," suggesting that the idea of rolling back military interventions and avoiding others sounds good on paper but presidents like Barack Obama had no choice, that this is all about protecting interests and hard-nosed realism. The alternative is a bit naive. How do you respond?

AB: Choices are available if our leaders have the creativity to recognize them and the gumption to pursue them. Obama's patient and resolute pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal affirms this possibility. The QI will expose the "we have no choice" argument as false. We will identify and promote choice, thereby freeing U.S. policy from outmoded habits and stale routines.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is e xecutive editor at . Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC

[Jul 28, 2019] Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Jul 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> catherine... , 27 July 2019 at 11:30 PM
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:

Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus towards Russia.

"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe, testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life."

As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."

Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were concerned."

In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia. we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."

https://www.thenation.com/article/questions-mueller-russiagate/

It was always about Russians no matter what they do or don't do. Large strata of US so called "elite" is obsessed with Russia. Not even China.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM

I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

Walrus , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme.

[Jul 27, 2019] The Tyranny Of The Police-State Disguised As Law-And-Order

Jul 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour) -- and that's just what the government spends on foreign wars. The U.S. military empire's determination to police the rest of the world has resulted in more than 1.3 million U.S. troops being stationed at roughly 1000 military bases in over 150 countries around the world. That doesn't include the number of private contractors pulling in hefty salaries at taxpayer expense. In Afghanistan, for example, private contractors outnumber U.S. troops three to one .

No matter how we might differ about the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs, surely we can agree that America's war spending and commitment to policing the rest of the world are bankrupting the nation and spreading our troops dangerously thin.

All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush -- to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which they might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability -- were inherited by Donald Trump. These presidential powers -- acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president -- enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

Yet no matter how we might differ about how success or failure of past or present presidential administrations, surely we can agree that the president should not be empowered to act as an imperial dictator with permanent powers.

Increasingly, at home, we're facing an unbelievable show of force by government agents. For example, with alarming regularity , unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, and all the government does is shrug and promise to do better. Just recently, in fact, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals cleared a cop who aimed for a family's dog (who showed no signs of aggression), missed, and instead shot a 10-year-old lying on the ground . Indeed, there are countless incidents that happen every day in which Americans are shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, or challenge an order. Growing numbers of unarmed people are being shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something -- anything -- that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer's mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.

No matter how we might differ about where to draw that blue line of allegiance to the police state, surely we can agree that police shouldn't go around terrorizing and shooting innocent, unarmed children and adults or be absolved of wrongdoing for doing so .

Nor can we turn a blind eye to the transformation of America's penal system from one aimed at protecting society from dangerous criminals to a profit-driven system that dehumanizes and strips prisoners of every vestige of their humanity. For example, in Illinois, as part of a "training exercise" for incoming cadets, prison guards armed with batons and shields rounded up 200 handcuffed female inmates, marched them to the gymnasium, then forced them to strip naked (including removing their tampons and pads), " bend over and spread open their vaginal and anal cavities ," while male prison guards promenaded past or stood staring. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the entire dehumanizing, demoralizing mass body cavity strip search -- orchestrated not for security purposes but as an exercise in humiliation -- was legal. Be warned, however: this treatment will not be limited to those behind bars. In our present carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite. In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.

No matter how we might differ about where to draw the line when it comes to prisoners' rights, surely we can agree that no one -- woman, man or child -- should be subjected to such degrading treatment in the name of law and order .

In Washington, DC, in contravention of longstanding laws that restrict the government's ability to deploy the military on American soil, the Pentagon has embarked on a secret mission of "undetermined duration" that involves flying Black Hawk helicopters over the nation's capital , backed by active-duty and reserve soldiers. In addition to the increasing militarization of the police -- a de facto standing army -- this military exercise further acclimates the nation to the sight and sounds of military personnel on American soil and the imposition of martial law.

No matter how we might differ about the deference due to those in uniform, whether military or law enforcement, surely we can agree that America's Founders had good reason to warn against the menace of a national police force -- a.k.a. a standing army -- vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution.

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as "the better good," marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. For example, in Pennsylvania, a school district is threatening to place children in foster care if parents don't pay their overdue school lunch bills . In Florida, a resident was fined $100,000 for a dirty swimming pool and overgrown grass at a house she no longer owned. In Kentucky, government bureaucrats sent a cease-and-desist letter to a church ministry, warning that the group is breaking the law by handing out free used eyeglasses to the homeless . These petty tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace are what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

No matter how we might differ about the extent to which the government has the final say in how it flexes it power and exerts its authority, surely we can agree that the tyranny of the Nanny State -- disguised as "the better good," marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to call the shots -- should not be allowed to pave over the Constitution.

At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces that have infiltrated our government.

For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing -- asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on -- because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.

Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism , torture, drug trafficking , sex trafficking , murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

No matter how you rationalize it, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

So how do you fight back?

How do you fight injustice? How do you push back against tyranny? How do you vanquish evil?

You don't fight it by hiding your head in the sand.

We have ignored the warning signs all around us for too long.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People , the government has ripped the Constitution to shreds and left us powerless in the face of its power grabs, greed and brutality.

What we are grappling with today is a government that is cutting great roads through the very foundations of freedom in order to get after its modern devils. Yet the government can only go as far as "we the people" allow.

Therein lies the problem.

The consequences of this failure to do our due diligence in asking the right questions, demanding satisfactory answers, and holding our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law has pushed us to the brink of a nearly intolerable state of affairs.

Intolerable, at least, to those who remember what it was like to live in a place where freedom, due process and representative government actually meant something. Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we now find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives.

The hour grows late in terms of restoring the balance of power and reclaiming our freedoms, but it may not be too late. The time to act is now, using all methods of nonviolent resistance available to us.

"Don't sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the Constitution or the Republic," Naomi Wolf once warned. Waiting and watching will get us nowhere fast.

If you're watching, you're not doing.

Easily mesmerized by the government's political theater -- the endless congressional hearings and investigations that go nowhere, the president's reality show antics, the warring factions, the electoral drama -- we have become a society of watchers rather than activists who are distracted by even the clumsiest government attempts at sleight-of-hand.

It's time for good men and women to do something. And soon.

Wake up and take a good, hard look around you. Start by recognizing evil and injustice and tyranny for what they are. Stop being apathetic. Stop being neutral. Stop being accomplices. Stop being distracted by the political theater staged by the Deep State: they want you watching the show while they manipulate things behind the scenes. Refuse to play politics with your principles. Don't settle for the lesser of two evils.

As British statesman Edmund Burke warned, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing."


SgtShaftoe , 13 hours ago link

With all respect John, The constitution allows the president to deploy soldiers on US soil (bypassing Posse Comitatus) during limited times of insurgency, foreign invasion, war. Everything is in order at the moment. The treasonous companies and actors will be brought to justice. The pedos, and the corrupt Intelligence apparatus is the target.

-- ALIEN -- , 14 hours ago link

The Energy Return on Energy Invested of OIL is falling, hence the debt to pretend everything is still normal.

The rising police state is to control the Sheeple as we become much poorer.

Schooey , 14 hours ago link

Sadly, this (the police state) is one issue that I think Trump has no clue about. Why would he? Somebody needs to get in his ear on this issue.

At the same time lawlessness, driven by the media (purposefully), increases. And increases the need for policing. The game is so ******* obvious. Stop the (((media))) and half the problem is solved.

hoytmonger , 13 hours ago link

Trump is an authoritarian, he prefers the police state and would rather it be more like Israel.

"Take the firearms first, and then go to court... I like taking the guns early."

Schooey , 14 hours ago link

"The national debt is the result of the federal government borrowing money to cover years and years of budget deficits." Right now, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it's spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily ( from foreign governments and Social Security ) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad ." Trillions.

jutah , 14 hours ago link

Since religious zealots are the root cause for the rise of fascism and totalitarian communism- which are reactions from the oppressions of religious authorities supported by secret societies, it is necessary that they must fall and be broken before any real meaningful change can take place. I will defend the right to free speech and the 2nd to my last breath, but when they come to burn down your houses of worship and throw you in the ovens again, we will continue to do nothing. Just as good people did before. We will be your pawns no longer, we're not doing your dirty work anymore. We will not continue to be your slaves that you exploit for your twisted beliefs. History will repeat itself and you will burn and we will watch. This needs to happen before the world has a chance to try again. But the real damage to you zionists will be the spreading of the truth. As enough people finally understand that you offer nothing but the dark con of man and reject your lies and oppression whole heartedly

Commodore 1488 , 14 hours ago link

Our leaders are in Israel, and they don't care how bad it collapses here. They will have us worse than Detroit and laugh.

HyperboreanWind , 14 hours ago link

The Promised Land For Organized Crime

https://archive.org/details/youtube-TB2nM9SI7EU

https://archive.org/details/youtube-tZOfDE2Y4lE

[Jul 22, 2019] War Profiteers And The Demise Of The US Military-Industrial Complex

Jul 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

Within the vast bureaucratic sprawl of the Pentagon there is a group in charge of monitoring the general state of the military-industrial complex and its continued ability to fulfill the requirements of the national defense strategy. Office for acquisition and sustainment and office for industrial policy spends some $100,000 a year producing an Annual Report to Congress. It is available to the general public. It is even available to the general public in Russia, and Russian experts had a really good time poring over it.

In fact, it filled them with optimism. You see, Russia wants peace but the US seems to want war and keeps making threatening gestures against a longish list of countries that refuse to do its bidding or simply don't share its "universal values." But now it turns out that threats (and the increasingly toothless economic sanctions) are pretty much all that the US is still capable of dishing out -- this in spite of absolutely astronomical levels of defense spending.

Let's see what the US military-industrial complex looks like through a Russian lens.

It is important to note that the report's authors were not aiming to force legislators to finance some specific project. This makes it more valuable than numerous other sources, whose authors' main objective was to belly up to the federal feeding trough, and which therefore tend to be light on facts and heavy on hype. No doubt, politics still played a part in how various details are portrayed, but there seems to be a limit to the number of problems its authors can airbrush out of the picture and still do a reasonable job in analyzing the situation and in formulating their recommendations.

What knocked Russian analysis over with a feather is the fact that these INDPOL experts (who, like the rest of the US DOD, love acronyms) evaluate the US military-industrial complex from a market-based perspective! You see, the Russian military-industrial complex is fully owned by the Russian government and works exclusively in its interests; anything else would be considered treason. But the US military-industrial complex is evaluated based on its profitability! According to INDPOL, it must not only produce products for the military but also acquire market share in the global weapons trade and, perhaps most importantly, maximize profitability for private investors. By this standard, it is doing well: for 2017 the gross margin (EBITDA) for US defense contractors ranged from 15 to 17%, and some subcontractors - Transdigm, for example - managed to deliver no less than 42-45%. "Ah!" cry the Russian experts, "We've found the problem! The Americans have legalized war profiteering !" (This, by the way, is but one of many instances of something called systemic corruption, which is rife in the US.)

It would be one thing if each defense contractor simply took its cut off the top, but instead there is an entire food chain of defense contractors, all of which are legally required, no less, to maximize profits for their shareholders. More than 28,000 companies are involved, but the actual first-tier defense contractors with which the Pentagon places 2/3 of all defense contracts are just the Big Six: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynmics, BAE Systems and Boeing. All the other companies are organized into a pyramid of subcontractors with five levels of hierarchy, and at each level they do their best to milk the tier above them.

The insistence on market-based methods and the requirement of maximizing profitability turns out to be incompatible with defense spending on a very basic level: defense spending is intermittent and cyclical, with long fallow intervals between major orders. This has forced even the Big Six to make cuts to their defense-directed departments in favor of expanding civilian production. Also, in spite of the huge size of the US defense budget, it is of finite size (there being just one planet to blow up), as is the global weapons market. Since, in a market economy, every company faces the choice of grow or get bought out, this has precipitated scores of mergers and acquisitions, resulting in a highly consolidated marketplace with a few major players in each space.

As a result, in most spaces, of which the report's authors discuss 17, including the Navy, land forces, air force, electronics, nuclear weapons, space technology and so on, at least a third of the time the Pentagon has a choice of exactly one contractor for any given contract, causing quality and timeliness to suffer and driving up prices.

In a number of cases, in spite of its industrial and financial might, the Pentagon has encountered insoluble problems. Specifically, it turns out that the US has only one shipyard left that is capable of building nuclear aircraft carriers (at all, that is; the USS Gerald Ford is not exactly a success). That is Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport, Virginia. In theory, it could work on three ships in parallel, but two of the slips are permanently occupied by existing aircraft carriers that require maintenance. This is not a unique case: the number of shipyards capable of building nuclear submarines, destroyers and other types of vessels is also exactly one. Thus, in case of a protracted conflict with a serious adversary in which a significant portion of the US Navy has been sunk, ships will be impossible to replace within any reasonable amount of time.

The situation is somewhat better with regard to aircraft manufacturing. The plants that exist can produce 40 planes a month and could produce 130 a month if pressed. On the other hand, the situation with tanks and artillery is absolutely dismal. According to this report, the US has completely lost the competency for building the new generation of tanks. It is no longer even a question of missing plant and equipment; in the US, a second generation of engineers who have never designed a tank is currently going into retirement. Their replacements have no one to learn from and only know about modern tanks from movies and video games. As far as artillery, there is just one remaining production line in the US that can produce barrels larger than 40mm; it is fully booked up and would be unable to ramp up production in case of war. The contractor is unwilling to expand production without the Pentagon guaranteeing at least 45% utilization, since that would be unprofitable.

The situation is similar for the entire list of areas; it is better for dual-use technologies that can be sourced from civilian companies and significantly worse for highly specialized ones. Unit cost for every type of military equipment goes up year after year while the volumes being acquired continuously trend lower -- sometimes all the way to zero. Over the past 15 years the US hasn't acquired a single new tank. They keep modernizing the old ones, but at a rate that's no higher than 100 a year.

Because of all these tendencies and trends, the defense industry continues to lose not only qualified personnel but also the very ability to perform the work. INDPOL experts estimate that the deficit in machine tools has reached 27%. Over the past quarter-century the US has stopped manufacturing a wide variety of manufacturing equipment. Only half of these tools can be imported from allies or friendly nations; for the rest, there is just one source: China. They analyzed the supply chains for 600 of the most important types of weapons and found that a third of them have breaks in them while another third have completely broken down. In the Pentagon's five-tier subcontractor pyramid, component manufacturers are almost always relegated to the bottommost tier, and the notices they issue when they terminate production or shut down completely tend to drown in the Pentagon's bureaucratic swamp.

The end result of all this is that theoretically the Pentagon is still capable of doing small production runs of weapons to compensate for ongoing losses in localized, low-intensity conflicts during a general time of peace, but even today this is at the extreme end of its capabilities. In case of a serious conflict with any well-armed nation, all it will be able to rely on is the existing stockpile of ordnance and spare parts, which will be quickly depleted.

A similar situation prevails in the area of rare earth elements and other materials for producing electronics. At the moment, the accumulated stockpile of these supplies needed for producing missiles and space technology -- most importantly, satellites -- is sufficient for five years at the current rate of use.

The report specifically calls out the dire situation in the area of strategic nuclear weapons. Almost all the technology for communications, targeting, trajectory calculations and arming of the ICBM warheads was developed in the 1960s and 70s. To this day, data is loaded from 5-inch floppy diskettes, which were last mass-produced 15 years ago. There are no replacements for them and the people who designed them are busy pushing up daisies. The choice is between buying tiny production runs of all the consumables at an extravagant expense and developing from scratch the entire land-based strategic triad component at the cost of three annual Pentagon budgets.

There are lots of specific problems in each area described in the report, but the main one is loss of competence among technical and engineering staff caused by a low level of orders for replacements or for new product development. The situation is such that promising new theoretical developments coming out of research centers such as DARPA cannot be realized given the present set of technical competencies. For a number of key specializations there are fewer than three dozen trained, experienced specialists.

This situation is expected to continue to deteriorate, with the number of personnel employed in the defense sector declining 11-16% over the next decade, mainly due to a shortage of young candidates qualified to replace those who are retiring. A specific example: development work on the F-35 is nearing completion and there won't be a need to develop a new jet fighter until 2035-2040; in the meantime, the personnel who were involved in its development will be idled and their level of competence will deteriorate.

Although at the moment the US still leads the world in defense spending ($610 billion of $1.7 trillion in 2017, which is roughly 36% of all the military spending on the planet) the US economy is no longer able to support the entire technology pyramid even in a time of relative peace and prosperity. On paper the US still looks like a leader in military technology, but the foundations of its military supremacy have eroded. Results of this are plainly visible:

All of this points to the fact that the US is no longer much a military power at all. This is good news for at least the following four reasons.

First, the US is by far the most belligerent country on Earth, having invaded scores of nations and continuing to occupy many of them. The fact that it can't fight any more means that opportunities for peace are bound to increase.

Second, once the news sinks in that the Pentagon is nothing more than a flush toilet for public funds its funding will be cut off and the population of the US might see the money that is currently fattening up war profiteers being spent on some roads and bridges, although it's looking far more likely that it will all go into paying interest expense on federal debt (while supplies last).

Third, US politicians will lose the ability to keep the populace in a state of permanent anxiety about "national security." In fact, the US has "natural security" -- two oceans -- and doesn't need much national defense at all (provided it keeps to itself and doesn't try to make trouble for others). The Canadians aren't going to invade, and while the southern border does need some guarding, that can be taken care of at the state/county level by some good ol' boys using weapons and ammo they already happen to have on hand. Once this $1.7 trillion "national defense" monkey is off their backs, ordinary American citizens will be able to work less, play more and feel less aggressive, anxious, depressed and paranoid.

Last but not least, it will be wonderful to see the war profiteers reduced to scraping under sofa cushions for loose change. All that the US military has been able to produce for a long time now is misery, the technical term for which is "humanitarian disaster." Look at the aftermath of US military involvement in Serbia/Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, and what do you see? You see misery -- both for the locals and for US citizens who lost their family members, had their limbs blown off, or are now suffering from PTSD or brain injury. It would be only fair if that misery were to circle back to those who had profited from it.

Tags War Conflict

[Jul 21, 2019] Merchants of Death business uber alles" as the new interpretation of "Drain the Swamp" election time slogan by Trump administration

"Drain the swamp" now means good times for Raytheon.
Jul 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

rwe2late , 1 hour ago link

Draining the swamp means hiring the lobbyists

- Orwell

...err, I meant Trump.

War is Peace

- well, now that's Orwell

(and many others in government and elsewhere)

Klassenfeind , 2 hours ago link

The Donald Trump Administration is looking more and more like George W. Bush's Administration: a dumb clueless idiot surrounded by neocons.

Remember Donald Rumsfeld , Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton , George Tenet, Henry Paulson, Paul Wolfowitz , and **** Cheney from the George W Bush Administration?

Tell me Trumptards, what's so "different this time" about Donald Trump hiring Bolton, Pompeo, Mattis/Shanahan/Esper, Haley, Haspel and Mnuchin?

[Jul 20, 2019] New US Pentagon Chief Vested Interest in War Conflict

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "President Trump's Cabinet is already rife with corruption, stocked full of former lobbyists and other private industry power players who don't seem to mind leveraging their government positions to enrich themselves personally. Esper should fit right in," ..."
"... The linkage between officials in US government, the Pentagon and private manufacturers is a notorious example of "revolving door". It is not unusual, or even remarkable, that individuals go from one sector to another and vice versa. That crony relationship is fundamental to the functioning of the "military-industrial complex" which dominates the entire American economy and the fiscal budget ($730 billion annually – half the total discretionary public spend by federal government). ..."
"... Raytheon is a $25 billion company whose business is all about selling missile-defense systems. Its products have been deployed in dozens of countries, including in the Middle East, as well as Japan, Romania and, as of next year, Poland. It is in Raytheon's vital vested interest to capitalize on alleged security threats from Iran, Russia, China and North Korea in order to sell "defense" systems to nations that then perceive a "threat" and need to be "protected". ..."
"... It is a certainty that Esper shares the same worldview, not just for engrained ideological reasons, but also because of his own personal motives for self-aggrandizement as a former employee of Raytheon and quite possibly as a future board member when he retires from the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is also about how US foreign policy and military decisions are formulated and executed, including decisions on matters of conflict and ultimately war. The insidiousness is almost farcical, if the implications weren't so disturbing, worthy of satire from the genre of Dr Strangelove or Catch 22. ..."
"... During senate hearings this week, Esper openly revealed his dubious quality of thinking and the kind of policies he will pursue as Pentagon chief. He told credulous senators that Russia was to blame for the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That equates to more Raytheon profits from selling defense systems in Europe. ..."
"... It is ludicrous how blatant a so-called democratic nation (the self-declared "leader of the free world") is in actuality an oligarchic corporate state whose international relations are conducted on the basis of making obscene profits from conflict and war. ..."
Jul 20, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Mark Esper is expected to be confirmed in coming days as the new US Secretary of Defense. His appointment is awaiting final Congressional approval after customary hearings this week before senators. The 55-year-old nominee put forward by President Trump was previously a decorated Lieutenant Colonel and has served in government office during the GW Bush administration.

But what stands out as his most conspicuous past occupation is working for seven years as a senior lobbyist for Raytheon, the US' third biggest military manufacturing company. The firm specializes in missile-defense systems, including the Patriot, Iron Dome and the Aegis Ashore system (the latter in partnership with Lockheed Martin).

As Defense Secretary, Esper will be the most senior civilian executive member of the US government, next to the president, on overseeing military policy, including decisions about declaring war and deployment of American armed forces around the globe. His military counterpart at the Pentagon is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, currently held by Marine General Joseph Dunford who is expected to be replaced soon by General Mark Milley (also in the process of senate hearings).

Esper's confirmation hearings this week were pretty much a rubber-stamp procedure, receiving lame questioning from senators about his credentials and viewpoints. The only exception was Senator Elizabeth Warren, who slammed the potential "conflict of interest" due to his past lobbying service for Raytheon. She said it "smacks of corruption". Other than her solitary objection, Esper was treated with kid gloves by other senators and his appointment is expected to be whistled through by next week. During hearings, the former lobbyist even pointedly refused to recuse himself of any matters involving Raytheon if he becomes the defense boss.

As Rolling Stone magazine quipped on Esper's nomination, "it is as swampy as you'd expect".

"President Trump's Cabinet is already rife with corruption, stocked full of former lobbyists and other private industry power players who don't seem to mind leveraging their government positions to enrich themselves personally. Esper should fit right in," wrote Rolling Stone.

The linkage between officials in US government, the Pentagon and private manufacturers is a notorious example of "revolving door". It is not unusual, or even remarkable, that individuals go from one sector to another and vice versa. That crony relationship is fundamental to the functioning of the "military-industrial complex" which dominates the entire American economy and the fiscal budget ($730 billion annually – half the total discretionary public spend by federal government).

Nevertheless, Esper is a particularly brazen embodiment of the revolving-door's seamless connection.

Raytheon is a $25 billion company whose business is all about selling missile-defense systems. Its products have been deployed in dozens of countries, including in the Middle East, as well as Japan, Romania and, as of next year, Poland. It is in Raytheon's vital vested interest to capitalize on alleged security threats from Iran, Russia, China and North Korea in order to sell "defense" systems to nations that then perceive a "threat" and need to be "protected".

It is a certainty that Esper shares the same worldview, not just for engrained ideological reasons, but also because of his own personal motives for self-aggrandizement as a former employee of Raytheon and quite possibly as a future board member when he retires from the Pentagon. The issue is not just merely about corruption and ethics, huge that those concerns are.

It is also about how US foreign policy and military decisions are formulated and executed, including decisions on matters of conflict and ultimately war. The insidiousness is almost farcical, if the implications weren't so disturbing, worthy of satire from the genre of Dr Strangelove or Catch 22.

How is Esper's advice to the president about tensions with Russia, Iran, China or North Korea, or any other alleged adversary, supposed to be independent, credible or objective? Esper is a de facto lobbyist for the military-industrial complex sitting in the Oval Office and Situation Room. Tensions, conflict and war are meat and potatoes to this person.

During senate hearings this week, Esper openly revealed his dubious quality of thinking and the kind of policies he will pursue as Pentagon chief. He told credulous senators that Russia was to blame for the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That equates to more Raytheon profits from selling defense systems in Europe. Also, in a clumsy inadvertent admission he advised that the US needs to get out of the INF in order to develop medium-range missiles to "counter China". The latter admission explains the cynical purpose for why the Trump administration unilaterally ditched the INF earlier this year. It is not about alleged Russian breaches of the treaty; the real reason is for the US to obtain a freer hand to confront China.

It is ludicrous how blatant a so-called democratic nation (the self-declared "leader of the free world") is in actuality an oligarchic corporate state whose international relations are conducted on the basis of making obscene profits from conflict and war.

Little wonder then than bilateral relations between the US and Russia are in such dire condition. Trump's soon-to-be top military advisor Mark Esper is not going to make bilateral relations any better, that's for sure.

Also at a precarious time of possible war with Iran, the last person Trump should consult is someone whose corporate cronies are craving for more weapons sales. The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

Tags: Esper INF Treaty Pentagon US

[Jul 20, 2019] The Decline of Our Nation's Generals by Andrew Bacevich

Jul 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

... ... ...

The clichés poured forth from Milley's lips with all the practiced smarminess of a car salesman promoting a new line of pickup trucks. But what does this mean in practice, Senator James Inhofe, Senate Armed Services Committee chair, wanted to know? What is General Milley's top priority?

"The very number one for me," Milley replied, "is the modernization, recapitalization of the nation's nuclear triad."

Now pause here for a moment. The triad -- the claim that the safety and security of the United States requires a nuclear strike force consisting of long-range bombers and long-range land-based missiles and missile-firing submarines -- represented fresh thinking some 60 years ago. That was when ICBMs and Polaris submarines were entering service to complement Strategic Air Command's fleet of B47s and B52s. If indeed "the fundamental character of war is changing rapidly," how can it be that Milley's conception of originality is to field glitzier versions of weapons dating back to when he was born? To make such a claim is on a par with arguing that what the U.S. Army needed in 1940 was more horses and the U.S. Navy more battleships.

It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.

Andrew Bacevich is TAC 's writer-at-large and a co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.


TomG 17 hours ago

"What they say is mostly drivel."

Pathetic, expensive, immoral, divisive, destructive drivel with no end in sight...

JohnT 17 hours ago
Wow! Finally! No retreat to the comfort of broad generalization like "the eilites" but rather a well considered, on target consideration of one of the individuals in a position of power and responsibility sufficient to make the absolutely necessary changes our remarkable nation's health demands. Thank you!
And, if the general can't make use of well a intended and considered constructive critique he is not the experienced, compassionate adult the task requires.
SteveM 15 hours ago
It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.


Professor Bacevich has this one exactly backwards. Notice that when the sanctified Pentagon Generals make their fear-monger saturated pronouncements there is zero pushback from either the Politicos or the lapdog MSM. It is not that they are not listening. It's that they fully concur because they are intimidated by anyone wearing Stars on their shoulders.

They accept the "drivel" of the Pentagon Brass by default. BTW, which also includes the includes the updated National Defense Strategy which has the U.S. playing belligerent Global Cop in perpetuity and wasting taxpayer dollars out the wazoo.

If anything, the Congress and MSM should be paying more serious attention to the obsolete and unaffordable pronouncements of the Generals and start questioning their own instinctive deference to Pentagon authority which permits the warped, fully militarized and largely failed U.S. foreign policy to continue as is.

interguru 15 hours ago
I am not the first person to note that the US is displaying more and more symptoms of a dying empire. To name a few; a broken political system, crony capitalism, a bloated military, use of mercenaries, and unpayable debt.

The other day, while watching some general being interviewed, I noticed another symptom. He, and other contemporary generals, have so many ribbons and metals on their chest that they could be melted down for ore. I found a site that lets me compare our beribboned commanders with those of yesteryear.

Civil War generals had few or no ribbons. World War I's General of the Armies Pershing displays two rows of narrow ribbons. By World War II General Eisenhower showed three ribbon rows. In 1950 General Bradley showed 6 rows ( you can see a detailed picture here ).

The pictures of today's generals and officers are bedazzling. Just one example, The page describing William J. Gainey, USA, Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman, JCS ( not even a general ), shows a picture with at least 8 rows of ribbons, with a list 24 lines long describing 56 awards after accounting for multiple awards.

As our military officers watch the country fall apart, at least they can fondle their decorations.

baldwin 15 hours ago
The role of the generals and admirals is to advise. They can not make the politicians listen.
Sid Finster 14 hours ago
The absolute last thing this country needs is celebrity generals, or even generals who hold power in the shadows as a sort of eminence grise.
Kent 14 hours ago
Andrew J Bacevich does more for the long-term military strength and international standing of the USA than much of the military and political leadership of this country. A true patriot.
bbkingfish 14 hours ago
Wow. That photograph of Gen. Milley illustrates the author's case beautifully. Worth a thousand words.
marku52 13 hours ago
That was amazing. "War is changing rapidly" coupled with "Most important: updating a 60 year old weapon system"

Not a single world about figuring out why every war since Gulf 1 has been an abject failure? Or the threat of our defense manufacturing infrastructure being sold by Wall Street to China? Not a word?

The man can really talk out of both sides of his mouth, can't he? Should do great on Capitol Hill...

Taras77 13 hours ago
Not sure how we got to this pathetic stage but my guess is that some of the pomposity is directly related to the armies of press following the generals around in Iraq, e.g. petraeus, et al
As a snarky comment, what in the world is with all of these "impressive" ribbons to the top of these generals' shoulders-from what I understand, about 70-80% of them are meaningless, only a few are for combat, valor, some are for merit, but are more or less automatic. Talk about grade creep, how about ribbon creep.
Ike had about one or two rows, all meaningful awards. Marshall had maybe one row, meaningful awards to a very competent general.

Those generals that came out of Iraq and Afghan were mostly mouth pieces for the press and the politicians, i.e. drivel. None of them could win a meaningful engagement without bombing the heck out of civilians and associated cities. In a word, pathetic.

Thomas Cass 12 hours ago
Unless politicians feel pressure to act on military matters in a way that honors their or their constituents' lived experiences, how are they to be incentivized to ask the right questions? Some flavor of draft to increase stakeholders among the citizenry, or a service requirement for government office, might realize the serious attention for which Mr. Bacevich protests here, and drive the selection of better leaders.
James B 11 hours ago
To me for, both the nation and the military, we need to have an update of the high tech weapon systems that the General talks about but we also need to have a reassessment of how we fight wars. The wars the US won are (in my mind) the Revolution and WWII. I think the Civil war was "lost" because although the US defeated the Confederacy it did not reunite the nation. WWI was said to be the war to end all wars - - that didn't happen. No question that both Korea and Vietnam were not won, despite the heroism of those fighting there - - those wars were handled by Washington politics. MacAuthor could have won Korea but was fired. The whole Vietnam was was managed by politics. Now to the middle east. Afghanistan is another example of political warfare as is Iraq and potentially Iran. I believe that a war can be partly won by high tech missiles, bombs, etc. but cannot be actually won except by occupying the ground. We did this in Europe with the troops giving out cigarettes and candy as they patrolled. That made them human to the previous "enemy". Our professional volunteer army doesn't have the manpower to do this. I believe we need to have a secondary low-tech army of drafted men and women who can be trained quickly to be able to follow commands, to use a rifle with accuracy, and to be able to reduce civilian conflict without violent response. The high tech folk require extended training, the low tech force is able to move in and actually win the war. How would this help the nation? It would force people to live and work with a diverse population and realize that we can be a single nation of people of different backgrounds and ethnicity. The "fly over land" people really aren't a bunch of idiot racist red-necks. The coastals are not (all) anxious to destroy America.
Kent James B 11 hours ago
The US didn't just win in WWII because we occupied the ground. We won because we showed the German people that we were happy to fire bomb entire ancient cities and indiscriminately kill their women and children without a second thought.

And we were the good ones to surrender to. The Russians were happy to kill them all, with the exception of a few pretty blonds who would henceforth bear strong Russian boys.

You can't win a war without utterly defeating an entire population. Which is why we can't win our wars. None of these people have done anything to really harm us. And the American people still have enough dignity to not just slaughter these people for no reason. We're not entirely evil, yet.

Steve Naidamast 10 hours ago
I have always wondered what such people mean when they say that the character of warfare is changing and the US has to adopt to such changes.

War is about 2 things; killing and destruction. That in a nutshell is the character of war. Anything else may describe the complexities of tactics and strategies or the causes of such conflicts but the actual features of any conflict are always the same.

The only thing that does change is the types of weapon systems used. The stupidity that has led militaries to use them hasn't changed since the dawn of time...

[Jul 20, 2019] House orders Pentagon to say if it weaponized ticks and released them by John M. Donnelly

Notable quotes:
"... If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments' scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into using such insects to disseminate biological agents. ..."
"... A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks. ..."
"... Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and for more funding for research into a cure. ..."
"... Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could provide information that could save lives. ..."
"... "We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said. ..."
Jul 15, 2019 | www.rollcall.com

The House quietly voted last week to require the Pentagon inspector general to tell Congress whether the department experimented with weaponizing disease-carrying insects and whether they were released into the public realm -- either accidentally or on purpose.

The unusual proposal took the form of an amendment that was adopted by voice vote July 11 during House debate on the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bill, which lawmakers passed the following day.

The amendment, by New Jersey Republican Christopher H. Smith , says the inspector general "shall conduct a review of whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975."

If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments' scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into using such insects to disseminate biological agents.

President Richard Nixon banned U.S. government research into biological weapons in 1969, but research into protecting U.S. military personnel from such agents may have continued, Smith said in an interview Monday.

A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks.

To Smith and other advocates of the Pentagon IG report, studying the past may provide data that can help stem the spread of Lyme disease in the future.

Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and for more funding for research into a cure.

"We need answers and we need them now," Smith said.

Smith's amendment was co-sponsored by Minnesota Democrat Collin C. Peterson , who is the House caucus's other leader, and by Maryland Republican Andy Harris .

Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could provide information that could save lives.

"We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said.

It remains to be seen whether Congress will send President Donald Trump a defense authorization bill with the weaponized ticks amendment. The Senate has passed its version without any similar provision, and now House and Senate negotiators must reconcile the two bills.

[Jul 06, 2019] Many critics will blame Putin for betraying Assad, but I think he is merely showing that he is a master negotiator who recognizes the importance of 'good' relations with Turkey, and knows he will not get everything he wants in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... Buying S400 and losing F35 is a win win. ..."
"... Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even assistance with the maximum pressure campaign. ..."
"... Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold. ..."
"... Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose sanctions on Turkey and that will be that. ..."
"... Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the more sense. ..."
"... Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400 being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman too. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

plantman , 06 July 2019 at 11:30 AM

What is most interesting to me, is that the Russian air force is actually pounding Turkey's militant allies on the ground in Idlib, but both men (Erdogan and Putin) are still strengthening their ties thru Turkstream, Russian tourism and building of a nuclear power plant. Diplomacy seems to have surpassed conditions on the ground in Syria.

Also, Iran's leaders feel slightly betrayed by Putin's deference to Erdogan. They must believe (as I do) that Putin has agreed to allow Turkey to occupy parts of Syria following the war.

Turkey has been very consistent on this issue from the very beginning...and it has plans to resettle parts of N Syria with the nearly 3 million refugees it is housing in S Turkey.

Many critics will blame Putin for betraying Assad, but I think he is merely showing that he is a master negotiator who recognizes the importance of 'good' relations with Turkey, and knows he will not get everything he wants in Syria. Compromise with Turkey opens up a path to ending the war and for pressuring US-Turkey relations which continue to worsen as Washington continues to support a de facto Kurdistan in E Syria.

Sbin , 06 July 2019 at 12:50 PM

Buying S400 and losing F35 is a win win.

Letting a committee design an aicraft instead of aerospace engineers is a bad idea. Pentagon should cut their loss much like with the Zumwalt program.

Barbara Ann , 06 July 2019 at 12:50 PM

M K Bhadrakumar is a great source for following the frenetic pace of developments in Eurasian geopolitics and he covered this very topic yesterday (see link).

His view of where the Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even assistance with the maximum pressure campaign.

Whilst S-400 delivery is contrary to US/NATO wishes/policy, it makes sense to me that it gets treated as a second order issue in this context. Turkey also wants Iran out of Syria, but if pushed even further into a corner Turkey could make life difficult for the US on Iran and therefore even potentially endanger Trump's re-election chances.

Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold.

The slippery Sultan has pushed it to the limit, but the anti-Iran coalition now needs him - at least in the short term. My guess is he gets to keep his shiny new AD system.

Where Turkey chooses to put it is a very interesting question; facing its ancient enemy in the West, or perhaps sited to cover the Cyprus EEZ and its oil?

https://indianpunchline.com/trump-outflanks-iran-to-the-west-and-east/

JJackson , 06 July 2019 at 12:53 PM

Re. 2 and possibly 5.

Does anyone understand the F35 deal between the participating partner nations.
Wikipedia say Turkey is a level 3 partner which cost it $4.3 billion and that sales are handled via the Pentagon.

Who decides if a partner in the project can be denied the right to buy their product? What I did not see is what F35 components were produced in Turkey and if they stopped exports what redundancy their was in the system.

Can Turkey say fine I will take my $4.3 billion back as the Russians and Chinese have both made me very attractive offers?

JamesT -> JJackson... , 06 July 2019 at 05:03 PM

Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose sanctions on Turkey and that will be that.

Eugene Owens , 06 July 2019 at 01:14 PM

Regarding #1 and #2: S-400 is already in Algeria. And it will be in India by next year.

Reuters claims that Trump's good buddy King Salman signed a deal with Russia to buy S-400s.

Reuters also reported that Qatar was considering an S-400 purchase. So why is Pom-Pom only jumping on Turkey's back and not castigating the Saudis, Qataris, Algeriens, and Indians about the S-400? Keeping F-35 stealth capability from snooping by S-400s is the stated reason we don't want Turkey to have the S-400.

But when carrier based F35s are flying in the eastern Med, that stealth capability could be snooped on by the Algerien systems (or by Russian "field service reps" in Algeria with those systems). Ditto for the F35s in Italy. Could Israeli F35 stealth already be jeopardized by Russian system at Khmeimim AB in Syria?

#3 Idiots. But they are being used by Trump. He puts them up to it, so that he can pull back at the last minute and be Mr World Peace.

#4: State owned Rossiya TV lampooned Trump's Fourth of July celebration. Called it фигня (pronounced as 'fignya' and translates as bullshit). They mocked the tanks on display, said "the paint on these vehicles is peeling off. They have no cannons, and the optics were pasted on with adhesive tape" . Host Yevgeny Popov called the President "our Donald Trump" . Co-host Olga Skabeeva calls the parade "Putin's America" .

#5: See #3

#6 & 7: I was hoping #6 would stall #7, but I have serious doubts.

JamesT -> Eugene Owens... , 06 July 2019 at 04:44 PM

Eugene,

Is the S-400 in Algeria already? I have found reports that it was scheduled to be delivered in 2015 - but I can't find any reports on it actually being delivered. I don't think the Russians would have sold it to anyone other than Belarus and China until they had the S-500 ready to go.

Eugene Owens -> JamesT ... , 06 July 2019 at 09:48 PM

James -

Wiki says yes but their references to it are speculative.

Besides those there is a Business Insider article, German Edition, which claims Algeria has the S-400. It was dated last November.

Plus there is a report on Sputnik re S-400 in Algeria. But that is based on a MENAdefense.net article, which has photos (irrefutable they claim??) of several S-400 launchers in Algeria. Plus BAZ-64022 truck-tractors which are used with the S-400 and NOT the S-300. So maybe they do and are trying to hide the fact in order to avoid sanctions? Or maybe they have upgraded their S-300 PMU-2s to the PMU-3, which is a close match to the S-400. Or perhaps it is all propaganda?

Walrus , 06 July 2019 at 01:33 PM

Regarding the F35 and the S400, the obvious thing to do is to let them have both and swap information. We get S400 info and Russia gets F35 data.......except erdo will try and screw both of us.

The Twisted Genius , 06 July 2019 at 03:58 PM

I believe Putin's goal is to transform Turkey from a NATO state into an integral part of Russia's near abroad to eventually secure a guaranteed access to the Mediterranean and beyond and have a reliable buffer between Russia and Middle East. It's ensuring peace of mind, not rebuilding an empire.

JamesT -> The Twisted Genius ... , 06 July 2019 at 04:58 PM

TTG,

I think Putin's goal is more about forming a partnership with Turkey to build an energy corridor through Turkey to Europe. Control of this corridor, or at least membership in the alliance that controls this corridor, is a big deal from a geopolitical standpoint.

Thus Russia and Turkey can form something along the lines of an "OPEC on steroids" - Turkey can control who gets to pipe hydrocarbons to Europe and Russia can provide protection to those who wish to join their alliance (as they have already done for Syria).

Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the more sense.

What Turkey has to gain from such an arrangement is not only transit fees for the hydrocarbons, but also a chance to develop their economy - if Turkey is at the head of the line for receipt of hydrocarbons to Europe, they are at the head of the line for building industry and businesses which use those hydrocarbons as inputs (eg refineries, plastics, aluminum, chemical production).

CK -> The Twisted Genius ... , 06 July 2019 at 05:09 PM

Access to the Med is already guaranteed by treaty just as is access to the Black Sea. Access beyond the Med is controlled at the Suez and the pillars of Hercules.

Eugene Owens -> CK... , 06 July 2019 at 10:01 PM

CK -

Guaranteed during peacetime. During any hostilities you can throw that treaty out the window.

Which is why TTG is correct that Putin's goal is to get Turkey out of NATO. And he may doublecross Assad by blessing Turkey's permanent occupation (or annexation) of those four districts of northern Aleppo Province (i.e. Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab, & Jarabulus). As payment for getting out of NATO.

Lars , 06 July 2019 at 05:52 PM

Until you fix the problem with, according to a poll, 56% of American parents not wanting Arabic numerals taught to their children. I suspect that an equal number would not be able to find any of the mentioned places on a map.

Where those with crystal balls find certainty, I find something much less. We do know that containment polices can work very well, but any involvement in the world's longest contested area is not worth the cost, nor the risk. The US has already spent a fortune, with very little to show for it.

Maybe it is all about learning?

Mark Logan , 06 July 2019 at 05:52 PM

Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400 being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman too.

Yosemite Sam Bolton is probably being told to go out there and do his thing, and suffering from whip-lash when Trump yanks the carpet out from under them without apology. The poor dear must be like...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWYFxekoAsM

[Jul 06, 2019] US is a Classic Empire and Is Becoming a Repressive Police State at Home by DAVE LINDORFF

Notable quotes:
"... The US today is a global empire. Our country's military, ballooning to some 2.1 million in uniform at a time that there is really no significant war underway. US military spending, greater in constant dollars than at any time since WWII, represents 34% of all global military spending, and the US military budget, depending on how one counts it, is larger than the next largest eight-to-ten countries' military budgets combined. ..."
"... And remember -- US empire and militarism is and has always been supported by both political parties. ..."
"... only 32% of Americans say they are "proud" (forget "extremely proud"!) of America's vaunted political system. In a close second for popular disgust, only 37% said they are "proud" of the US health care system. ..."
"... In my view, my country has become the world's leading "rogue" nation, dismissive of all international laws and codes of conduct, actively attacking many countries on its own authority, without the support of UN Security Council resolutions, exonerating war crimes committed by its soldiers, and committed to the first use of nuclear weapons, both as a first strike against major power rivals like Russia and China, and against non-nuclear nations like Iran, and equally dismissive of all efforts, large and small, to respond to the crisis of catastrophic global heating. ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

... ... ...

The US today is a global empire. Our country's military, ballooning to some 2.1 million in uniform at a time that there is really no significant war underway. US military spending, greater in constant dollars than at any time since WWII, represents 34% of all global military spending, and the US military budget, depending on how one counts it, is larger than the next largest eight-to-ten countries' military budgets combined.

To show how ridiculously huge the US military is, consider that at $220 billion for fiscal year 2020, the US budget for Veterans Affairs alone (that's the agency that provides assistance of all kinds, including medical, to those who served in the military, not counting career soldiers who receive a pension that is counted separately) this one military budget line item is larger than the entire military budget of China, and is more than three times as large as the entire military budget of Russia, considered by many to be our primary "adversary"!

And remember -- US empire and militarism is and has always been supported by both political parties.

... ... ...

I read that a recent Gallup Organization poll shows a significant drop in the percentage of US Americans who are "extremely proud" of their country. True, 45% still say they are "proud" of America, but normally that is how many say they are "extremely proud" to be Americans. That's a significant fall-off. Even among normally super-patriotic Republicans the percentage of those saying they are "extremely proud" this July 4 of this country was down to 76%, a 10% drop from 2003, and close to the 68% low point reached at one point during the Obama administration.

The main cause of the loss of patriotic ardor appears to be dismay or disgust with the US political system. According to the poll, only 32% of Americans say they are "proud" (forget "extremely proud"!) of America's vaunted political system. In a close second for popular disgust, only 37% said they are "proud" of the US health care system.

So I guess I'm in pretty good company. I won't be oohing and aaahing at the local fireworks display this year. It's basically a glorification of US war-making anyhow, and there's nothing at all to be proud of in that regard, particularly with the US in the midst of a $1.5-trillion upgrade of its nuclear arsenal, threatening war with Iran, pulling out of a Reagan-era treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and embarking in a new arms race both in space and in virtually unstoppable hypersonic cruise missiles.

In my view, my country has become the world's leading "rogue" nation, dismissive of all international laws and codes of conduct, actively attacking many countries on its own authority, without the support of UN Security Council resolutions, exonerating war crimes committed by its soldiers, and committed to the first use of nuclear weapons, both as a first strike against major power rivals like Russia and China, and against non-nuclear nations like Iran, and equally dismissive of all efforts, large and small, to respond to the crisis of catastrophic global heating. [

At home, the US legal system has become a supine supporter of virtually unlimited executive power, of unchecked police power, and of repressive actions against the supposedly constitutionally protected free press.

It's tempting to hope that the decline noted by Gallup in the percent of Americans expressing "extreme pride" and even of "pride" in the US, but support for the US among the country's citizens still remains shamefully high in the face of all these negatives.

Anyhow, count me among those who won't be celebrating today's July 4 national holiday.

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: DAVE LINDORFF

Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening! , an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

[Jul 06, 2019] Peace though procurement malpractice

Notable quotes:
"... The current batch of military hardware is so much garbage that when the President wants to use the "superb" pieces of crap (F35 and the new boats are prime examples) a general will have to become the sacrificial lamb and give the president the news that this stuff is for show only. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

cnchal, July 5, 2019 at 5:38 am

Peace though procurement malpractice. The current batch of military hardware is so much garbage that when the President wants to use the "superb" pieces of crap (F35 and the new boats are prime examples) a general will have to become the sacrificial lamb and give the president the news that this stuff is for show only.

[Jul 04, 2019] The role of having world reserve currency in the unleashing the USA militarism

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez, July 2, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT 600 Words @Commentator Mike

Hey Mike,

There is an article on here by Michael Hudson, an economist who wrote about U.S. control of the World Bank and IMF since 1948. He claims that the U.S. wages war because it gets other countries to unwittingly finance them and the trade deficit. After WWII the U.S. forced European countries to pay their war debt, by selling corporate assets, reducing barriers and reduce their social programs. They had 3/4 of the world gold reserves because of those loans during the war. Korea and Vietnam reduced their gold reserves to 10 billion by the late 60's and were forced to get out off the Gold Standard. The French Banks that had a big presense in Indochina sending their dollars to the French Central Bank and they were trading dollars for gold. Nixon stopped it.

The dollar gave U.S. the means to have other countries finance their trade deficit, all their wars and the military buildup. By ending the Gold backed dollar they forced the countries that had U.S. debt dollars to purchase U.S. Treasury Bonds. As the U.S. debt grew so did the dollars being held by those countries and the purchase of Treasury Bonds. The U.S. does not allow countries holding those dollars to buy US property or buy Corporations and risk being acused of commiting an act of war. So they are forced to buy U.S. debt while the US uses its dollars to buy other countries resources with those worthless dollars.

The U.S. forces countries that default on their loans to pay penalties and huge interest payments while the U.S. debt goes un checked and growing without the threat of being in default...

[Jul 04, 2019] The armed forces are just a bunch of heavily entrenched welfare recipients who get uniforms, guns, bombs etc. , and are always angling for more money

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree says: Website July 2, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT 100 Words @Your connection is not secure

Your connection is not secure says: "Wake up people. The military works for the evil masters. They don't really want war of course, they want peace – particularly between your ears."

It's all about welfare- welfare specifically for the military industrial complex , that is.

The armed forces are just a bunch of heavily entrenched welfare recipients who get uniforms, guns, bombs etc. , and are always angling for more money so that they to get more uniforms, guns, bombs etc., to be happily provided by the "private" inc. sycophants, otherwise collectively known as "weapons manufacturers".

Welfare/warfare, don't you just love it?

Regards, onebornfree

Pancho Perico , says: July 2, 2019 at 4:12 pm GMT

Council on Foreign Relations Tulsi Gabbard U.S. President? You have to be very gullible, to say the least, to believe that she is going to end America's endless wars.

Jacques Sheete , says: July 2, 2019 at 4:12 pm GMT
@Realist

Yes, indeed. The Deep State will only be beaten by force.

I vote for rotting from within. Not as dramatic as force, but more effective and long lasting. I'll enjoy the show when they start, Cronus-like, knocking one another off though.

[Jul 04, 2019] Bush Sr. and his CIA drug dealing

Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez says: July 2, 2019 at 9:36 pm GMT 500 Words @Harold Smith

With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative, which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.

Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.

Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades – Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as "Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.

With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing, Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote. Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.

There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it out of your Vocabulary"!

We were!!!

[Jul 04, 2019] any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law

Wars are necessary for the maintaining and expanding the US controlled neoliberal empire. Wars is the health of military industrial complex.
The Deep State will bury any candidate who will try to change the USA forign policy. Looks what happened to Trump. He got Russiagate just for vey modest proposal of detente with Russia (of course not only for that, but still...)
Notable quotes:
"... The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into. ..."
Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

alexander says: July 2, 2019 at 8:57 pm GMT 400 Words

Those are interesting proposals but wishful thinking: wars are necessary for Electing Tulsi Gabbard as our next Commander in Chief will not solve our biggest problems alone.

Her candidacy, I believe , must be augmented by two new laws which should be demanded by the taxpayer and enforced by her administration on "day one".

The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into.

If they lied us into war .they pay for it NOT the US taxpayer.

The second is " The Terror Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ also retroactive to 2001, it states that any and all individuals found to have engaged in plotting, planning, or staging "false terror events" will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all of the assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit to pay down the cost of our War on Terror.

Americans should not have to sacrifice one cent of their tax dollars to pay for their own defrauding by "staged" or "phony" terror events.

I believe that were Tulsi to be elected, she should set up two new task forces designed especially for these reasons, Try to think of them as the " Office of Special Plans" IN REVERSO.!.

Moreover she should hold weekly press briefings to notify the taxpayer of her progress, and also how much of our 23 trillion in losses , FROM THEIR LIES, she has been able to recoup.

Getting these two initiatives up and running is the most potent force the taxpayers have in cleaning out the fraud and larceny in DC, .ending our illegal wars overseas .. and (finally)holding our "establishment elite " accountable for "LYING US INTO THEM"

It is way overdue for the American Taxpayer to take back control of our government from those who ALMOST BANKRUPTED OUR ENTIRE NATION BY LYING US INTO ILLEGAL WARS.

It is not enough any more just to complain or "kvetch" about our problems .put on your thinking caps .and start coming up with solutions and initiatives .start fighting for your freedom, your finances and your future.

Elect the leaders YOU WANT and tell them exactly what you want them to do!

Tulsi has promised us all "SERVICE OVER SELF"

There you go !

I say that means not only ENDING our ILLEGAL, CRIMINAL WARS .but GETTING AS MUCH OF OUR MONEY BACK from those who lied us into them !

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WAR FRAUD it is $23,000,000,000,000.00. in "heinous debt" .overdue!

OORAH !

[Jun 30, 2019] First Democratic debate Demagogy on social issues, silence on war by Patrick Martin

This is WSWS with their outdated dreams of "working class dictatorship" but some points and observation are very apt and to the point.
Notable quotes:
"... The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy ..."
"... Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ..."
"... She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times ..."
"... The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama. ..."
"... If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia. ..."
"... On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Four hours of nationally televised debates Wednesday and Thursday among 20 Democratic presidential candidates demonstrated the gigantic disconnect between the claims of this pro-war, pro-corporate party to be driven by concerns for the well-being of working people and the reality of poverty and oppression in America, for which the Democratic Party is no less responsible than the Republicans.

The stage-managed spectacle mounted by NBC marked the formal beginning of an electoral process dominated by big money and thoroughly manipulated by the corporate-controlled media.

The attempt to contain the growing left-wing opposition in the working class and channel it behind the second oldest capitalist party in the world necessarily assumed the form of lies and demagogy. For the most part, the vying politicians, all of them in the top 10 percent on the income ladder, made promises to provide healthcare, jobs, decent schools, tuition-free college and a clean environment for all, knowing full well they had no intention of carrying them out.

No one -- neither the millionaire media talking heads asking the questions nor the candidates -- dared to mention the fact that that Democratic Party has just voted to give Trump an additional $4.9 billion to round up, detain and torture hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including children, in the growing network of concentration camps being set up within the US. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and this one demonstrates the complicity of the Democratic Party in the fascistic policies of the Trump administration.

The second night of the debate featured the front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has a long record of reactionary politics, including in the Obama administration. Sanders is continuing in this election his role in 2016 of channeling growing support for socialism into the framework of a right-wing party.

The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy. The African-American senator was lauded for attacking Biden for statements boasting of his ability in the past to collaborate with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing for school integration.

It was Harris who adopted the most transparently bogus posture of left-radicalism in Thursday night's debate, repeatedly declaring her agreement with Bernie Sanders and raising her hand, along with Sanders, to support the abolition of private health insurance in favor of a single-payer system. By Friday morning, however, she had reversed that stand, claiming she had "misheard" the question and declaring her support for the continuation of private insurance.

Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times , who want the Democratic campaign to be dominated by racial and gender politics so as to mobilize the party's wealthy upper-middle class base and divert and divide the mass working class anger over social inequality.

Many of the candidates fondly recalled the Obama administration. But those eight years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the super-rich in American history. The pace was set by the initial $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was expanded to uncounted trillions in the course of 2009, combined with the bailout of the auto companies at the expense of the autoworkers, who suffered massive cuts in benefits and a 50 percent cut in pay for new hires, rubber-stamped by the United Auto Workers.

The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama.

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado attacked Biden for claiming credit for a bipartisan budget deal in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Far from a genuine compromise, he said, the deal "was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush tax cuts permanently," as well as putting in place major cuts in social spending which continue to this day. Bennet neglected to mention that he had voted for the deal himself when it passed the Senate by a huge majority.

It was remarkable, under conditions where President Trump himself declared that the United States was only 10 minutes away from launching a major assault on Iran earlier this month, that the 20 Democratic candidates spent almost no time discussing foreign policy.

In the course of four hours, there were only a few minutes devoted to the world outside the United States. The silence on the rest of the world cannot be dismissed as mere parochialism.

Many of the Democratic presidential candidates are deeply implicated in either the policy-making or combat operations of US imperialism. The 20 candidates include two who were deployed as military officers to Iraq and Afghanistan, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard; Biden, vice president for eight years and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and five senators who are members of high-profile national security committees: Harris and Bennet on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand on the Armed Services Committee, and Cory Booker on the Foreign Relations Committee.

If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia.

In the handful of comments that were made on foreign policy, the Democratic candidates struck a belligerent note. On Wednesday, four of the ten candidates declared the main global threat to the United States to be China, while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opted for Russia. Many candidates referred to the need to combat Russian interference in the US election -- recycling the phony claims that Russian "meddling" helped Trump into the White House in 2016.

On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders.

[Jun 30, 2019] Eisenhower called it the 'military-industrial complex.' It's vastly bigger now.

Notable quotes:
"... Daniel Wirls is professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of several books, including " Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama " (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) . https://outline.com/DGG3zD Read & annotate articles ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | Washington Post

When two giant Pentagon contractors -- Raytheon and United Technologies -- proposed to merge into Raytheon Technologies, it hit the headlines. President Trump said he was "a little bit concerned" that the merger would dampen competition in the defense industry. Coincidentally, Congress was at the same time debating the administration's request for substantial increases in military spending -- particularly in weapons procurement and research and development.

We used to call the nexus of private interests and national defense the "military-industrial complex." But that Cold War term no longer fits. "Industrial" does not capture the breadth of the activities involved. And "military" fails to describe the range of government policies and interests implicated. Over the past two decades we've seen transformations that include new government reliance on private security firms, revolutions in digital technology, a post-9/11 surge in the number of veterans, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What we have now could be called a "National Security Corporate Complex."

Here are four things you need to know about this transformation.

1. President Dwight Eisenhower coined the term, and it stuck

In the heyday of the Cold War, with corporate giants bending metal for the Pentagon in its titanic competition with the Soviet Union, President Dwight Eisenhower coined the phrase as part of a famous warning about the unprecedented "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry."

Eisenhower was concerned about the potential influence of industry over government policy and budgets. Since then, analysts and pundits have used the term to suggest that arms manufacturers unduly influence lawmakers in voting on the size and nature of military spending, including decisions about war and peace.

2. 9/11 changed the business of national security

Before September 11, 2001 and the resulting military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, the Department of Energy (DOE) was the only executive branch department other than the Pentagon with major military contracts. DOE was involved because it built and dismantled nuclear warheads.

We can see how, post-9/11, more agencies got involved in national security contracting. I used federal contracting data to measure the changes from 1981 to 2018.

As you can see, much of the jump in post-9/11 spending comes from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in late 2002 and early 2003 . Before DHS was created, some of that contracting was already being done by the agencies brought together to form the new department, particularly the Coast Guard. But the scope and amount of DHS contracting increased dramatically -- averaging nearly $14 billion a year from 2005 onward.

But two other departments also expanded their contracting substantially after 9/11. In the 1990s, the State Department had an average of under $700 million in contracts per year in national security related matters. From 2009 onward, that average jumped to $8.4 billion a year.

But the most stunning increases in both overall budgets and contracting came from VA. Few Americans would guess that from 2001 to 2011, VA budget grew faster than the Pentagon's -- 271 percent compared to 240 percent -- even if the Pentagon includes its extra spending for the wars. Part of VA's growth came in contracting. In the 1990s, VA had contracted out under $2.4 billion in work per year in the 1990s. From 2009 onward, VA contracted out nearly $20 billion of work each year.

3. Defense contracting extends far beyond the purchase of weapons

As national security contracting has ramped up across government agencies, we've also seen a change in the focus of these contracts. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great deal of media attention focused on contracts with private security firms like Blackwater and logistics firms like Halliburton. Such "privatization" of military force continues, but it is only part of the story.

The government also expanded its outsourcing of military and veterans' health care. Three of the top 15 Pentagon contractors were health care corporations, including two that were in the top five for VA.

National security departments further expanded their contracting in information technology, for tasks ranging from the prosaic, like bookkeeping, to the exotic, including cyberwarfare and artificial intelligence. That work went both to traditional arms-making giants such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, and also enterprises such as Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC that specialize in such work.

[ The Senate and the intelligence community rebuked Trump on national security. Here's why that matters -- a lot. ]

4. A web of bigger contractors with broader reach

As a result of the government's expanded spending on national security, many corporations now have sizable contracts with more than one federal agency. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics -- and perhaps the new Raytheon Technologies -- have become diversified "Walmarts of war," as some researchers call them, delivering a wide range of goods and services to various parts of the federal government. The Pentagon's top contractor, Lockheed Martin, has been a major contractor for VA and DHS. General Dynamics was fourth among Pentagon contractors, second for DHS, and third for the Department of State.

Large IT specialists also contract across departments. Booz Allen Hamilton, for example, was the government's 14th largest contractor in 2018, ranking 19th for the Pentagon, 7th for VA, and 32nd for DHS. Engineering giant Fluor Corporation was in the top 15 for Defense, DOE, and DHS. Other examples include CACI, Jacobs Engineering, and Leidos Holdings. And of course, several health care companies do business with VA and Pentagon.

What does all this mean?

Some observers argue that the general decline in overall military spending and weapons procurement after the peak of the recent wars -- before the Trump administration increased that spending -- meant the U.S. no longer had to worry about the influence of a military-industrial complex.

But focusing narrowly on weapons procurement misses the bigger picture. Since 9/11, an increasingly diverse array of firms have a significant stake in federal national security spending. Those funds now flow from a large portion of the federal government and into many sectors of the U.S. economy. If anything, Eisenhower's complex has become more complex and potentially influential.

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Daniel Wirls is professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of several books, including " Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama " (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) .

https://outline.com/DGG3zD Read & annotate articles

[Jun 29, 2019] The Forever War Is So Normalized That Opposing It Is Isolationism by Caitlin Johnstone

Notable quotes:
"... More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good. ..."
"... Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option. ..."
"... A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense. ..."
"... "Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences." ..."
"... Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". ..."
"... Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq. ..."
"... All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger ..."
"... Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents? ..."
"... instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. ..."
"... funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America. ..."
"... if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important ..."
"... As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member ..."
"... Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out. ..."
"... All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden. ..."
Jun 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

After getting curb stomped on the debate stage by Tulsi Gabbard, the campaign for Tim "Who the fuck is Tim Ryan?" Ryan posted a statement decrying the Hawaii congresswoman's desire to end a pointless 18-year military occupation as "isolationism".

"While making a point as to why America can't cede its international leadership and retreat from around the world, Tim was interrupted by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard," the statement reads.

"When he tried to answer her, she contorted a factual point Tim was making  --  about the Taliban being complicit in the 9/11 attacks by providing training, bases and refuge for Al Qaeda and its leaders. The characterization that Tim Ryan doesn't know who is responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is simply unfair reporting. Further, we continue to reject Gabbard's isolationism and her misguided beliefs on foreign policy . We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people."

Ryan's campaign is lying. During an exchange that was explicitly about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ryan plainly said "When we weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings." At best, Ryan can argue that when he said "they" he had suddenly shifted from talking about the Taliban to talking about Al Qaeda without bothering to say so, in which case he obviously can't legitimately claim that Gabbard "contorted" anything he had said. At worst, he was simply unaware at the time of the very clear distinction between the Afghan military and political body called the Taliban and the multinational extremist organization called Al Qaeda.

More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good.

Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option.

This is entirely by design. This bit of word magic has been employed for a long time to tar any idea which deviates from the neoconservative agenda of total global unipolarity via violent imperialism as something freakish and dangerous. In his farewell address to the nation , war criminal George W Bush said the following:

"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."

A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense.

"Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent."

"A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations."

"A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences."

Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". Yet you'll see this ridiculous label applied to both Gabbard and Trump, neither of whom are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination, or even proper non-interventionists. Gabbard supports most US military alliances and continues to voice full support for the bogus "war on terror" implemented by the Bush administration which serves no purpose other than to facilitate endless military expansionism; Trump is openly pushing regime change interventionism in both Venezuela and Iran while declining to make good on his promises to withdraw the US military from Syria and Afghanistan.

Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq.

This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, virtually no one is a pure pacifist who opposes war under any and all possible circumstances; anyone who claims that they can't imagine any possible scenario in which they'd support using some kind of coordinated violence either hasn't imagined very hard or is fooling themselves. If your loved ones were going to be raped, tortured and killed by hostile forces unless an opposing group took up arms to defend them, for example, you would support that. Hell, you would probably join in. Secondly, equating opposition to US-led regime change interventionism, which is literally always disastrous and literally never helpful, is not even a tiny bit remotely like opposing all war under any possible circumstance.

Another common distortion you'll see is the specious argument that a given opponent of US interventionism "isn't anti-war" because they don't oppose all war under any and all circumstances. This tweet by The Intercept 's Mehdi Hasan is a perfect example, claiming that Gabbard is not anti-war because she supports Syria's sovereign right to defend itself with the help of its allies from the violent extremist factions which overran the country with western backing. Again, virtually no one is opposed to all war under any and all circumstances; if a coalition of foreign governments had helped flood Hasan's own country of Britain with extremist militias who'd been murdering their way across the UK with the ultimate goal of toppling London, both Tulsi Gabbard and Hasan would support fighting back against those militias.

The label "anti-war" can for these reasons be a little misleading. The term anti-interventionist or non-interventionist comes closest to describing the value system of most people who oppose the warmongering of the western empire, because they understand that calls for military interventionism which go mainstream in today's environment are almost universally based on imperialist agendas grabbing at power, profit, and global hegemony. The label "isolationist" comes nowhere close.

It all comes down to sovereignty. An anti-interventionist believes that a country has the right to defend itself, but it doesn't have the right to conquer, capture, infiltrate or overthrow other nations whether covertly or overtly. At the "end" of colonialism we all agreed we were done with that, except that the nationless manipulators have found far trickier ways to seize a country's will and resources without actually planting a flag there. We need to get clearer on these distinctions and get louder about defending them as the only sane, coherent way to run foreign policy.

* * *

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Vitor , 31 minutes ago link

It's like someone being labeled anti-social for stopping to bully and pick up fights.

Aussiekiwi , 49 minutes ago link

"If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."

Fascinating belief, has he been to Libya lately, perhaps attended an open air slave Market in a country that was very developed before the US decided to 'free' it.

Quivering Lip , 57 minutes ago link

Until Tulsi pimp slapped that Ryan guy I never heard of him. I would imagine I'll never here about him in another 2 months.

Toshie , 1 hour ago link

yeah , keep at it US Govt ;- keep fighting those wars overseas on behalf the 5th foreign column.

Keep wasting precious lives ,and the country's wealth while foreign rising powers like China are laughing all the way to the bank.

may you live in interesting times !

onasip123 , 1 hour ago link

War forever and ever, Amen.

Dr Anon , 1 hour ago link

When we weren't there, they flew planes into our buildings?

Excuse me mutant, but I believe we paid Israel our jewtax that year like all the others and they still flew planes into our buildings. And then danced in the streets about it. Sick people.

thisguyoverhere , 1 hour ago link

All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger

Picture if you will Jesus. Seriously? Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents?

Do you see Jesus piloting a drone and killing Muslims, other non-believers, or anyone for that matter? Can you picture Jesus as a sniper?

Impossible.

Dougs Decks , 2 hours ago link

Soooo,,, If my favorite evening activity, is to sit on the front porch steps, while the dog and the cats run around, with my shotgun leaning up next to me,,, Is that Isolationist, or Protectionist,,,

Brazen Heist II , 2 hours ago link

You know the system is completely broken when they want to silence/kill/smear anybody talking sense and peace.

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

and isis are referred to as freedom fighters

Herdee , 2 hours ago link

The CIA and MI6 staged all the fake chemical incidents in Syria as well as the recent one in England. False Flags.

ardent , 2 hours ago link

What America needs is to get rid of all those Jewish Zionist Neocons leading us into those forever wars.

ALL MidEast terrorism and warmongering are for APARTHEID Israhell.

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. we can't do **** if we're glazed over in a nuclear holocaust. maybe Tulsi is lying through her teeth, but i am so pissed Trump went full neocon

Wild Bill Steamcock , 2 hours ago link

"Won't Get Fooled Again"- The Who

JD Rock , 2 hours ago link

funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America.

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

she did slam Netanyahu

WillyGroper , 2 hours ago link

saying & doing are different animals. she's powerless. more hope n chains.

KnightsofNee , 2 hours ago link

www.tulsigabbard.org

If you read her positions on various issues, a quick survey shows that she supports the New Green Deal, more gun control (ban on assault rifles, etc.), Medicare for all. Stopped reading at that point.

White Nat , 2 hours ago link

We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ~ Joseph Goebbels

New_Meat , 2 hours ago link

- Edward Bernays, relative of Sigmund Fraud, propagandist for Woodrow Wilson.

Back then, being a "propagandist" held no stigma nor antipathy.

fify

Debt Slave , 1 hour ago link

The better educated among us know exactly as to who Goebblels was referring to. Even a dullard should be able to figure out who benefits from all of our Middle East adventures.

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. "

Under military might WAS the old world order... Under the new world order the strength is in cyber warfare .

If under technology the profiteers can control the masses through crowd control ( which they can-" Department of Defense has developed a non-lethal crowd control device called the Active Denial System (ADS) . The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of 95 GHz waves at a target that is, millimeter wavelengths. Anyone caught in the beam will feel like their skin is burning.) your spending power ( they can through e- commetce and digital banking) and isolation cells called homes ( they can through directed microwaves from GWEN stations).... We already are isolated and exposed at the same time.

That war is an exceptable means of engagement as a solution to world power is a confirmation of the psychological warfare imposed on us since the creation of our Nation.

Either we reel it in and back now or we destroy ourselves from within.

"

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln

vienna_proxy , 2 hours ago link

if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important

metachron , 2 hours ago link

Idiot, Tulsi is a sovereign nationalist on the left. You have just never seen one before. If you were truly anti-globalist you'd would realize left and right are invented to divide us. The politics are global and national, so wake the **** up

Hurricane Baby , 3 hours ago link

Actually, I don't see where a few decades of US isolationism would be all that bad.

Fred box , 3 hours ago link

""War Is the U.S. Racket!"" They are not good at it, there "great at it". My entire life 63yrs,they been fighting someone or something. When times where rough in the 1800s,Hell! they fought themselves(Civil War. As I said b4 No one seems to ask, Where does the gold go of the vanquished foe? Truly Is A Well Practiced Racket.

Malleus Maleficarum , 3 hours ago link

Good article with several salient points, thought I would ask "what's wrong with a little isolationism?" Peace through internal strength is desirable, but good fences make good neighbors and charity begins at home!

The gradual twisting of language really is one of most insidious tactics employed by the NWO Luciferians. I think we'd all like to see the traitorous Neocons gone for good. Better yet, strip them of their American citizenship and ill-gotten wealth and banish them to Israel. Let them earn their citizenship serving in a front-line IDF rifle company.

As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member and avowed gun-grabber, to boot. Two HUGE red flags!

She almost strikes me as a half-assed 'Manchurian Candidate.' So, if she's elected (a big 'if' at this point) I ask myself 'what happens after the next (probably nuclear) false flag?' How quickly will she disavow her present stance on non-interventionism? How quickly and viciously will the 2nd Amendment be raped? Besides, I'm not foolish enough to believe that one person can turn the SS Deep State away from it's final disastrous course.

dunlin , 2 hours ago link

What's cfr? Duck duck gives lots of law firms.

tardpill , 2 hours ago link

council on foreign relations

tardpill , 2 hours ago link

the whos who of globalist satanists..

Sinophile , 32 minutes ago link

Mal, she is NOT a CFR member. You are misinformed.

Justapleb , 3 hours ago link

These word games were already in use looong ago. Tulsi Gabbard is using Obama's line about fighting the wrong war. She would have taken out Al Qaeda, captured Bin Laden, and put a dog leash on him. So that she could make a green economy, a new century of virtue signalling tyranny. No thanks.

Smi1ey , 3 hours ago link

Great article.

Go Tusli!

Go Caitlin!

I am Groot , 3 hours ago link

You beat me to that. Thanks for saving my breath.

Rule #1 All politcians lie

Rule #2 See Rule #1

Boogity , 3 hours ago link

Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out.

All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden.

I went to some of the so-called liberal websites and blogs and the only mention of Gabbard is in the context of her being a Putin stooge. This combined with the fact that virtually all establishment Republicans are eager to fight any war for Israel clearly shows that it will take something other than the ballot box to end Uncle Scam's endless wars.

[Jun 28, 2019] Bolton Gets Ready to Kill New START by Daniel Larison

Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
If Bolton gets his way, New START is not long for this world :

At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be renewed.

Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.

Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump administration just wants the treaty to die.

The article concludes:

Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."

Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA. Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next victim.

If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.


Taras77 a day ago

bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without any expectation of compromise by the empire.
Sid Finster a day ago
I wonder how long it will take for Trump to finally figure out that Bolton and Pompeo regard him as expendable.

Whether Trump wins or loses in 2020 will not matter, as long as the neocons get what they want.

Tony 9 hours ago
John Bolton will not be satisfied until he has got us all killed.
He is an extremely dangerous man.

[Jun 28, 2019] What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of the international community

Jun 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jun 28, 2019 1:50:32 PM | 190

I'm about halfway through Putin's financial Times interview and suggest it be read by all. There is much to be gleaned from it with a view to the 2020 Election Cycle and candidate's positions. Just consider the following very small excerpt and its implications for policy formulation by candidates:

"What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of the international community . This is what we should be thinking about." [My Emphasis]

Putin's insights into Trump's 2016 election strategy, IMO, is very enlightening and essential reading as the conditions that contributed to Trump's victory have worsened under his tenure and can be used against him if wisely pursued.

[Jun 27, 2019] 2020 Democrats Must Address Our Addiction to Military Spending by Katrina vanden Heuvel

Notable quotes:
"... This month, the House Armed Services Committee advanced a $733 billion defense budget on a mostly party-line vote ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.thenation.com
As they take the stage for the first Democratic debates of the 2020 presidential campaign, the 20 participating candidates should be ready for one frequently asked question: How will you pay for it? Democrats often pledge to finance their most ambitious plans -- Medicare for All, debt-free college, a Green New Deal -- with tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. That is both sensible and fair. But candidates hoping to distinguish themselves in the limited time they will be allotted should also consider taking a stand against the United States' bloated defense budget.

This month, the House Armed Services Committee advanced a $733 billion defense budget on a mostly party-line vote. According to Defense News , the lack of Republican support for the bill illustrated "the stark divide in defense policy between the two parties." Yet that divide is far narrower than you might think. The bill's price tag is just $17 billion less than the $750 billion that President Trump requested ; it still was, as Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) boasted, the "largest" defense budget in history. There remains a near-universal commitment in both parties to massive defense spending -- a case of Washington bipartisanship that the country would be better off without.

A timely new report from the Center for International Policy's Sustainable Defense Task Force offers an alternative path forward. In the report, "A Sustainable Defense: More Security, Less Spending," the nonpartisan group of military and budget experts outlines a strategy that it says would save $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years without harming national-security interests. In fact, through a sober reassessment of the biggest threats to the United States in the 21st century, including climate change and cyberattacks, the proposal would keep the country safer than an outdated approach that relies on perpetual spending increases.

Read the full text of Katrina's column here .

[Jun 27, 2019] Trump has filled his White House with CFR Neocon chickenhawks

And probably, if we just impeach the Walrus of Death nothing will change . Its a freight train to war. It moves slowly at first but its hell to try and stop.
Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

This awesome demonstration of American resolve was meant to be punishment for the vicious slaughter of an expensive U.S. military drone, which was peacefully invading Iranian airspace, and not at all attempting to provoke the Iranians into blowing it out of the sky with a missile so the U.S. military could "retaliate."

The military-industrial complex would never dream of doing anything like that, not even to further the destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East that they've been systematically carrying out the since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which more on that in just a moment.

[Jun 27, 2019] Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic global consequences, including for the United States itself."

Notable quotes:
"... A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war. ..."
"... "While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote." ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Charlotte Ruse3 days ago

"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic global consequences, including for the United States itself."

The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.

However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.

What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously examined.

erroll -> jet16853 days ago • edited
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a barrel. The article also notes that:

"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."

Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping 500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United States.

"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer

"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist

[Jun 27, 2019] The Hijacking of American Nationalism

Notable quotes:
"... Just recently, John Judis, undisguisedly a political commentator of the Left, made an important argument in favor of nationalism. "Nationalist sentiment," he writes in his book The Nationalist Revival , "is an essential ingredient of a democracy, which is based on the assumptions of a common identity, and of a welfare state, which is based on the acceptance by citizens of their financial responsibility for people whom they may not know at all, and who may have widely different backgrounds from theirs." ..."
"... Of course, nationalism can be "the basis of social generosity or of bigoted exclusion." It is therefore important, according to Judis, that enlightened state leaders push nationalism in the proper direction. ..."
"... The presence of Daniel Pipes and other neoconservatives at this gathering also suggests that at least some of the panelists will be offering two approved concepts of nationalism: propositional nationhood for the United States and solidarity with Israeli nationalism. In both cases, however, the nationalism being advocated ends up tied to an aggressive foreign policy. ..."
"... The nationalist label has now fallen into the hands of the neocon establishment, which has managed to identify it with international meddling and a creedal nation. In other words, it's been appropriated by those who already wielded power. ..."
"... But what makes American nationalism even more unpalatable now than when Robert Nisbet famously denounced it in The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America is its rhetorical availability. It serves different agendas, depending on which power bloc appeals to it. ..."
"... Until recently, nationalism had portentous associations for much of the political class. It signified, rightly or wrongly, ethnocentricity and dislike for outsiders. Now that's all changing. Those in power have tamed the concept and are recycling it for their own purposes. Stay tuned. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Just recently, John Judis, undisguisedly a political commentator of the Left, made an important argument in favor of nationalism. "Nationalist sentiment," he writes in his book The Nationalist Revival , "is an essential ingredient of a democracy, which is based on the assumptions of a common identity, and of a welfare state, which is based on the acceptance by citizens of their financial responsibility for people whom they may not know at all, and who may have widely different backgrounds from theirs."

Of course, nationalism can be "the basis of social generosity or of bigoted exclusion." It is therefore important, according to Judis, that enlightened state leaders push nationalism in the proper direction.

Judis points out that while "globalism" is a force that nationalists understandably oppose, "internationalism" need not clash with nationalist sentiment. In a op-ed in The New York Times last October, Judis praised his kind of nationalism as being beneficial to a successful and growing welfare state and a happier world. It can also be, he said, a stepping stone that leads beyond itself to international cooperation .

For those who study European socialism, it is clear that Judis is reprising the position of French sociologist Pierre Bordieu , who argued for decades that a socialist regime must create some kind of social glue to hold its subjects together. Judis is now transferring Bordieu's view to the American political scene.

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Now, a conference on "conservative nationalism," which will take place in Washington in July , may be pushing a "nationalism" that is at least as adaptable as Judis's. One featured speaker , Claire Lehmann, the founder of Quillette, will be talking about how nationalism "is the antidote to racism." Presumably the more inclusive the operative term, the less likely will be the Left's attack on those wielding it.

The presence of Daniel Pipes and other neoconservatives at this gathering also suggests that at least some of the panelists will be offering two approved concepts of nationalism: propositional nationhood for the United States and solidarity with Israeli nationalism. In both cases, however, the nationalism being advocated ends up tied to an aggressive foreign policy.

Nationalism, in any case, means different things for different peoples. It doesn't hold the same meaning for Estonians or Hungarians, who belong to ethnic, historic communities, as it does for a pluralistic country with hundreds of millions of people and a constantly expanding immigrant population.

In the latest issue of the Rassemblement National monthly L'Incorrect , Steve Bannon speaks of the natural fit between European nationalism and the nationalist movement that he has been promoting in the United States. Both these ideologies, Bannon says, derive from the same national principle. In an interview with me in the same publication, I treated Bannon's contention as wishful thinking. The United States has become too diverse and too culturally disunited to fit a traditional national model. Our use of nationalism will likely lead to something less quaint and less organic but more explosive than what comes from the Baltic nationalists or Viktor Orbán.

The Nationalist Delusion The New Nationalism Won't Save the Right

The nationalist label has now fallen into the hands of the neocon establishment, which has managed to identify it with international meddling and a creedal nation. In other words, it's been appropriated by those who already wielded power.

The same protean label is also likely to wander onto the Left, given the nontraditional and very pliable nature of our "nationalism." John Judis may in fact be the harbinger of a new American Left that celebrates nationalism, provided that Left is allowed to define that term for the rest of us. Indeed, it may be possible to frame LGBT rights and reparations for blacks as "nationalist" issues. Nationalism also need not hinder us from letting in lots of undocumented immigrants who are only trying to join our team and learn our values.

Men and women of the interwar Right, down to such later figures as Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet, were understandably critical of American nationalism. They identified it with social engineering and centralized government and preferred localism and regionalism to any justification for an expansionist administrative state.

But what makes American nationalism even more unpalatable now than when Robert Nisbet famously denounced it in The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America is its rhetorical availability. It serves different agendas, depending on which power bloc appeals to it. The hope once entertained by Pat Buchanan that a nationalist cause would help slow down immigration and preserve America's traditional moral and cultural identity has not worked out as planned. Those who control our politics and culture determine the meaning of terms, which is as true of nationalism as it is of other political labels like "freedom" and "equality."

Until recently, nationalism had portentous associations for much of the political class. It signified, rightly or wrongly, ethnocentricity and dislike for outsiders. Now that's all changing. Those in power have tamed the concept and are recycling it for their own purposes. Stay tuned.

Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown College, where he taught for 25 years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale Ph.D. He is the author of 13 books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents .

[Jun 27, 2019] Crisis of neoliberalism hits the US military industrial complex by Matt Stoller and Lucas Kunce

Notable quotes:
"... This story of lost American leadership and production is not unique. In fact, the destruction of America's once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies rely. Huawei is just a particularly prominent example. ..."
"... Higher budgets would seem to make sense. According to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States is shifting away from armed conflicts in the Middle East to "great power" competition with China and Russia, which have technological parity in many areas with the United States. As part of his case for higher budgets, Mattis told Congress that "our military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare -- air, land, sea, space, and cyber." ..."
"... And yet, the U.S. military budget, even at stalled levels, is still larger than the next nine countries' budgets combined. So there's a second natural follow-up question: is the defense budget the primary reason our military advantage is slipping away, or is it something deeper? ..."
"... The loss of manufacturing capacity has been devastating for American research capacity. "Innovation doesn't just hover above the Great Plains," Mottl said. "It is built on steady incremental changes and knowledge learned out of basic manufacturing." Telecommunications equipment is dual use, meaning it can be used for both commercial and military purposes. The loss of an industrial base in telecom equipment meant that the American national security apparatus lost military capacity. ..."
"... "The middle-class Americans who did the manufacturing work, all that capability, machine tools, knowledge, it just became worthless, driven by the stock price," he said. "The national ability to produce is a national treasure. If you can't produce you won't consume, and you can't defend yourself." ..."
"... In the commercial sector, rebuilding the industrial base will require an aggressive national mobilization strategy. This means aggressive investment by government to rebuild manufacturing capacity, selective tariffs to protect against Chinese or foreign predation, regulation to stop financial predation by Wall Street, and anti-monopoly enforcement to block the exploitation of market power. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Wall Street's short-term incentives have decimated our defense industrial base and undermined our national security.

Early this year, U.S. authorities filed criminal charges -- including bank fraud, obstruction of justice, and theft of technology -- against the largest maker of telecommunications equipment in the world, a Chinese giant named Huawei. Chinese dominance in telecom equipment has created a crisis among Western espionage agencies, who, fearful of Chinese spying, are attempting to prevent the spread of Huawei equipment worldwide, especially
in the critical 5G next-generation mobile networking space.

In response to the campaign to block the purchase of Huawei equipment, the company has engaged in a public relations offensive. The company's CEO, Ren Zhengfei, portrayed Western fears as an advertisement for its products, which are, he said, "so good that the U.S. government is scared." There's little question the Chinese government is interested in using equipment to spy. What is surprising is Zhengfei is right about the products. Huawei, a relatively new company in the telecom equipment space, has amassed top market share because its equipment -- espionage vulnerabilities aside -- is the best value on the market.

In historical terms, this is a shocking turnaround. Americans invented the telephone business and until recently dominated production and research. But in the last 20 years, every single American producer of key telecommunication equipment sectors is gone. Today, only two European makers -- Ericsson and Nokia -- are left to compete with Huawei and another Chinese competitor, ZTE.

This story of lost American leadership and production is not unique. In fact, the destruction of America's once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies rely. Huawei is just a particularly prominent example.

When national security specialists consider preparedness, they usually think in terms of the amount of money spent on the Pentagon. One of President Donald Trump's key campaign promises was to aggressively raise the military budget, which he, along with Congress, started doing in 2017. The reaction was instant. "I'm heartened that Congress recognizes the sobering effect of budgetary uncertainty on America's military and on the men and women who provide for our nation's defense," then-defense secretary Jim Mattis said. Budgets have gone up every year since.

Higher budgets would seem to make sense. According to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States is shifting away from armed conflicts in the Middle East to "great power" competition with China and Russia, which have technological parity in many areas with the United States. As part of his case for higher budgets, Mattis told Congress that "our military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare -- air, land, sea, space, and cyber."

In some cases, our competitive edge has not just been eroded, but is at risk of being -- or already is -- surpassed. The Chinese surge in 5G telecom equipment, which has dual civilian and military uses, is one example. China is making key investments in artificial intelligence, another area of competition. They even seem to be able to mount a rail gun on a naval ship , an important next generation weapons technology that the U.S. Navy has yet to incorporate.

And yet, the U.S. military budget, even at stalled levels, is still larger than the next nine countries' budgets combined. So there's a second natural follow-up question: is the defense budget the primary reason our military advantage is slipping away, or is it something deeper?

Why the Regulators Went Soft on Monopolies The Conservative Case for Antitrust

The story of Huawei, and many others, suggests the latter.

♦♦♦

For over a century, America led the world in producing telecommunications equipment. The American telecom industry, according to Zach Mottl of Atlas Tool Works, a subcontractor in the industry, used to be a "crown jewel of American manufacturing." Mottl's company had been a manufacturing supplier to AT&T and its Bell Labs from the early 1900s until the early 2000s. "The radar system was invented here. The transistor came out of Bell Labs. The laser. I mean all of these high-tech inventions that have both commercial and military applications were funded out of the research," Mottl told TAC . More than just the sexy inventions, there was a domestic industrial sector which could make the equipment. Now, in a strategic coup for our adversaries, that capability is gone.

Yet it wasn't one of those adversaries that killed our telecommunications capacity, but one of our own institutions, Wall Street, and its pressure on executives to make decisions designed to impress financial markets, rather than for the long-term health of their companies. In 1996, AT&T spun off Bell Labs into a telecom equipment company, Lucent Technologies, to take advantage of investors' appetite for an independent player selling high-tech telecom gear after Congress deregulated the telecommuncations space. At the time, it was the biggest initial public offering in history, and became the foundation of a relationship with financial markets that led to its eventual collapse.

The focus on stock price at Lucent was systematic. The stock price was posted daily to encourage everyone to focus on the company's relationship with short-term oriented financial markets. All employees got a small number of "Founder's Grant Share Options," with executives offered much larger slugs of stock to solidify the connection. When Richard McGinn became CEO in 1997, he focused on financial markets.

Lucent began to buy up companies. According to two scholars , "The perceived need to compete for acquisitions became a 'strategic' justification for keeping stock prices high. This in turn demanded meeting or exceeding quarterly revenue and earnings targets, objectives with which Lucent top executives, led by the hard-driving McGinn, became obsessed."

Lucent got even more aggressive. McGinn's subordinate, an executive named Carly Fiorina, juiced returns with a strategy based on lending money to risky startups who would then turn around and buy Lucent equipment. Fiorina collected $65 million in compensation as the stock soared. And then, when the dot-com boom turned to bust, the company, beset by accounting scandals designed to impress shareholders and the financial markets, embarked on massive layoffs. CEO McGinn was among those laid off, but with a $12.5 million severance package -- royal compensation for taking one of America's strategic industrial assets down the road toward total destruction.

In the early 2000s, the telecom equipment market began to recover from the recession. Lucent's new strategy, as Mottl put it, was to seek "margin" by offshoring production to China, continuing layoffs of American workers and hiring abroad. At first, it was the simpler parts of the telecom equipment, the boxes and assembly, but soon contract manufacturers in China were making virtually all of it. American telecom capacity would never return.

Lucent didn't recover its former position. Chinese entrants, subsidized heavily by the Chinese state and using Western technology, underpriced Western companies. American policymakers, unconcerned with industrial capacity, allowed Chinese companies to capture market share despite the predatory subsidies and stolen technology. In 2006, French telecom equipment maker Alcatel bought Lucent, signifying the end of American control of Bell Labs. Today, Huawei, with state backing, dominates the market.

The erosion of much of the American industrial and defense industrial base proceeded like Lucent. First, in the 1980s and 1990s, Wall Street financiers focused on short-term profits, market power, and executive pay-outs over core competencies like research and production, often rolling an industry up into a monopoly producer. Then, in the 2000s, they offshored production to the lowest cost producer. This finance-centric approach opened the door to the Chinese government's ability to strategically pick off industrial capacity by subsidizing its producers. Hand over cash to Wall Street, and China could get the American crown jewels.

The loss of manufacturing capacity has been devastating for American research capacity. "Innovation doesn't just hover above the Great Plains," Mottl said. "It is built on steady incremental changes and knowledge learned out of basic manufacturing." Telecommunications equipment is dual use, meaning it can be used for both commercial and military purposes. The loss of an industrial base in telecom equipment meant that the American national security apparatus lost military capacity.

This loss goes well beyond telecom equipment. Talking to small manufacturers and distributors who operate in the guts of our industrial systems offers a perspective on the danger of this process of financial predation and offshoring. Bill Hickey, who headed his family's metal distributor, processor, and fabricator, has been watching the collapse for decades. Hickey sells to "everyone who uses steel," from truck, car, and agricultural equipment manufacturers to stadiums and the military.

Hickey, like many manufacturers, has watched the rise of China with alarm for decades. "Everyone's upset about the China 2025 plan," he told TAC , referencing the current Chinese plan causing alarm among national security thinkers in Washington. "Well there was a China 2020 plan, 2016 plan, 2012 plan." The United States has, for instance, lost much of its fasteners and casting industries, which are key inputs to virtually every industrial product. It has lost much of its capacity in grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel, a specialized metal required for highly efficient electrical motors. Aluminum that goes into American aircraft carriers now often comes from China.

Hickey told a story of how the United States is even losing its submarine fleet. He had a conversation with an admiral in charge of the U.S. sub fleet at the commissioning of the USS Illinois , a Virginia-class attack submarine, who complained that the United States was retiring three worn-out boats a year, but could only build one and a half in that time. The Trump military budget has boosted funding to build two a year, but the United States no longer has the capacity to do high quality castings to build any more than that. The supply chain that could support such surge production should be in the commercial world, but it has been offshored to China. "You can't run a really high-end casting business on making three submarines a year," Hickey said. "You just can't do it." This shift happened because Wall Street, or "the LBO (leveraged buy-out) guys" as Hickey put it, bought up manufacturing facilities in the 1990s and moved them to China.

"The middle-class Americans who did the manufacturing work, all that capability, machine tools, knowledge, it just became worthless, driven by the stock price," he said. "The national ability to produce is a national treasure. If you can't produce you won't consume, and you can't defend yourself."

The Loss of the Defense Industrial Base

But it's not just the dual-use commercial manufacturing base that is collapsing. Our policy empowering Wall Street and offshoring has also damaged the more specialized defense base, which directly produces weaponry and equipment for the military.

How pervasive is the loss of such capacity? In September 2018, the Department of Defense released findings of its analysis into its supply chain. The results highlighted how fragile our ability to supply our own military has become.

The report listed dozens of militarily significant items and inputs with only one or two domestic producers, or even none at all. Many production facilities are owned by companies that are financially vulnerable and at high risk of being shut down. Some of the risk comes from limited production capability. Mortar tubes, for example, are made on just one production line, and some Marine aircraft parts are made by just one company -- one which recently filed for bankruptcy.

At risk is everything from chaff to flares to high voltage cable, fittings for ships, valves, key inputs for satellites and missiles, and even material for tents. As Americans no longer work in key industrial fields, the engineering and production skills evaporate as the legacy workforce retires.

Even more unsettling is the reliance on foreign, and often adversarial, manufacturing and supplies. The report found that "China is the single or sole supplier for a number of specialty chemicals used in munitions and missiles . A sudden and catastrophic loss of supply would disrupt DoD missile, satellite, space launch, and other defense manufacturing programs. In many cases, there are no substitutes readily available." Other examples of foreign reliance included circuit boards, night vision systems, batteries, and space sensors.

The story here is similar. When Wall Street targeted the commercial industrial base in the 1990s, the same financial trends shifted the defense industry. Well before any of the more recent conflicts, financial pressure led to a change in focus for many in the defense industry -- from technological engineering to balance sheet engineering. The result is that some of the biggest names in the industry have never created any defense product. Instead of innovating new technology to support our national security, they innovate new ways of creating monopolies to take advantage of it.

A good example is a company called TransDigm. While TransDigm presents itself as a designer and producer of aerospace products, it can more accurately be described as a designer of monopolies. TransDigm began as a private equity firm, a type of investment business, in 1993. Its mission, per its earnings call , is to give "private equity-like returns" to shareholders, returns that are much higher than the stock market or other standard investment vehicles.

It achieves these returns for its shareholders by buying up companies that are sole or single-source suppliers of obscure airplane parts that the government needs, and then increasing prices by as much as eight times the original amount . If the government balks at paying, TransDigm has no qualms daring the military to risk its mission and its crew by not buying the parts. The military, held hostage, often pays the ransom. TransDigm's gross profit margins using this model to gouge the U.S. government are a robust 54.5 percent. To put that into perspective, Boeing and Lockheed's profit margins are listed at 13.6 percent and 10.91 percent. In many ways, TransDigm is like the pharmaceutical company run by Martin Shkreli, which bought rare treatments and then price gouged those who could not do without the product. Earlier this year, TransDigm recently bought the remaining supplier of chaff and one of two suppliers of flares, products identified in the Defense Department's supply chain fragility report.

TransDigm was caught manipulating the parts market by the Department of Defense Inspector General in 2006 , again in 2008 , and finally again this year. It is currently facing yet another investigation by the Government Accountability Office .

Yet, Trandigm's stock price thrives because Wall Street loves monopolies, regardless of who they are taking advantage of. Take this analysis from TheStreet from March 2019, published after the latest Inspector General report and directly citing many of the concerning facts from the report as pure positives for the investor:

The company is now the sole supplier for 80% of the end markets it serves. And 90% of the items in the supply chain are proprietary to TransDigm. In other words, the company is operating a monopoly for parts needed to operate aircraft that will typically be in service for 30 years . Managers are uniquely motivated to increase shareholder value and they have an enviable record, with shares up 2,503% since 2009.

Fleecing the Defense Department is big business. Its executive chairman W. Nicholas Howley, skewered by Democrats and Republicans alike in a May 2019 House Oversight hearing for making up to 4,000 percent excess profit on some parts and stealing from the American taxpayer, received total compensation of over $64 million in 2013 , the fifth most among all CEOs, and over $13 million in 2018 , making him one of the most highly compensated CEOs no one has ever heard of . Shortly after May's hearing, the company agreed to voluntarily return $16 million in overcharges to the Pentagon, but the share price is at near record highs.

L3 Technologies, created in 1997, has taken a different, but also damaging, approach to monopolizing Defense Department contracts. Originally, it sought to become "the Home Depot of the defense industry" by going on an acquisition binge, according to its former CEO Frank Lanza. Today, L3 uses its size, its connections within the government, and its willingness to offer federal employees good-paying jobs at L3, to muscle out competitors and win contracts, even if the competitor has more innovative and better priced products . This practice attracted the ire of two Republican congressmen from North Carolina, Ted Budd and the late Walter Jones, who found in 2017 that L3 succeeds, in part, due to "blatant corruption and obvious disregard of American foreign interest in the name of personal economic profit."

Like TransDigm, this isn't L3's first brush with trouble. It was temporarily suspended from U.S. government contracting for using "extremely sensitive and classified information" from a government system to help its international business interests. It was the subject of a scathing Senate Armed Services Committee investigation for failing to notify the Defense Department that it supplied faulty Chinese counterfeit parts for some of its aircraft displays. And it agreed to pay a $25.6 million settlement to the U.S. government for knowingly providing defective weapon sights for years to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet, also like TransDigm, L3 has thrived despite its troubles. When the company was granted an open-ended contract to update the Air Force's electronics jamming airplane in 2017, Lieutenant General Arnold Bunch outlined the Air Force's logic at a House Armed Services Subcommittee meeting. L3, he said, is the only company that can do the job. "They have all the tooling, they have all the existing knowledge, and they have the modeling and all the information to do that work," he said.

In other words, because L3 has a monopoly, there was no one else to pick. The system -- a system designed by the financial industry that rewards monopoly and consolidation at the expense of innovation and national security -- essentially made the pick for him. It is no wonder our military capacities are ebbing, despite the large budget outlays -- the money isn't going to defense.

♦♦♦

In fact, in some ways, our own defense budgets are being used against us when potential adversaries use Wall Street to take control of our own Pentagon-developed technologies.

There's no better example than China's takeover of the rare earth metal industry, which is key to both defense and electronics. The issue has frequently made the front page during the recent trade war, but the seldom-discussed background to our dependence on China for rare earths is that, just like with telecom equipment, the United States used to be the world leader in the industry until the financial sector shipped the whole thing to China.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Defense Department invested in the development of a technology to use what are known as rare-earth magnets. The investment was so successful that General Motors engineers, using Pentagon grants, succeeded in creating a rare earth magnet that is now essential for nearly every high-tech piece of military equipment in the U.S. inventory, from smart bombs and fighter jets to lasers and communications devices. The benefit of DARPA's investment wasn't restricted to the military. The magnets make cell phones and modern commercial electronics possible.

China recognized the value of these magnets early on. Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping famously said in 1992 that "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earth," to underscore the importance of a rare earth strategy he adopted for China. Part of that strategy was to take control of the industry by manipulating the motivations of Wall Street.

Two of Xiaoping's sons-in-law approached investment banker Archibald Cox, Jr. in the mid-1990s to use his hedge fund as a front for their companies to buy the U.S. rare-earth magnet enterprise. They were successful, purchasing and then moving the factory, the Indiana jobs, the patents, and the expertise to China. This was not the only big move, as Cox later moved into a $12 million luxury New York residence . The result is remarkably similar to Huawei: the United States has entirely divested of a technology and market it created and dominated just 30 years ago. China has a near-complete monopoly on rare earth elements, and the U.S. military, according to U.S. government studies, is now 100 percent reliant upon China for the resources to produce its advanced weapon systems.

Wall Street's outsized control over defense contracting and industry means that every place a foreign adversary can insert itself into American financial institutions, it can insert itself into our defense industry.

At an Armed Services Committee hearing in 2018, Representative Carol Shea-Porter talked about how constant the conflict between financial concentration and patriotism had been in her six years on the committee. She recounted a CEO once telling her, in response to her concern about the outsourcing of defense industry parts, that he "[has] to answer to stockholders."

Who are these stockholders that CEOs are so compelled to answer to? Oftentimes, China. Jennifer M. Harris , an expert in global markets with experience at the U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Intelligence Council, researched a recent explosion of Chinese strategic investment in American technology companies. She found that China has systematically targeted U.S. greenfield investments, "technology goods (especially semiconductors), R&D networks, and advanced manufacturing."

The trend accelerated, until the recent flare-up of tensions between the United States and China. "China's foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the U.S. increased some 800% between 2009 and 2015," she wrote. Then, from 2015 to 2017, "Chinese FDI in the U.S. climbed nearly four-fold, reaching roughly $45.6 billion in 2016 , up from just $12.8 billion in 2014."

This investment runs right through Wall Street, the key lobbying group trying to ratchet down Trump's tough negotiating posture with the Chinese. Rather than showing concern about the increasing influence of a foreign power in our commerce and industry, Wall Street banks have repeatedly followed Archie Cox down the path of easy returns.

In 2016, J.P. Morgan Chase agreed to pay a $264 million bribery settlement to the U.S. government for creating a program, called "Sons and Daughters," to gain access to Chinese money by selectively hiring the unqualified offspring of high-ranking Communist Party officials and other Chinese elites. Several other banks are under investigation for similar practices, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, who, not coincidentally, hired the son of China's commerce minister. It appears to have worked out for them. In 2017, Goldman Sachs partnered with the Chinese government's sovereign wealth fund to invest $5 billion Chinese government dollars in American industry.

In short, China is becoming a significant shareholder in U.S. industries, and is selectively targeting those with strategic implications. Congresswoman Shea-Porter's discovery that defense industry CEOs aren't able to worry about national security because they "[have] to answer to shareholders" was disturbing enough. But the fact that it potentially translates as CEOs not being able to worry about national security because they have to answer to the Chinese should elevate the issue to the top of our national security discussion. This nexus of China, Wall Street, and our defense industrial base may be the answer to why our military advantage is ebbing. Even when American ingenuity can thrive, too often the fruits go to the Chinese.

In short, the financial industry, with its emphasis on short-term profit and monopoly , and its willingness to ignore national security for profit, has warped our very ability to defend ourselves.

How Did We Get Here?

Believe it or not, America has been here before. In the 1920s and 1930s, the American defense industrial base was being similarly manipulated by domestic financiers for their own purposes, retarding innovation and damaging the nation's ability to defend itself. And American military readiness was ebbing in the midst of an increasingly dangerous world full of rising autocracies.

Today it might be artificial intelligence or drones, but in the 1930s the key military technology was the airplane. And as with much digital technology today, while Americans invented the airplane, many of the fruits went elsewhere. The reason was similar to the problem of Wall Street today. The American aerospace industry in the 1930s was undermined by fights among bankers over who got to profit from associated patent rights.

In 1935, Brigadier General William Mitchell told Congress that the United States didn't have a single plane that could go against a "first-class power." "It is a disgraceful situation and is due," he said, "for one thing, to this pool of patents." The lack of aerospace capacity reflected a broader industrial problem. Monopolists refused to invest in factories to produce enough steel, aluminum, and magnesium for adequate military readiness, for fear of losing control over prices.

New Dealers investigated, and by the time war broke out, the Roosevelt administration was in the midst of a sustained anti-monopoly campaign. The Nazi war machine, like China today, gave added impetus to the problem of monopoly in key technology-heavy industries. In 1941, an assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, Norman Littell, gave a speech to the Indiana State Bar Association about what he called "The German Invasion of American Business."

The Nazis, he argued, used legal techniques, like patent laws, stock ownership, dummy corporations, and cartel arrangements, to extend their power into the United States. "The distinction between bombing a vital plant out of existence from an airplane and preventing that plant from coming into existence in the first place [through cartel arrangements]," he said, "is largely a difference in the amount of noise involved."

Nazis used their American subsidiary corporations to spy on U.S. industrial capacity and steal technology, such as walkie-talkies, intertank and ground-air radio communication systems, and shortwave sets developed by the U.S. Army and Navy. They used patents or cartel arrangements to restrict the production of stainless steel, tungsten-carbide, and fuel injection equipment. According to the U.S. military after the war, I.G. Farben, the Nazi chemical monopoly, had influence over American production of "synthetic gas and oils, dyestuffs, explosives, synthetic rubber ('Buna'), menthol, cellophane, and other products," and sought to keep the United States "entirely dependent" on Germany for certain types of electrical equipment.

The Nazis took advantage of an industrial system that was, like the current one, organized along short-term objectives. But seeing the danger, New Dealers attacked the power of financiers through direct financing of factories, excess profits taxes, and the breaking of the power of the Rockefeller, Dupont, and Mellon empires through bank regulation and antitrust suits. They separated the makers of airplanes from airlines, a sort of Glass Steagall for aerospace. During the war itself, antitrust chief Thurman Arnold, and those he influenced, sought to end international cartels and loosen patent rules in part because they allowed control over American industry by the Nazis.

After the war, the link between global cartels and national security vulnerabilities was a key driver of American trade and military strategy. America pursued globalization, but with two differences from the form we have today. First, strategists sought to prevent the recurrence of global cartels and monopolies. Second, they sought to become industrially intertwined with allies, not rivals. While multinational corporations stretched across the West, they did not locate production or technology development in Moscow or among strategic rivals, as we do today in China.

Domestically, anti-profiteering institutions and rules protected against corruption, especially important when the defense budget comprised a large chunk of overall American research and development. The Defense Department's procurement agency -- the Defense Logistics Agency -- was enormously powerful and oversaw procurement and supply challenges. The Pentagon had the power to force suppliers of sole source products -- contractors that had monopolies -- to reveal cost information to the government. The financial health of defense contractors mattered, but so did value to the taxpayer, a skilled defense industrial workforce, and the ability to deliver quality products to aid in national defense.

A fragmented base of contractors and subcontractors ensured redundancy and competition, and a powerful federal apparatus with thousands of employees with expertise in pricing and negotiation kept prices reasonable. The Defense Department could even take ownership of specialized tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare part needs -- which is precisely where TransDigm specializes. This authority and expertise had been carefully cultivated over decades to provide the material necessary to equip American soldiers for World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the first Gulf war.

In the 1980s, while Ronald Reagan allowed Wall Street free rein elsewhere in the economy, he mostly kept Wall Street from going after the defense base. But scholars began debating whether it made sense to have such a large and expensive negotiating apparatus to deal with contractors, or if a more "cooperative" approach should be taken. Business consultants argued that the Pentagon could save money if it would simply be "a better customer, by being less adversarial and more trusting" of defense contractors.

With the end of the Cold War, these arguments found new resonance. Bill Clinton took the philosophical change that Reagan had pushed on the civilian economy, and moved it into the defense base. In 1993, Defense Department official William Perry gathered CEOs of top defense contractors and told them that they would have to merge into larger entities because of reduced Cold War spending. "Consolidate or evaporate," he said at what became known as "The Last Supper" in military lore. Former secretary of the Navy John Lehman noted, "industry leaders took the warning to heart." They reduced the number of prime contractors from 16 to six; subcontractor mergers quadrupled from 1990 to 1998. They also loosened rules on sole source -- i.e. monopoly -- contracts, and slashed the Defense Logistics Agency, resulting in thousands of employees with deep knowledge of defense contracting leaving the public sector.

Contractors increasingly dictated procurement rules. The Clinton administration approved laws changing procurement, which, as the Los Angeles Times put it, got rid of the government's traditional goals of ensuring "fair competition and low prices." They reversed what the New Dealers had done to insulate American military power from financiers.

The administration also pushed Congress to allow foreign imports into American weapons through waivers of the Buy America Act, and demanded procurement officers stop asking for cost data. Mass offshoring took place, and businesses could increase prices radically.

This environment attracted private-equity shops, and swaths of the defense industry shifted their focus from aerospace engineering to balance sheet engineering. From 1993 to 2000, despite dramatic declines in Cold War military spending and declines in the number of workers in the defense industrial base and within the military, defense stocks outperformed the S&P.

Today, the American defense establishment quietly finds itself in the same predicament it did in the 1930s. Despite spending large amounts of money on weapons systems, it often gets substandard equipment. It is dependent for key sources of supply on business arrangements with potentially hostile powers. The problem is so big, so toxic, and so difficult that few lawmakers even want to take it on. But the increasingly obvious danger of Chinese power means we can no longer ignore it.

The Fix

Fortunately, this is fixable. Huawei's predatory pricing success has shown policymakers all over the world what happens when we don't protect our vital industrial capacity. Last year, Congress strengthened the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the committee that reviews foreign investment and mergers. The Trump tariffs have begun forcing a long-overdue conversation across the globe about Chinese steel and aluminum overcapacity, and Democrats like Representative Dan Lipinski are focused on reconstituting domestic manufacturing ability.

Within the defense base itself, every example -- from TransDigm to L3 to Chinese infiltration of American business -- has drawn the attention of members of Congress. Representatives Ted Budd and Paul Cook are Republicans and Representatives Jackie Speier and Ro Khanna are Democrats. They are not alone. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Tim Ryan have joined Khanna's demand for a TransDigm investigation.

Moreover, focus on production is bipartisan. One of the most ardent opponents of consolidation in the 1990s is current presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who in 1996 passed an amendment to block Pentagon subsidies for defense mergers, or what he called "Payoffs for Layoffs." On the other end of the spectrum, Trump has refocused national security and trade officials on the importance of domestic manufacturing.

Defense officials have also become acutely aware of the problem. In a 2015 briefing at the Pentagon, in response to questions about Lockheed's acquisition of Sikorsky, then secretary of defense Ash Carter emphasized the importance of not having "excessive consolidation," including so-called vertical integration, in the defense industry because it is "[not] good for the defense marketplace, and therefore, for the taxpayer and warfighter in the long run." Carter's acquisition chief, Frank Kendall, also noted the "significant policy concerns" posed by the "continuing march toward greater consolidation in the defense industry at the prime contractor level" and the effect it has on innovation.

American policymakers in the 1990s lost the ability to recognize the value of production capacity. Today, many of the problems highlighted here are still seen in isolation, perhaps as instances of corruption or reduced capacity. But the problems -- diminished innovation, marginal quality, higher prices, less redundancy, dependence on overseas supply chains, a lack of defense industry competition, and reduced investment in research and development -- are not independent. They are the result of the financialization of industry and of monopoly. It's time for a new strategic posture, one that puts a premium not just on spending the right amount on military budgets, but also on ensuring that financial actors don't capture what we do spend. We must begin once again to recognize that private industrial capacity is a vital national security asset that we can no longer allow Wall Street to pillage. By seeing the problem in its totality, we can attack the power of finance within the commercial and defense base and restore our national security capacity once again.

There are many levers we can use to reorder our national priorities. The Defense Department, along with its new higher budgets, should have more authority to promote competition, break up defense conglomerates, restrict excess defense contractor profits, empower contracting officers to get cost information, and block private equity takeovers of suppliers. Congress could reinstate the authority of the Defense Department to simply take ownership of specialized tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare part needs, a power it once had.

In the commercial sector, rebuilding the industrial base will require an aggressive national mobilization strategy. This means aggressive investment by government to rebuild manufacturing capacity, selective tariffs to protect against Chinese or foreign predation, regulation to stop financial predation by Wall Street, and anti-monopoly enforcement to block the exploitation of market power.

Policymakers must recognize that industrial capacity is a public good and short-term actors on Wall Street have become a serious national security vulnerability. While private businesses are essential to our common defense, the public sector must once again structure how we organize our national defense and protect our defense industrial base from predatory finance. For several decades, Wall Street has been organizing not just the financing of defense contractors, but the capabilities of our very defense posture. That experiment has been a failure. It is time to wake up, before it's too late.

Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Open Markets Institute. His book, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, is due out this fall from Simon & Schuster. Lucas Kunce spent 12 years in the United States Marine Corps, and is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or its components. This article was supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors.


polistra24 13 hours ago

Best article of the century. Gets everything right, in full detail.

But I doubt that the problem is fixable. It could have been fixable if we turned around in 1980, but all the factories and SKILLS are gone now.

kouroi 15 hours ago
Sobering read. However, it is likely that only a major war will spur legislators and administrators into action. Until then Wall Street will reign and the US administrations will keep threatening countries with sanctions if they buy equipment that prevents the US to conduct an easy bombing campaign on them.
chris chuba kouroi 8 hours ago
I've heard similar stories about the imminent collapse of the Russian Defense sector, they can't make their own parts, they lack diversity of suppliers, there is a huge brain drain, no customers (somewhat true since we practice extortion).

I'm not dismissing the author, actually quite the opposite and I am agreeing with you. The secret ingredient is an actual sense of danger. The Russians are terrified, we pretend to be terrified but know it's all threat inflation. If we had honest people in Congress proposing targeted budgets for real needs rather than 'freedom of navigation' when we know it's power projection then the fear of God might return to our habits. The author brought up the 20/30's I bet WW2 gave us that fear again.

MontDLaw 6 hours ago
Dude, your government stopped being able to do anything this complicated somewhere around 1995. Your infrastructure is in shambles and diabetics are dying because of an insulin monopoly that forces them to ration medication. The rope remark resembles you.
soliton 7 hours ago
No need to worry about L3. They were acquired by Harris, making another monster.
vpurto 12 hours ago • edited
This is the longest litany about demise of American prowess in technology that I've ever read in TAC so far. The story of destruction of Bell Labs, described in details by Matt Stoller is very accurate: I have been eyewitness to it from 1983 and up to its gruesome end. Carly Fiorina, one of the runners for President in 2016, delivered American icon coup-the-grace. She even justified her claim on presidency on business experience: destruction of another icon of American high-tech – Hewlett-Packard. Alas, there is the most fundamental reason for the current situation in the 21-st century USA, was formulated 100+ years ago by Vladimir Lenin: "For profit capitalists will be eager to sell us rope, with which we'll hung them" .

Would anybody protest today that profit IS the Nature of capitalism ? And more: those who substitute Reality with their wet dreams might be cured by watching Democratic 2020 debates.

soliton vpurto 6 hours ago
CF pretty much destroyed the best test equipment house in the world to make printers PCs.
Steve Smith 16 hours ago
Great piece. There are lots of good articles here but not that many that tell something I really didn't already know. Great perspective on the whole China issue. Amazing how sick our financialized economy really is when you look under the hood.

This is excellent information. Hope folks on the Hill are reading this.

Kessler 11 hours ago
The Wall Street and finance industry depend on US military, long-term this is a disaster, but they care only for short-term profits. Whoever thought that principles of free market apply internationally, where other goverments are free to influence "free trade" in any way they wish, while US goverment will do nothing is an idiot.

[Jun 26, 2019] Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns by Barbara Boland

Jun 25, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns See the Top 4 U.S. contractors' profits explode, all while their weapons have been used against civilian targets for years. June 25, 2019

And make no mistake: U.S. defense contractors and their lobbyists and supporters in government are getting rich in the process. "Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International, said to CNBC in February. But his statement vastly understates the role that defense contractors and lobbyists play in Washington's halls of power, where their influence on policy directly impacts their bottom lines. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have waged war against Yemen, killing and injuring thousands of Yemeni civilians. An estimated 90,000 people have been killed, according to one international tracker.

By December 2017, the number of cholera cases in Yemen had surged past one million , the largest such outbreak in modern history. An estimated 113,000 children have died since April 2018 from war-related starvation and disease. The United Nations calls the situation in Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis on earth, as over 14 million face starvation. The majority of the 6,872 Yemeni civilians killed and 10,768 wounded have been victims of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) .

Nearly 90 coalition airstrikes have hit homes , schools, markets, hospitals, and mosques since 2015, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2018, the coalition bombed a wedding, killing 22 people, including eight children. Another strike hit a bus , killing at least 26 children.

American-origin munitions produced by companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were identified at the site of over two dozen attacks throughout Yemen. Indeed, the United States is the single largest arms supplier to the Middle East and has been for decades, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. From 2014 to 2018, the United States supplied 68 percent of Saudi Arabia's arms imports, 64 percent of the UAE's imports, and 65 percent of Qatar's imports. Some of this weaponry was subsequently stolen or sold to al-Qaeda linked groups in the Arabian Peninsula , where they could be used against the U.S. military, according to reports . The Saudi use of U.S.-made jets, bombs, and missiles against Yemeni civilian centers constitutes a war crime. It was an American laser-guided MK-82 bomb that killed the children on the bus; Raytheon's technology killed the 22 people attending the wedding in 2018 as well as a family traveling in their car; and another American-made MK-82 bomb ended the lives of at least 80 men, women, and children in a Yemeni marketplace in March 2016. Yet American defense contractors continue to spend millions of dollars to lobby Washington to maintain the flow of arms to these countries.

"Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors see countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as huge potential markets," Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War , told TAC . "They see them as massive opportunities to make a lot of money; that's why they're investing billions and billions of dollars. This is a huge revenue stream to these companies." Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have all highlighted business with Saudi Arabia in their shareholder reports.

"Operations and maintenance have become a very profitable niche market for U.S. corporations," said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at Teal Group. He added that defense contractors can make as much as 150 percent more profit off of operations and maintenance than from the original arms sale. U.S. weapons supply 57 percent of the military aircraft used by the Royal Saudi Air Force, and mechanics and technicians hired by American companies repair and maintain their fighter jets and helicopters. In 2018 alone, the United States made $4.5 billion worth of arms deals to Saudi Arabia and $1.2 billion to the United Arab Emirates , a report by William Hartung and Christina Arabia found.

From the report : "Lockheed Martin was involved in deals worth $25 billion; Boeing, $7.1 billion in deals; Raytheon, $5.5 billion in deals; Northrop Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion; and BAE systems had a $1.3 billion deal." "Because of the nature of U.S. arms control law, most of these sales have to get government approval, and we've absolutely seen lobbyists weighing in heavily on this," Miles said. "The last time I saw the numbers, the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists.

They're not on the Hill lobbying Congress about how many schools we should open next year. They're lobbying for defense contractors. The past 18 years of endless wars have been incredibly lucrative for the arms industry, and they have a vested industry in seeing these wars continue, and not curtailing the cash cow that has been for them." The defense industry spent $125 million on lobbying in 2018. Of that, Boeing spent $15 million on lobbyists, Lockheed Martin spent $13.2 million , General Dynamics $11.9 million , and Raytheon $4.4 million , according to the Lobbying Disclosure Act website. Writes Ben Freeman:

According to a new report firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act have reported receiving more than $40 million from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2018. Saudi lobbyists and public relations professionals have contacted Congress, the executive branch, media outlets and think tanks more than 4,000 times. Much of this work has been focused on ensuring that sales of U.S. arms to Saudi Arabia continue unabated and blocking congressional actions that would end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms working for the Saudis have also reported doling out more than $4.5 million in campaign contributions in the past two years, including at least $6,000 to Trump. In many cases, these contributions have gone to members of Congress they've contacted regarding the Yemen war. In fact, some contributions have gone to members of Congress on the exact same day they were contacted by Saudi lobbyists, and some were made to key members just before, and even on the day of, important Yemen votes.
Over a dozen lobbying firms employed by defense contractors have also been working on behalf of the Saudi or Emiratis, efficiently lobbying for both the arms buyers and sellers in one fell swoop .

One of these lobbying firms, the McKeon Group, led by former Republican congressman and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Howard McKeon, represents both Saudi Arabia and the American defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK, MBDA, and L3 Technologies. Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman are the biggest suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, the McKeon Group took $1,697,000 from 10 defense contractors " to, among other objectives, continue the flow of arms to Saudi Arabia," reports National Memo. Freeman details multiple examples where lobbyists working on behalf of the Saudis met with a senator's staff and then made a substantial contribution to that senator's campaign within days of a key vote to keep the United States in the Yemen war.

American Defense International (ADI) represents the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's coalition partner in the war against Yemen, as well as several American defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Technologies, and General Atomics.

Not to be outdone by the McKeon Group, ADI's lobbyists have also aggressively pursued possible swing votes in the U.S. Senate for the hefty sum of $45,000 a month, paid for by the UAE . ADI lobbyists discussed the "situation in Yemen" and the "Paveway sale to the UAE," the same bomb used in the deadly wedding strike, with the office of Senator Martin Heinrich, a member of the Armed Services Committee, according to FARA reports .

ADI's lobbyists also met with Congressman Steve Scalise's legislative director to advise his office to vote against the congressional resolution on Yemen.

For their lobbying, Raytheon paid ADI $120,000 in 2018. In addition to the overt influence exercised by lobbyists for the defense industry, many former arms industry executives are embedded in influential posts throughout the Trump administration: from former Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, and Raytheon lobbyist Charles Faulkner at the State Department, who pushed Mike Pompeo to support arms sales in the Yemen war ; to former Boeing executive and erstwhile head of the Department of Defense Patrick Shanahan; to his interim replacement Mark Esper, secretary of the Army and another former lobbyist for Raytheon.

The war in Yemen has been good for American defense contractors' bottom lines. Since the conflict began, General Dynamics' stock price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon's from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing's from about $150 to $360, according to In These Times. Their analysis found that those four companies have had at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts approved by the State Department over the last 10 years. In April, President Donald Trump vetoed a resolution that would have ended American support for the Saudi-UAE coalition war against Yemen. Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in the Senate. There are a few senators who didn't vote for the War Powers resolution "that will probably vote for the Raytheon sales," Brittany Benowitz, a lawyer and former adviser to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told TAC. "I think you'll continue to see horrific bombings and as the famine rages on, people will start to ask, 'Why are we a part of this war?' Unfortunately, I don't think that will start to happen anytime soon." Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC


chris chuba a day ago

Yes indeed, we are the #1 arms exporter and very proud about it. Meanwhile, Rubio, Pompeo, et. al. are also proud about how they are finally clamping down on the nefarious arrangement that Venezuela and Cuba have to prop up their regimes.

Venezuela gives Cuba low cost oil and Cuba sends them about 25,000 doctors for free medical care to help prop up Maduro. Hmm ... sounds like one is exporting medical services in return for energy, pure, unabridged evil. Our second best export is misinformation and lies.

I know, someone will give the State Dept line that the doctors are underpaid and the oil is below market price. The point is that both countries export what they have more of in order to get what they need. This is the basics of any trade relationship. Both countries are better off after the transaction and now both countries are suffering because of our benighted intervention.

I keep wondering when God is going to punish us for our appalling arrogance, pride, and our unwavering faith in our own righteousness. God is certainly punishing me. I wish I was one of the blissfully ignorant.

Fran Macadam 2 days ago
The biggest business of America is war. The symptom of how all pervasive this has become is there is a new definition of defeat: the only war that is lost, is one that ends. The new victory is now war without end.
EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
If the Saudis have not yet routed the Houthis, I am doubt they ever will. Without invading the country and holding ground, I am unclear of the point of constantly bombing.

The Houthis won their civil conflict, best allow them to constitute a government and deal with it.

Sid Finster EliteCommInc. a day ago
The Saudis have invaded Yemen, but they and their mercenaries keep getting ambushed and ganked. The Yemeni tribes have a very long and successful history of guerrilla warfare.

Admittedly, it's mostly the mercenaries, as the Saudis don't like a centralized military in particular and don't like fighting opponents who can shoot back in general.

Nelson a day ago
"Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in the Senate."

A veto override requires 2/3 of the votes, which is 67 in the Senate.

polistra24 a day ago
Not surprising. Dow = genocide, both internally and externally. Every added point on the Dow is built on a massive pile of carcasses.
LFC 18 hours ago
"Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International, said to CNBC in February.

Yeah and Wells Fargo were just practicing "innovation" that the financial companies have told us they need to do.

Lily Sandoz a day ago
The Republic is a total failure. It cares nothing for the Constitution the representatives are sworn to uphold and abide by. It's all about the symbiosis of power in gov. and money in business. Those two factions exchange what they other needs to gain more power and money at the expense of the taxpayers and countries abroad being destroyed. It's pretty simple if you ask 'cui bono' and then follow the money. This time following the money may take the USA/world to thermo-nuclear war which psychos like Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, Netanyahu, the MIC and all the other neo-cons want. Currently the war policy against Iran seems to be tied up in Christian-Zionist eschatology to bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Does it get any more loony than this? Metaphysics driving political and foreign policy is really a recipe for a disaster and may actually bring about loosing the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse on the world, but that's OK I guess because Wash. sees the 'big picture.'
Doom Incarnate a day ago
Seriously people.

Buy the stocks of those companies.

Sure what your government is doing is wrong. It should do something else. But in the meantime, there's no reason for you not to profit.

This is America after all and warfighting is good business.

Boo yaa!!!!

EliteCommInc. 2 days ago
Ohhh Here's my short response . . . .

https://247wallst.com/speci...

[Jun 25, 2019] This Administration's handling of Iran is bellicose and stupid by W. James Antle III

Notable quotes:
"... It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war. ..."
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove" advisors? ..."
"... If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker. ..."
"... Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again. ..."
"... "It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster." ..."
"... the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution. ..."
"... And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war.

... ... ...

Adriana Pena a day ago
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
ron_goodman 2 days ago
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
Bill In Montgomey a day ago • edited
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the first place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian air space (or right on its border).

Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove" advisors?

=marco01= 2 days ago • edited
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning meetings/briefings.

If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker.

Ken T a day ago
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again.

But just because on this pass he happened to randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're supposed to congratulate him for finally "becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is the contortions his supporters put themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to everyone else.

Dave Sullivan 14 hours ago
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article is crop.
paradoctor 18 hours ago
I'm glad that he didn't, but I'm not glad that he almost did.
FL_Cottonmouth a day ago
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President," is a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used when Trump bombed Syria for the first time.

He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their restraint (on the contrary, they have created a crisis for no good reason and have brought us to the brink of war as a result) so much as he's criticizing the media for its warmongering.

The media is actually trying to bait the President into a unilateral act of war against another country that hasn't attacked us and couldn't threaten us even if it did.

Taras77 a day ago
"It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."

At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm Bolton, it is a matter of time before the situation blows up.

SteveM a day ago
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would be a truly presidential act."

However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this time. (And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and kill and destroy without question.)

So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution.

And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.

[Jun 25, 2019] This Administration's handling of Iran, as compared to the last, is anything but stupid.

Notable quotes:
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would be a truly presidential act." ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

UPC Arch Stanton a day ago

...This Administration's handling of Iran, as compared to the last, is anything but stupid. Unless, of course, you're of the opinion we should be going to war, and you're pissed that this President made the right decision at the right time. Nice try, because thinking the way you are is stupid.
Adriana Pena a day ago
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
ron_goodman 2 days ago
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
Bill In Montgomey a day ago • edited
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the first place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian air space (or right on its border).

Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future.

For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt.

By the way, who are his "dove" advisors?

John D. Thullen a day ago
Well, this article vanquished my very recent admiration for Michael Brendan Dougherty, acquired by way of Mr. Dreher.

"articulates a classical Augustinian just war argument ..."

That's like claiming Mrs O'Leary's cow that kicked over the lantern and burned Chicago to the ground was articulating the finer points of preventing forest fires originated by Smokey the Bear.

Do the writers here do a little physical stretching before contorting yourselves into pretzel shapes trying to justify every lantern Trump kicks over into poles of dry hay as he goes along?

Of course conservative Christians hate pulling back from imminent, and possibly nuclear war. When haven't they in American history?

=marco01= 2 days ago • edited
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning meetings/briefings.

If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker.

Ken T a day ago
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again. But just because on this pass he happened to randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're supposed to congratulate him for finally "becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is the contortions his supporters put themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to everyone else.
Dave Sullivan 14 hours ago
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article is crop.
paradoctor 18 hours ago
I'm glad that he didn't, but I'm not glad that he almost did.
FL_Cottonmouth a day ago
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President," is a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used when Trump bombed Syria for the first time. He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their restraint (on the contrary, they have created a crisis for no good reason and have brought us to the brink of war as a result) so much as he's criticizing the media for its warmongering. The media is actually trying to bait the President into a unilateral act of war against another country that hasn't attacked us and couldn't threaten us even if it did.
Emma Liame a day ago
thank you!!!
Taras77 a day ago
"It does not require Nostradamus-like
skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to
be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."

At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm bolton, it is a matter of time before the situation blows up.

SteveM a day ago
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this
pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would
deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would
be a truly presidential act."

However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this time. (And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and kill and destroy without question.)

So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution.

And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.

Jessica Ramer a day ago
This type of article is the reason I read The American Conservative. Thank you for addressing this important issue from a cautious and realistic perspective.

Although Donald Trump and I are on opposite sides of the fence on nearly every issue, I do prefer his restrained foreign policy instincts to the hawkish ones of Hillary Clinton.

Cascade Joe 2 days ago
One hundred thumbs up for this article.
Apex_Predator a day ago
"Neocons gonna neocon"

"In other breaking news, water is still wet!"

PeterTx52 a day ago
lots of anti-Trumper commenters
EliteCommInc. a day ago
Goodness you people and your Nobel prize obsession. The last guy got one he didn't deserve so I should get one too. Whether the decision was presidential or not is hinged on motive in my view.

If it was an assessment that if our drone did in fly over US airspace, then it represented a legitimate target for Iran - then certainly critical thinking as expressed has some merit to sound management.

If the matter was decided on the messiness of conflict and calculating one's political carreer, the level of sound management is simply not a factor.

MrNIKOLA 2 days ago
THIS is what white supremacy looks like: Punish Iran because one day in the far off future they may develop an atomic bomb but gift Israel $3 billion a year while it harbors hundreds of nukes. Meanwhile, pat head choppers like Saudi Arabia on the head -- As long as they buys billions in US weapons and force nations to use US dollars to buy oil.
Wardog00 MrNIKOLA a day ago
Do you realize that Iran is an Aryan nation, which would make them white? Israel is a Jewish nation, which most white supremacists hate. And Saudi Arabia is an Arab country, which would not make it a white country.
So how in the world is this what white supremacy looks like?

[Jun 25, 2019] It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war

Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.

Hugh Hewitt called it the "big blink," inviting Liz Cheney -- who is very much her father's daughter on foreign policy -- on his show to warn, "Weakness is provocative." Hewitt compared it to Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria. "Much worse" argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic . Other reporting focused on a "total breakdown in process."

It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply illustrate the Beltway's strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops home from Syria.

... ... ...

"How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?" Woodward quotes Trump as asking. One Post write-up folded these lines into a broader story about the White House's "nervous breakdown" and the national security team's impatience with the president. But these are morally serious questions, not exaggerated inaugural crowd size estimates.

[Jun 25, 2019] The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook's Message: Trust Us, We're Unreliable

Jun 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

@ jayc 57
US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable, arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"

The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM | 66

The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________

Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are special.

Posted by: Ort | Jun 24, 2019 5:16:44 PM | 69

@68 Ort

Good one. Although Brian Hook is an insult to special olympians and humanity in general.

Posted by: Uncle Jon | Jun 24, 2019 5:22:51 PM | 71

[Jun 25, 2019] US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert says

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 12:26:26 AM | 136

Let's talk human rights.

news report
Bloomberg, Jun 24, 2019
Pompeo is starting a commission on human rights to rethink what they are and how they should fit into U.S. foreign policy. . . here


Office of the high Commissioner
United Nations Human Rights
May 6, 2019
US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert says

. . .On 17 April the United States banned the Central Bank of Venezuela from conducting transactions in US dollars after 17 May, and will cut off access to US personal remittances and credit cards by March 2020.

"It is hard to figure out how measures which have the effect of destroying Venezuela's economy, and preventing Venezuelans from sending home money, can be aimed at 'helping the Venezuelan people', as claimed by the US Treasury," the expert said.

His statements follow claims in a recent report published by the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research that 40,000 people may have died in Venezuela since 2017 because of US sanctions .

Jazairy also said he was concerned the US would not renew waivers for international buyers of Iranian oil, despite protests from NATO ally Turkey, among others. Washington has demanded that all remaining States which benefited from waivers stop purchases on May 1, or face sanctions.

"The extraterritorial application of unilateral sanctions is clearly contrary to international law," the expert said. " I am deeply concerned that one State can use its dominant position in international finance to harm not only the Iranian people, who have followed their obligations under the UN-approved nuclear deal to this day, but also everyone in the world who trades with them.

"The international community must come together to challenge what amounts to blockades ignoring a country's sovereignty, the human rights of its people, and the rights of third countries trading with sanctioned States, all while constituting a threat to world peace and security.

"I call on the international community to engage in constructive dialogue with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and the United States to find a peaceful resolution in compliance with the spirit and letter of the Charter of the United Nations before the arbitrary use of economic starvation becomes the new 'normal'." . . here

[Jun 25, 2019] Trump's one hundred percent pure Pinocchio behaviour

Trump contradicts Pompeo who contradicts Bolton who contradicts Trump
Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Christian J Chuba , Jun 24, 2019 3:39:32 PM | 25
Favorite lie Trump willing to meet w/no pre-conditions

100 Pinocchio's. He even says that he wants to negotiate about Iran's so-called nuclear weapons program. If the premise of the talks is that Iran has to abandon the JCPOA then how is this not a precondition?

Nothing left to sanction, what's next?

You will know that war is certain when the U.S. forbids Iranian tankers from leaving port (a blockade) so that they cannot even sell oil to China. Iran will rightly call this an act of war and declare that stopping a single tanker will result in them firing on a U.S. naval ship. The morons in the U.S. MSM will bleat and call this Iranian aggression even though it is the U.S. that is blocking the sacred right of 'international shipping'. The number one excuse we use to send our navy to the shores of China and Iran.

Arta , Jun 24, 2019 4:32:13 PM | 45

American way of diplomacy: impose sanction on Iran Foreign Minister, at the same time requesting negotiation with him

[Jun 25, 2019] By rejecting the JCPOA, the Americans rejected the UN and international law/agreements for the second time in 15 short years

Jun 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

jayc , Jun 24, 2019 6:01:16 PM | 85

Don Bacon #65
"The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants."

The American's bluff was called way back in Obama's first term when Turkey and Brazil proposed a plan which would settle concerns over Iran's nuclear centrifuges. Sec State Clinton shut that down quickly, confirming the nuclear concerns were merely a pretext for a regime-change policy. That established, the overriding interest, internationally, became preventing a shooting war involving US and Iran -to which the negotiating of the JCPOA played a strong role. The Russians and Chinese were criticized for supporting this process, including the UNSC directed sanctions. But the process strengthened multilateral cooperation and highlighted the obvious downsides of a self-avowed hegemonic power. By rejecting the JCPOA, the Americans rejected the UN and international law/agreements for the second time in 15 short years. The overriding concern remains to expose the negative consequences of a hegemonic entity while avoiding, to the extent possible, an actual shooting war.

[Jun 23, 2019] Is Democratic system theoretically sustainable?

Notable quotes:
"... "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy" - Alexis de Toqueville ..."
Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

bonefisher -> Livemike , 6 Mar 2012 06:52

Great post

The problem is that as De Toqueville realises (his quote below) most of the people commenting here are simply living a parasitic existence benefiting from state largesse - sucking the teat of a bloated and overburdened state caring not whether their sustenance is remotely sustainable and just voting for ever more

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy" - Alexis de Toqueville

[Jun 22, 2019] A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to New Departement of Defence rule: Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically

Highly recommended!
Jun 22, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

interlocutor , Jun 21, 2019 6:13:43 PM | 186

The Babylon Bee: Report: Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically

https://babylonbee.com/img/articles/article-4404-1.jpg

U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.

People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.

"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get them there on the frontlines?"

"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts who are just there for the paycheck," he added.

Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly ceased.

Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.

The Babylon Bee was created ex nihilo on the eighth day of the creation week, exactly 6,000 years ago. We have been the premier news source through every major world event, from the Tower of Babel and the Exodus to the Reformation and the War of 1812. We focus on just the facts, leaving spin and bias to other news sites like CNN and Fox News.

If you would like to complain about something on our site, take it up with God.

Unlike other satire sites, everything we post is 100% verified by Snopes.com.

[Jun 21, 2019] Guilty or Not, Iran's Fate Is in Trump's Hands

Jun 21, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

From the standpoint of Information Warfare, it is very critical when a new event happens to put forward one's version of the "truth" first before any other possible competing theories can arise. This could be why Pompeo or someone like him would chose to immediately come out with accusations thrown around as facts with no evidence to support them and no respect for the great Western concepts of "innocence until proven guilty" or the "right to a fair trial".

Pompeo's objective here is not the truth but to take that virgin intellectual territory regarding the interpretation of this issue before anyone else can, because once a concept has become normalized in the minds of the masses it is very difficult to change it and many people in Washington cannot risk blowing the chance to waste thousands of American lives invading Iran based on an ultimately false but widely accepted/believed narrative.

Not surprisingly foreign and especially Russian media has quickly attempted to counter the "Iran obviously did it" narrative before it becomes an accepted fact. Shockingly Slavic infowarriors actually decided to speak to the captain of a tanker that was hit to get his opinion rather than simply assert that Iran didn't do it because they are a long time buddy of Moscow. The captain's testimony of what happened strongly contradicts the version of reality that Washington is pushing. And over all Russia as usual takes the reasonable position of "let's gather the evidence and then see who did it", which is good PR for itself as a nation beyond this single issue.

In terms of finding the actual guilty party the media on both sides has thus far ignored the simple fact that if Iran wanted to sink a tanker it would be sunk. No civilian vessel is going to withstand an attack from a 21st century navy by having a particularly thick hull and the idea that the Iranians need to physically attach bombs to boats is mental. Physically planting bombs is for goofball inept terrorists, not a professional military. After all, even the West acknowledges that the Iranians use the best Russian goodies that they can afford and Russian 21 st century arms will sink civilian ship guaranteed. The Iranians have everything they need to smoke any civilian vessel on the planet guaranteed from much farther away than 3 feet.

If Iran's goal was to scare or intimidate the tanker they could have just shot at it with rifles or done something else to spook the crew and get a media response. When looked at from the standpoint of military logic, these "attacks" seem baffling as Iran could have just destroyed the boats or directly tried to terrorize them to make a statement.

[Jun 20, 2019] US gives military assistance to 70% of world dictoris whether they re using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden.

Notable quotes:
"... If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ..."
Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya had nothing to do with "stopping a bad man."

If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden.

In fact, the U.S. gives military aid to 70 percent of the world's dictators . (One would hope that's only around the holidays though.)

[Jun 20, 2019] Washington s Dr. Strangeloves: Is plunging Russia into darkness really a good idea?

Notable quotes:
"... ...What else did you expect other than the MIC/Intelligence Agencies/Pentagon/embedded war mongers handling this stuff? ..."
"... Gen. Buck Turgidson is most certainly going rogue. ..."
"... That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is a figurehead with no real power. ..."
Jun 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Not if_ But When , 11 minutes ago link

...What else did you expect other than the MIC/Intelligence Agencies/Pentagon/embedded war mongers handling this stuff?

SurfingUSA , 2 minutes ago link

Gen. Buck Turgidson is most certainly going rogue.

joego1 , 11 minutes ago link

It's all about the bankers bitches.

LetThemEatRand , 17 minutes ago link

...That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is a figurehead with no real power.

Of course it's been true for a long time, but it's a fairly recent phenomenon that a large number of Americans like it. Russiagate is another example.

Huge portions of America were cheering for the unseating of an elected President by unelected police state apparatus because they don't like him.

[Jun 20, 2019] Bias, Lies Videotape Doubts Dog Confirmed Syria Chemical Attacks

Jun 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Bias, Lies & Videotape: Doubts Dog 'Confirmed' Syria Chemical Attacks Disturbing new evidence suggests 2018 incident might've been staged, putting everything else, including U.S. retaliation, into question. By Scott Ritter June 20, 2019

(By Mikhail Semenov /Shutterstock) Thanks to an explosive internal memo, there is no reason to believe the claims put forward by the Syrian opposition that President Bashar al-Assad's government used chemical weapons against innocent civilians in Douma back in April. This is a scenario I have questioned from the beginning.

It also calls into question all the other conclusions and reports by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) , which was assigned in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."

As you recall, the Trump administration initiated a coordinated bombing of Syrian government facilities with the UK and France within days of the Douma incident and before a full investigation of the scene could be completed, charging Assad with the "barbaric act" of using "banned chemical weapons" to kill dozens of people on the scene. Bomb first, ask questions later.

The OPCW began their investigation days after the strikes . The group drew on witness testimonies, environmental and biomedical sample analysis results, and additional digital information from witnesses (i.e. video and still photography), as well as toxicological and ballistic analyses. In July 2018, the OPCW released an interim report on Douma that said "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties," but that chlorine, which is not a banned chemical weapon, was detected there.

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The report cited ballistic tests that indicated that the canisters found at two locations on the scene were dropped from the air (witnesses blamed Assad's forces), but investigations were ongoing. The final report in March reiterated the ballistics data, and the conclusions were just as underwhelming, saying that all of the evidence gathered there provides "reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place," due in part to traces of chlorine and explosives at the impact sites.

Now, the leaked internal report apparently suppressed by the OPCW says there is a "high probability" that a pair of chlorine gas cylinders that had been claimed as the source of the toxic chemical had been planted there by hand and not dropped by aircraft. This was based on extensive engineering assessments and computer modeling as well as all of the evidence previously afforded to the OPCW.

What does this mean? To my mind, the canisters were planted by the opposition in an effort to frame the Syrian government.

The OPCW has confirmed with the validity of this shocking document and has offered statements to reporters, including Peter Hitchens, who published the organization's response to him on May 16.

The ramifications of this turn of events extend far beyond simply disproving the allegations concerning the events in April 2018. The credibility of the OPCW itself and every report and conclusion it has released concerning allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government are now suspect. The extent to which the OPCW has, almost exclusively, relied upon the same Syrian opposition sources who are now suspected of fabricating the Douma events raises serious questions about both the methodology and motivation of an organization that had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for "its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons."

In a response to Agence France-Presse (AFP) , OPCW director general Fernando Arias acknowledged there is an internal probe into the memo leak but that he continues to "stand by the impartial and professional conclusions" of the group's original report. He played down the role of the memo's author, Ian Henderson, and said his alternative hypotheses were not included in the final OPCW report because they "pointed at possible attribution" and were therefore outside the scope of the OPCW's fact finding mission in Syria.

Self-produced videos and witness statements provided by the pro-opposition Violations Documentation Center, Syrian Civil Defense (also known as the White Helmets), and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) , a non-profit organization that operates hospitals in opposition-controlled Syria, represented the heart and soul of the case against the Syrian government regarding the events in Douma. To my mind, the internal memo now suggests that these actors were engaging in a systemic effort to disseminate disinformation that would facilitate Western military intervention with the goal of removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.

This theory has been advanced by pro-Assad forces and their Russian partners for some time. But independent reporting on the ground since the Douma incident has sussed out many of the same concerns. From James Harkin, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism and a fellow at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center, who traveled to the site of the attacks and reported for The Intercept in February of this year:

The imperative to grab the fleeting attention of an international audience certainly seems to have influenced the presentation of the evidence. In the videos and photos that appeared that evening, most analysts and observers agree that there were some signs that the bodies and gas canisters had been moved or tampered with after the event for maximum impact. The Syrian media activists who'd arrived at the apartment block with the dead people weren't the first to arrive on the scene; they'd heard about the deaths from White Helmet workers and doctors at the hospital.

The relationship between the OPCW and the Syrian opposition can be traced back to 2013. That was when the OPCW was given the responsibility of eliminating Syria's declared arsenal of chemical weapons; this task was largely completed by 2014. However, the Syrian opposition began making persistent allegations of chemical weapon attacks by the Syrian government in which chlorine, a substance not covered by Syria's obligation to be disarmed of chemical weapons, was used. In response, the OPCW established the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."

The priority of effort for the FFM early on was to investigate allegations of the use of chlorine as a weapon. Since, according to its May 2014 summary, "all reported incidents took place at locations that the Syrian Government considers to be outside its effective control," the FFM determined that the success of its mission was contingent upon "identification of key actors, such as local authorities and/or representatives of armed opposition groups in charge of the territories in which these locations are situated; the establishment of contacts with these groups in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence that allows the mandate and objectives of the FFM to be communicated."

So from its very inception, the FFM had to rely on the anti-Assad opposition and its supporters for nearly everything. The document that governed the conduct of the FFM's work in Syria was premised on the fact that the mission would be dependent in part upon "opposition representatives" to coordinate, along with the United Nations, the "security, logistical and operational aspects of the OPCW FFM," including liaising "for the purposes of making available persons for interviews."

One could sense the bias resulting from such an arrangement when, acting on information provided to it by the opposition regarding an "alleged attack with chlorine" on the towns of Kafr Zeyta and Al-Lataminah, the FFM changed its original plans to investigate an alleged chlorine attack on the town of Harasta. This decision, the FFM reported, "was welcomed by the opposition." When the FFM attempted to inspect Kafr Zeyta, however, it was attacked by opposition forces, with one of its vehicles destroyed by a roadside bomb, one inspector wounded, and several inspectors detained by opposition fighters.

The inability to go to Kafr Zeyta precluded the group from "presenting definitive conclusions," according to the report. But that did not stop the FFM from saying that the information given to them from these opposition sources, "including treating physicians with whom the FFM was able to establish contact," and public domain material, "lends credence to the view that toxic chemicals, most likely pulmonary irritating agents such as chlorine, have been used in a systematic manner in a number of attacks" against Kafr Zeyta.

So the conclusion/non-conclusion was based not on any onsite investigation, but rather videos produced by the opposition and subsequently released via social media and interviews also likely set up by opposition groups (White Helmets, SAMS, etc.), which we know, according to their own documents, served as the key liaisons for the FFM on the ground.

All of this is worrisome. It is unclear at this point how many Syrian chemical attacks have been truly confirmed since the start of the war. In February of this year, the Global Policy Institute released a report saying there were 336 such reports, but they were broken down into "confirmed," "credibly substantiated," and "comprehensively confirmed." Out of the total, 111 were given the rigorous "comprehensively confirmed" tag, which, according to the group, meant the incidents were "were investigated and confirmed by competent international bodies or backed up by at least three highly reliable independent sources of evidence."

They do not go into further detail about those bodies and sources, but are sure to thank the White Helmets and their "implementing partner" Mayday Rescue and Violations Documentation Center, among other groups, as "friends and partners" in the study. So it becomes clear, looking at the Kafr Zeytan inspection and beyond, that the same opposition sources that are informing the now-dubious OPCW reports are also delivering data and "assistance" to outside groups reaching international audiences, too.

The role of the OPCW in sustaining the claims made by the obviously biased Syrian opposition sources cannot be understated -- by confirming the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma, the OPCW lent credibility to claims that otherwise should not -- and indeed would not -- have been granted, and in doing so violated the very operating procedures that had been put in place by the OPCW to protect the credibility of the organization and its findings.

There is an old prosecutorial rule -- one lie, all lies -- that comes into play in this case. With the leaked internal report out there, suggesting that the sources in the Douma investigation were agenda-driven and dishonest, all information ever provided to the OPCW by the White Helmets, SAMS, and other Syrian opposition groups must now, in my mind, be viewed as tainted and therefore unusable.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

JPH 8 hours ago

The OPCW reaction clearly considering the investigation into the leak instead of apologizing for not publishing this report is revealing its bias.

There has been a push from 'the West' to have the OPCW also attributing responsibility. Given the bias already on display this will further politicize the OPCW.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk...

As soon as such organizations become propaganda tools their credibility goes into the wind.

Given what we know of the Skripal hoax and the Tories attitude to the truth with their government funded 'Integrity Initiative' through the Institute of Statecraft' that exactly what the British Intelligence intended.

https://medium.com/@tomseck...

One may note the specific personal links through Orbis/Steele/Miller between the 'Integrity Initiative' and the fake 'Trump Dossier' and one ought to be alarmed by 'services' of a British intelligence out of control, but given the FBI/CIA involvement and exploitation of that fake 'Trump Dossier' it looks that the US has a quite similar problem.

john 11 hours ago
Our government lied to start a war! When has that always happened.

[Jun 19, 2019] Trump MIGA bellicosity: the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran"

Neocon donors ask Trump for favors and he can't refuse... Trump foreign policy is a direct continuation of Bush II and Obama foreign policy and is dominated by neocons, who rule the State Department. Pomeo is a rabid neocon, to the right of Condoleezza Rice, Hillary and John Kerry. Actually anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli bias was clearly visible even during 2016 campaign, but few voters paid any attention. Now they should.
It is clear that Trump is the most pro-Israel President after Johnson.
Notable quotes:
"... In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. ..."
"... The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019]. ..."
"... Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation. ..."
"... But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019] ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

The most optimistic explanation: Trump intends to use immigration as an election issue in 2020. Yet his fecklessness in office will be as unappealing to many voters as the Democrats' extremism. [ Trump Is Vulnerable to Biden on Immigration , by Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, June 11, 2019] After all, Trump began his campaign vowing to solve the immigration problem almost exactly four years ago -- but essentially nothing has been done.

Instead, the president has been reduced to asking Mexico to solve our problem for us. He supposedly cut a deal with the Mexican government after threatening tariffs , but even that is in dispute. [ Mexico denies Trump's claim of secret concessions in deal , by Jill Colvin, Colleen Long, and Maria Verza, Associated Press, June 10, 2019] The president left powerful negotiating tools on the side, including, most importantly, a remittance tax . As in his dealings with Congress, the president insists on negotiating from weakness in his dealings with Mexico.

In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. [ Trump sanctions Iranian metals, Tehran's largest non-petroleum-related sources of export revenue , by Amanda Macias, CNBC, May 8, 2019]

Later that month, the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran" [ Trump threatens Iran With 'Official End' by Kenneth Walsh, US News and World Report, May 20, 2019].

The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019].

This has culminated in Iran's alleged attack on two tankers traveling in the Strait of Hormuz. [ Pompeo Says 'There's No Doubt' Iran Attacked 2 Tankers , by Daniella Cheslow, NPR, June 16, 2019] Congressman Adam Schiff, one of the president's most fervent opponents, agrees Iran is to blame [ Schiff agrees with Trump: 'No question' Iran attacked oil tankers , by Ronn Blitzer, Fox News, June 16, 2019], Senator Tom Cotton (who has a relatively strong immigration policy ) has gone so far as to call for direct military action. [ Senator Tom Cotton Calls For 'Retaliatory Military Strike,' Against Iran After Tanker Attacks, by Benjamin Fearnow, Newsweek, June 16, 2019]

Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation.

But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019]

This is not the same country that re-elected George W. Bush in 2004. The trust in institutions is gone; America is war-weary.

And regardless of who did it, who cares? What American interest is at stake? The Iraq War made the region more unstable ; an Iran War would unleash sectarian warfare all over again. [ Attacking Iran Would Unleash Chaos on the Middle East , by Robert Gaines and Scott Horton, National Interest, June 15, 2019]

We can't even say it's "about the oil" -- the United States is now the world's biggest oil producer and may soon be the world's top exporter [ US will soon threaten to topple Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil exporter: IEA by Tom DiChristopher, CNBC, March 11, 2019]. Who cares about Iran's oil?

There is also a deeper fundamental question. Our country is crumbling. The border is non-existent; entire communities are being overrun. There's something perverse about even entertaining a dangerous and costly military intervention halfway around the world. It's akin to a Roman emperor declaring he will conquer India while barbarians are crossing the Rhine.

President Trump ran on a policy of non-intervention and promised it even after being elected. [ Trump lays out non-interventionist U.S. military policy , by Steve Holland, Reuters, December 6, 2016] He repeatedly pushed back against efforts to get more deeply involved in Syria. He must now resist efforts to get involved in Iran, especially from those who may hint it will win him re-election.

[Jun 18, 2019] Can the US launch a war without a Secratary of Defence in place? W>ell, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 14

Purely euphemistic of course, though it actually did used to be called the Department of War.

Norwegian , Jun 18, 2019 3:52:24 PM | 15

It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place.

Well, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves.

[Jun 18, 2019] Washington s Dark Secret The Real Truth about Terrorism and Islamic Extremism by John Maszka

Notable quotes:
"... "A century after World War I, the great war for oil is still raging, with many of the same fronts as before and also a few new ones. Throughout it all -- whether waged by realists, neoliberals, or neocons -- war has been extremely good for business" (225). ..."
Jun 08, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Anna Faktorovich , December 17, 2018

The War for Oil and the New Holocaust

The premise of this book is to say what most of the world's public has probably been thinking since the War on Terror began, or that it is a "war for natural resources -- and that terrorism has little to do with it. Once the military became mechanized, oil quickly became the most sought-after commodity on the planet, and the race for energy was eventually framed as a matter of national security."

John Maszka argues that the "oil conglomerates" are the real "threats to national security". Demonizing "an entire religion" is a repercussion of this policy. My own research in Rebellion as Genre a few years ago also attempted to point out the misuse of the term terrorism in its current application, or as a weapon against one's enemies rather than as a reference to a type of attacks intended to terrorize. Governments that accuse others of terrorism while legitimizing their own "acts of violence" as "retributive" are clearly breaking human rights agreements and their stated commitments to freedom.

Maszka's perspective is of particular interest because he teaches this subject at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi, and has published widely his criticisms of the War on Terror, including Terrorism and the Bush Doctrine.

Many of the books I have read on terrorism from American supporters of this pro-War on Terror doctrine are troubling in their references to spreading Christianity and other similarly questionable ideologies, so it is refreshing to hear from somebody with a fresh perspective that is more likely to bring about world peace. The preface acknowledges that this book contrasts with the bulk of other books in this field. It also explains that it focuses primarily on two "Islamic militant organizations -- al-Qaeda and the Islamic State".

He explains that perception has a lot to do with who a country is willing to commit violence against, giving the example of Nazis being able to commit violence on Jews in the Holocaust because of this blindness. Thus, violence against Muslims by the West in the past two decade is shown as possibly a new Holocaust where the militaries are carrying out orders because Muslims have been demonized.

Terrorism has historically been the work of a few extremists, or terms like "war" or "revolution" is employed to describe large groups of such fighters; so it is strange that the West has entered the War on Terror with entire Muslim-majority countries, killing so many civilians that it is not a stretch to call these Holocaust-like.

The Islamic State targets Muslims as well, also showing dehumanized traits that are even harder to explain (x-xi). The preface also acknowledges that the author will be using "contractions and anecdotal digressions" as "intentional literary devices", shooing the standard scholarly style (this is troubling for me personally, as I'm allergic to digressions, but at least he tells readers what to expect).

As promised, Chapter One begins with a poet's story about the Tree of Life, then discusses the Boston Marathon bombings from the perspective of the author as he worked in Kyrgyzstan, and goes off on other tangents before reaching this conclusion -- the marathon's bombers were not terrorists: "They had no political aspirations. They weren't attempting to obtain concessions from the government or provoke a reaction. They simply believed that they were 'wave sheaves' -- first fruits of God -- and that they would be instrumental in ushering in the apocalypse" (5).

This conclusion explains the relationship between all of the digressions across this section, so these digressions were necessary to prove this point, and thus are suitable for a scholarly book. And this is exactly the type of logical reasoning that is missing in most of the oratory on terrorism. The entire book similarly uses specific acts of supposed terrorism to explain what really happened and working to understand th motivations of the actors.

Since the author's digressions into his own life are typically very relevant to the subject, they are definitely helpful: "I was stationed in Riyadh at an American military base that was attacked by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber" (135).

It would actually be unethical if Maszka did not explain that he has been personally affected by al-Qaeda in this context; and since he has seen this War as a civilian living in the affected countries and as a member of the military that is attaching these "terrorists", his opinions should be trustworthy for both sides. Given how emotional writing this book with detachment and carefully crafted research must have been for somebody who has been bombed, it is only fitting that the final chapter is called, "The Definition of Insanity."

And here is the final chapter:

"A century after World War I, the great war for oil is still raging, with many of the same fronts as before and also a few new ones. Throughout it all -- whether waged by realists, neoliberals, or neocons -- war has been extremely good for business" (225).

Very powerful words that are justly supported. I would strongly recommend that everybody in the West's militaries who is responsible for making decisions in the War on Terror read this book before they make their next decision. Who are they shooting at? Why? Who is benefiting? Who is dying? Are they committing war crimes as serious as the Nazis? If there is any chance these allegations are true what kind of a military leader can proceed without understanding the explanations that Maszka offers here? This would probably also work well in an advanced graduate class, despite its digressions, it will probably help students write better dissertations on related topics.

Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Fall 2018

[Jun 18, 2019] MIC vs FIRE sector

They are actually a single sector
Jun 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lochearn , Jun 18, 2019 8:29:55 AM | 98
@ 71 b4real
"Do you really believe those bankers with their terminals and wingtip shoes are telling the boys with the billion dollars of weaponry what to do?"

Simple answer: Yes. US weapons sales in 2018 were worth $192 billion. Total miltary budget in 2018 was $650 billion. That does not add up to even a trillion which is a paltry sum when compared to about $30 trillion sloshing around US banks and fund management companies.

Let's take the example of the world's biggest arms producer – Lockhead Martin. The State Street Corporation (fund management) holds 16.6% of the shares of Lockhead Martin, Capital World Investors (California) hold 7.7%, Vanguard Group 7% and BlackRock Inc. 6.7%. That means 4 fund management companies own 38% of the stock of Lockead Martin. These guys with the wingtip shoes can fire the entire management team of Lockhead Martin at the drop of a hat.

The finance, insurance and real estate sector accounted for 20% of US GDP in 2016 (Forbes), which means approximately $18 trillion. You may argue that real estate has little to do with bankers but every sale needs a mortgage and private equity has moved into real estate in a big way over the last decade.

It should also be recalled that the man who created the CIA and ran it for over a decade - Allen Dulles - was a Wall Street lawyer.


[Jun 18, 2019] The American Cult of Bombing and Endless War

Notable quotes:
"... Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many conflicts. ..."
"... Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval required). ..."
"... Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process? ..."
"... In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital," the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International . ..."
"... U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least 600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term effects of cluster munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may well have exceeded one million.) ..."
"... the U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger , as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to yet more destruction. ..."
"... Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results. ..."
"... Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year. ..."
"... No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured," bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to end. ..."
"... A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror: the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh insurgents to strike. ..."
"... Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam. ..."
"... Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational awareness ." ..."
"... Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial power projection than with national defense ..."
"... Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens wars rather than shortening them. ..."
"... Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures -- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those being bombed become more resilient and resolute. ..."
"... Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the moral high ground in war. ..."
"... all the happy talk about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results. ..."
"... War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own turf. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,

The American Cult of Bombing and Endless War

From Syria to Yemen in the Middle East, Libya to Somalia in Africa, Afghanistan to Pakistan in South Asia, an American aerial curtain has descended across a huge swath of the planet. Its stated purpose: combatting terrorism. Its primary method: constant surveillance and bombing -- and yet more bombing.

Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many conflicts.

Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval required).

Its reality for various foreign peoples: a steady diet of " Made in USA " bombs and missiles bursting here, there, and everywhere.

Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process?

For many of America's decision-makers, air power has clearly become something of an abstraction. After all, except for the 9/11 attacks by those four hijacked commercial airliners, Americans haven't been the target of such strikes since World War II. On Washington's battlefields across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, air power is always almost literally a one-way affair. There are no enemy air forces or significant air defenses. The skies are the exclusive property of the U.S. Air Force (and allied air forces), which means that we're no longer talking about "war" in the normal sense. No wonder Washington policymakers and military officials see it as our strong suit, our asymmetrical advantage , our way of settling scores with evildoers, real and imagined.

Bombs away!

In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital," the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International .

Meanwhile, since Donald Trump has become president, after claiming that he would get us out of our various never-ending wars, U.S. bombing has surged, not only against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but in Afghanistan as well. It has driven up the civilian death toll there even as "friendly" Afghan forces are sometimes mistaken for the enemy and killed , too. Air strikes from Somalia to Yemen have also been on the rise under Trump, while civilian casualties due to U.S. bombing continue to be underreported in the American media and downplayed by the Trump administration.

U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least 600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term effects of cluster munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may well have exceeded one million.) Today's air strikes are more limited than in those past campaigns and may be more accurate, but never confuse a 500-pound bomb with a surgeon's scalpel, even rhetorically. When " surgical " is applied to bombing in today's age of lasers, GPS, and other precision-guidance technologies, it only obscures the very real human carnage being produced by all these American-made bombs and missiles.

This country's propensity for believing that its ability to rain hellfire from the sky provides a winning methodology for its wars has proven to be a fantasy of our age. Whether in Korea in the early 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s, or more recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger , as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to yet more destruction.

Such results are contrary to the rationale for air power that I absorbed in a career spent in the U.S. Air Force. (I retired in 2005.) The fundamental tenets of air power that I learned, which are still taught today, speak of decisiveness. They promise that air power, defined as "flexible and versatile," will have "synergistic effects" with other military operations. When bombing is "concentrated," "persistent," and "executed" properly (meaning not micro-managed by know-nothing politicians), air power should be fundamental to ultimate victory. As we used to insist, putting bombs on target is really what it's all about. End of story -- and of thought.

Given the banality and vacuity of those official Air Force tenets, given the twenty-first-century history of air power gone to hell and back, and based on my own experience teaching such history and strategy in and outside the military, I'd like to offer some air power tenets of my own. These are the ones the Air Force didn't teach me, but that our leaders might consider before launching their next "decisive" air campaign.

Ten Cautionary Tenets About Air Power

1. Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results.

2. Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. American air power pulverized both North Korea and Vietnam (not to speak of neighboring Laos and Cambodia ), yet the Korean War ended in a stalemate and the Vietnam War in defeat. (It tells you the world about such thinking that air power enthusiasts, reconsidering the Vietnam debacle, tend to argue the U.S. should have bombed even more -- lots more .) Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year.

3. No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured," bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to end.

Consider, for instance, the "decapitation" strikes launched against Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and his top officials in the opening moments of the Bush administration's invasion of 2003. Despite the hype about that being the beginning of the most precise air campaign in all of history, 50 of those attacks, supposedly based on the best intelligence around, failed to take out Saddam or a single one of his targeted officials. They did, however, cause "dozens" of civilian deaths. Think of it as a monstrous repeat of the precision air attacks launched on Belgrade in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic and his regime that hit the Chinese embassy instead, killing three journalists.

Here, then, is the question of the day: Why is it that, despite all the "precision" talk about it, air power so regularly proves at best a blunt instrument of destruction? As a start, intelligence is often faulty. Then bombs and missiles, even "smart" ones, do go astray. And even when U.S. forces actually kill high-value targets (HVTs), there are always more HVTs out there. A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror: the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh insurgents to strike.

4. Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam. Fast-forward to our era and consider recent signals sent to North Korea and Iran by the Trump administration via B-52 bomber deployments, among other military "messages." There's no evidence that either country modified its behavior significantly in the face of the menace of those baby-boomer-era airplanes.

5. Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. Similarly, in the present moment, making operational and then maintaining Lockheed Martin's boondoggle of a jet fighter, the F-35, is expected to cost at least $1.45 trillion over its lifetime. The new B-21 stealth bomber will cost more than $100 billion simply to buy. Naval air wings on aircraft carriers cost billions each year to maintain and operate. These days, when the sky's the limit for the Pentagon budget, such costs may be (barely) tolerable. When the money finally begins to run out, however, the military will likely suffer a serious hangover from its wildly extravagant spending on air power.

6. Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational awareness ." It can instead prove to be a kind of delusion, while war practiced in its spirit often becomes little more than an exercise in destruction. You simply can't negotiate a truce or take prisoners or foster other options when you're high above a potential battlefield and your main recourse is blowing up people and things.

7. Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial power projection than with national defense . As such, it fuels imperial ventures, while fostering the kind of " global reach, global power " thinking that has in these years had Air Force generals in its grip.

8. Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens wars rather than shortening them. Consider Vietnam again. In the early 1960s, the Air Force argued that it alone could resolve that conflict at the lowest cost (mainly in American bodies). With enough bombs, napalm, and defoliants, victory was a sure thing and U.S. ground troops a kind of afterthought. (Initially, they were sent in mainly to protect the airfields from which those planes took off.) But bombing solved nothing and then the Army and the Marines decided that, if the Air Force couldn't win, they sure as hell could. The result was escalation and disaster that left in the dust the original vision of a war won quickly and on the cheap due to American air supremacy.

9. Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures -- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those being bombed become more resilient and resolute.

10. Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the moral high ground in war.

The Road to Perdition

If I had to reduce these tenets to a single maxim, it would be this: all the happy talk about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results.

For this reason, precision warfare is truly an oxymoron. War isn't precise. It's nasty, bloody, and murderous. War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own turf.

Who doesn't know the old riddle: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Here's a twenty-first-century air power variant on it: If foreign children die from American bombs but no U.S. media outlets report their deaths, will anyone grieve? Far too often, the answer here in the U.S. is no and so our wars go on into an endless future of global destruction.

In reality, this country might do better to simply ground its many fighter planes, bombers, and drones. Paradoxically, instead of gaining the high ground, they are keeping us on a low road to perdition.


Joiningupthedots , 11 minutes ago link

All off that may be true BUT.......

The myth of Tomahawk has already been dispelled

Countries with reasonable to excellent A2D2 are seriously avoided.

The solution is for Russia to sell equipment and training packages of A2D2 to any country that wants then at BE prices.

Thousands of decoys with spoof emitters and......

Planes take like 3 years to build and pilots take at least 5-6 years to train.

Do the math!

107cicero , 17 minutes ago link

From a marketing/profit perspective , BOMBS are the perfect product.

Insanely expensive, used once.

Rinse and repeat.

Theedrich , 1 hour ago link

In December of 2017, Daniel Ellsberg published a book, "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" . Among many other things, he revealed the actual Strangelovian nature of our military establishment. Most enlightening is his revelation that many in the high command of our nuclear triggers do not trust, or even have contempt for, civilian oversight and control of the military. They covertly regard the presidential leadership as naïve and inept, though it would be professional suicide to admit such an attitude openly.

Comes now 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕹𝖊𝖜 𝖄𝖔𝖗𝖐 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖘 with the revelation that the Pentagon's Cyber Command has attacked Russia's power grid with software "implants" designed to destroy that grid the instant a mouse click is given, thereby possibly initiating global war. Most alarmingly, the details of this secret action were kept from the President, lest he countermand the operation or leak it to the Russians.

So now we have a general staff that is conducting critical international military operations on its own, with no civilian input, permission or hindrances of any kind. A formula for national suicide, executed by a tiny junta of unelected officers who decide to play nuclear Russian roulette.

We seem to be ineluctably and irreversibly trapped in a state of national dementia.

He–Mene Mox Mox , 2 hours ago link

Just remember this: The U.S. had the technological advantage in Viet Nam, and blasted that country, along with Cambodia, and Laos, with 7.5 million tons of bombs, (more than the entire WWII campaign of 2.25 million tons), and the Vietnamese were still able to kick our *** out of the country by 1975.

Uskatex , 2 hours ago link

There is a 11th tenet: air force operations need airports or aircraft carriers, and these are very vulnerable to modern, high precision missiles. If the enemy has plenty of missiles, your fighters and bombers can be impeded to take off and land, or even be destroyed. Modern aircrafts need very sophisticated and working infrastructures to be operational.

In the case of a full war with Iran, I see all hostile bases and airports destroyed or damaged by Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian missiles. They have tens of thousand of them - it is 30 years they have been accumulating missiles in prevision of a possible forthcoming war.

Groundround , 44 minutes ago link

You are right. Also, there are many nations with subs and probably more countries have acquired nukes than are willing to admit. I strongly suspect Iran already has nukes. If North Korea has them, I see no reason that Iran wouldn't be even further ahead. They have been under threat of US attacks for my entire lifetime. Anyway, I would not put it past some other countries to hit US coastal cities and then deny any knowledge about who did it. There are many capable and many people have been made enemies by our foreign policy. Surely these people have treaties to help each other should be attack. And why would they make these treaties public and antagonize the US military further. I'm sure there are many well kept secrets out there. We must evolve, or the US and Israel could find it is us against the world.

Wantoknow , 3 hours ago link

War is hell. It has always been so. The failure here is that since World War II all US wars have been fatuously political. Actions have not been taken to win but to posture about moral greatness and the ability to force the enemy to deal without destroying his capacity to resist.

How can you say the US lost in Vietnam when the entire country could have been removed from the face of the Earth? Yes the price of such removal would have been very high but it could have been done. Do such considerations mean that if one withdraws one has lost?

The US won the war in the Pacific but it is now considered an excessive use of force that the US used nuclear weapons to conclude the war. Perhaps the US did not use enough force then to successfully conclude the Vietnam war? Perhaps, it failed to field the right kind of force?

The definition of lost is an interesting one. The practical answer is that the US did lose in many places because it was unwilling to pay the price of victory as publicly expressed. Yet it could have won if it paid the price.

So an interesting question for military types is to ask how to lower the price. What kind of weapons would have been needed to quickly sweep the enemy into oblivion in Vietnam let us say, given the limits of the war? Could the war have been won without ground troops and choppers but with half a million computer controlled drones armed with machine guns and grenades flying in swarms close to the ground?

The factories to produce those weapons could have been located in Thailand or Taiwan or Japan and the product shipped to Vietnam. Since only machines would be destroyed and the drones are obviously meant to substitute for ground troops then how about a million or two million of the drones in place of the half a million ground troops? Could the US, with anachronistic technology to be sure, have won the war for a price that would have been acceptable to the US?

The idea here is that one constructs an army, robot or otherwise, than can destroy the enemy it is going to fight at a price which is acceptable. This is actually a form of asymmetric warfare which requires a thorough understanding of the enemy and his capabilities. The US did not enter Vietnam with such an army but with one not meant to serve in Vietnam and whose losses would be deeply resented at home. The price of victory was too high.

But this does not mean that the US cannot win. It only means that the commitment to win in a poorly thought out war must be great enough to pay the price of victory. This may be a stupid thing to do but it does not mean that it cannot be done. One cannot assume that the US will never again show sufficient commitment to win.

wildfry , 5 hours ago link

Victory means you get to write your own ******** version of history.The most devastating civilian bombing campaign in human history is not even mentioned in this article. The US fire bombing of 30 major cities in Korea with the death toll estimated at between 1.2 million and 1.6 million. I bet most US citizens aren't even aware of this atrocity or that the military requested Truman to authorize the use of nuclear warheads which he, thankfully, declined to do.

herbivore , 5 hours ago link

What does the word "victory" mean? It means whatever the rulers want it to mean. In this case, "victory" is synonymous with prolongation and expansion of warmaking around the world. Victory does not mean an end to combat. In fact, victory, in the classic sense, means defeat, at least from the standpoint of those who profit from war. If someone were to come up with a cure for cancer, it would mean a huge defeat for the cancer industry. Millions would lose their jobs. CEO's would lose their fat pay packages. Therefore, we need to be clearheaded about this, and recognize that victory is not what you think it is.

sonoftx , 5 hours ago link

Talked with a guy recently. He is a pilot. He flies planes over Afghanistan. He is a private contractor.

The program began under the Air Force. It then was taken over by the Army. It is now a private contractor.

There are approx 400 pilots in country at a time with 3 rotations. He told me what he gets paid. $200,000 and up.

They go up with a NSA agent running the equipment in back. He state that the dumbass really does not know what the plane is capable of. They collect all video, audio, infrared, and more? (You have to sense when to stop asking questions)

I just wanted to know the logistics of the info gathered.

So, the info is gathered. The NSA officer then gets with the CIA and the State Dept to see what they can release to the end user. The end user is the SOCOM. After it has been through review then the info is released to SOCOM.

So with all of this info on "goatherders" we still cannot pinpoint and defeat the "enemy"? No. Too many avenues of profit and deceit and infighting. It will always be. May justice here and abroad win in the end.

Concentrate on the true enemies. It is not your black, or Jewish, or brown, or Muslim neighbor. It is the owners of the Fed, Dow chemical, the Rockefellers, McDonnel Douglas and on and on and on and on and on and on..............

ardent , 6 hours ago link

The ROAD to perdition passes through APARTHEID Israhell.

"It does not take a genius to figure out that the United States... has no vital interests at stake in places like Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq. Who is driving the process and benefiting? Israel is clearly the intended beneficiary... " – Philip Giraldi, Former CIA officer.

Boogity , 6 hours ago link

As Dubya famously said they hate us for our freedoms not because we've been dropping bombs on 'em for a couple of decades.

HideTheWeenie , 6 hours ago link

Bombing and war tech looks pretty cool in movies and controlled demonstrations. On reality, it doesn't get you too far. Never has.

Boots on the ground is what wins wars and all the generals know that. So do our enemy combatants.

On the ground, your chances of dying are 5-10% of your chances of getting maimed or permanently disabled, which are pretty high.

Maybe that's why we're letting in all the illegals, so they can fight our next war(s).

[Jun 17, 2019] Cotton warmongering on Iran is easily explainable by the fact that he is running low of AIPAC dollars again

Jun 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Notafanoyall a day ago

Mr. Cotton must be running low on those AIPAC dollars again. Nothing like some good ol' Iran-bashing to keep the coffers full.

[Jun 17, 2019] Averting a Disastrous War with Iran by Daniel Larison

Jun 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

There is a report that the Trump administration may be preparing an attack on Iran:

Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.

According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

If this report is true, that would mean that the worst of the Iran hawks in the administration are prevailing once again. The report goes on to say that "Trump himself was not enthusiastic about a military move against Iran, but lost his patience on the matter and would grant Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pushing for action, what he wants." If that is true, that is an absurdly casual way to blunder into an unnecessary war. Trump should understand that if he takes the U.S. into a war against Iran, especially without Congressional authorization, it will consume the rest of his presidency and it should cost him his re-election. Starting an unnecessary war with Iran would go down as one of the dumbest, most reckless, illegal acts in the history of U.S. foreign policy.

Congress must make absolutely clear that the president does not have the authority to initiate hostilities against Iran. Both houses should pass a resolution this week saying as much, and they should block any funds that could be used to support such an action. There is no legal justification for attacking Iran, and if Trump approves an attack he would be violating the Constitution and should be impeached for it.

The risk of war with Iran is greater than it was six months ago, and it is much greater than it was two and a half years ago when Trump took office. The U.S. and Iran are in this dangerous position solely because of the determined efforts of Iran hawks in and around this administration to drive our country on a collision course with theirs. Those efforts accelerated significantly thirteen months ago with the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and the reimposition of sanctions, and things have been getting steadily worse with each passing month. It is not too late to avert the collision, but it requires the U.S. to make a dramatic change in policy very soon. Since we know we can't count on the president to make the right decision, Congress and the public need to make him understand what the political price will be if he makes the wrong one.

[Jun 17, 2019] America's Legacy of Regime Change by Stephen Kinzer

Notable quotes:
"... For the United States, as for all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was the climax of that bloody history. ..."
"... It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early 1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change operations, much less explained why he favored them. ..."
Jun 10, 2019 | www.fff.org

Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War by Lindsey A. O'Rourke (Cornell University Press, 2018); 330 pages.

For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition. You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all done in the open. That is how Alexander overran Persia and how countless conquerors since have bent weaker nations to their will. Invasion is the old-fashioned way.

When the United States joined the race for empire at the end of the 19th century, that was the tactic it used. It sent a large expeditionary force to the Philippines to crush an independence movement, ultimately killing some 200,000 Filipinos. At the other end of the carnage spectrum, it seized Guam without the loss of a single life and Puerto Rico with few casualties. Every time, though, U.S. victory was the result of superior military power. In the few cases when the United States failed, as in its attempt to defend a client regime by suppressing Augusto Cesar Sandino's nationalist rebellion in Nicaragua during the 1920s and 30s, the failure was also the product of military confrontation. For the United States, as for all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was the climax of that bloody history.

After that war, however, something important changed. The United States no longer felt free to land troops on every foreign shore that was ruled by a government it disliked or considered threatening. Suddenly there was a new constraint: the Red Army. If American troops invaded a country and overthrew its government, the Soviets might respond in kind. Combat between American and Soviet forces could easily escalate into nuclear holocaust, so it had to be avoided at all costs. Yet during the Cold War, the United States remained determined to shape the world according to its liking -- perhaps more determined than ever. The United States needed a new weapon. The search led to covert action.

A news agency

During World War II the United States used a covert agency, the Office of Strategic Services, to carry out clandestine actions across Europe and Asia. As soon as the war ended, to the shock of many OSS agents, Harry Truman abolished it. He believed there was no need for such an agency during peacetime. In 1947 he changed his mind and signed the National Security Act, under which the Central Intelligence Agency was established. That marked the beginning of a new era. Covert action replaced overt action as the principal means of projecting American power around the world.

Truman later insisted that he had intended the CIA to serve as a kind of private global news service. "It was not intended as a 'Cloak & Dagger Outfit!'" he wrote. "It was intended merely as a center for keeping the President informed on what was going on in the world [not] to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized." Nonetheless he did not hesitate to use the new CIA for covert action. Its first major campaign, aimed at influencing the 1948 Italian election to ensure that pro-American Christian Democrats would defeat their Communist rivals, was vast in scale and ultimately successful -- setting the pattern for CIA intervention in every Italian election for the next two decades. Yet Truman drew the line at covert action to overthrow governments.

The CIA's covert-action chief, Allen Dulles, twice proposed such projects. In both cases, the target he chose was a government that had inflicted harm on corporations that he and his brother, John Foster Dulles, had represented during their years as partners at the globally powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. In 1952 he proposed that the CIA overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, whose government was carrying out land reform that affected the interests of United Fruit. By one account, State Department officials "hit the roof" when they heard his proposal, and the diplomat David Bruce told him that the Department "disapproves of the entire deal." Then Dulles proposed an operation to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, who had nationalized his country's oil industry. Secretary of State Dean Acheson flatly rejected it.

White House resistance to covert regime-change operations dissolved when Dwight Eisenhower succeeded Truman at the beginning of 1953. Part of the new administration's enthusiasm came from Allen Dulles, Washington's most relentless advocate of such operations, whom Eisenhower named to head the CIA. The fact that he named Dulles's brother as secretary of State ensured that covert operations would have all the necessary diplomatic cover from the State Department. During the Dulles brothers' long careers at Sullivan & Cromwell, they had not only learned the techniques of covert regime change but practiced them. They were masters at marshaling hidden power in the service of their corporate clients overseas. Now they could do the same with all the worldwide resources of the CIA.

It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early 1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change operations, much less explained why he favored them. He would, however, have had at least two reasons.

Since Eisenhower had commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, he was aware of the role that covert operations such as breaking Nazi codes had played in the war victory -- something few other people knew at the time. That would have given him an appreciation for how important and effective such operations could be. His second reason was even more powerful. In Europe he had had the grim responsibility of sending thousands of young men out to die. That must have weighed on him. He saw covert action as a kind of peace project. After all, if the CIA could overthrow a government with the loss of just a few lives, wasn't that preferable to war? Like most Americans, Eisenhower saw a world of threats. He also understood that the threat of nuclear war made overt invasions all but unthinkable. Covert action was his answer. Within a year and a half of his inauguration, the CIA had deposed the governments of both Guatemala and Iran. It went on to other regime-change operations from Albania to Cuba to Indonesia. Successive presidents followed his lead.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was once again free to launch direct military invasions. When it found a leader it didn't like -- such as Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi -- it deposed him not through covert action, but by returning to the approach it had used before World War II: the force of arms. Covert efforts to overthrow governments have hardly ceased, as any Iranian or Venezuelan could attest. The era when covert action was America's principal weapon in world affairs, however, is over. That makes this a good time to look back.

Metrics for covert action

Books about the Cold War heyday of covert action era are a mini-genre. Lindsey A. O'Rourke's contribution is especially valuable. Unlike many other books built around accounts of CIA plots, Covert Regime Change takes a scholarly and quantitative approach. It provides charts, graphs, and data sets. Meticulous analysis makes this not the quickest read of any book on the subject, but certainly one of the best informed. Chapters on the disastrous effort to overthrow communist rule in Eastern Europe, which cost the lives of hundreds of deceived partisans, and on the covert-action aspects of America's doomed campaign in Vietnam are especially trenchant.

O'Rourke identifies three kinds of covert operations that are aimed at securing perceived friends in power and keeping perceived enemies out: offensive operations to overthrow governments, preventive operations aimed at preserving the status quo, and hegemonic operations aimed at keeping a foreign nation subservient. From 1947 to 1989, by her count, the United States launched 64 covert regime-change operations, while using the overt tool -- war -- just six times. She traces the motivations behind these operations, the means by which they were carried out, and their effects. Her text is based on meticulous analysis of individual operations. Some other books about covert action are rip-roaring yarns. This one injects a dose of
rigorous analysis into a debate that is often based on emotion. That rigor lends credence to her conclusions:

Although these conclusions are not new, they have rarely if ever been presented as the result of such persuasive statistical evidence. Yet even this evidence seems unlikely to force a reassessment of covert action as a way to influence or depose governments. It is an American "addiction." The reasons are many and varied, but one of the simplest is that covert action seems so easy. Changing an unfriendly country's behavior through diplomacy is a long, complex, multi-faceted project. It takes careful thought and planning. Often it requires compromise. Sending the CIA to overthrow a "bad guy" is far more tempting. It's the cheap and easy way out. History shows that it often produces terrible results for both the target country and the United States. To a military and security elite as contemptuous of history as America's, however, that is no obstacle.

Although covert regime-change operations remain a major part of American foreign policy, they are not as effective as they once were. The first victims of CIA overthrows, Prime Minister Mossadegh and President Arbenz, did not understand the tools the CIA had at its disposal and so were easy targets. They were also democratic, meaning that they allowed open societies in which the press, political parties, and civic groups functioned freely -- making them easy for the CIA to penetrate. Later generations of leaders learned from their ignorance. They paid closer attention to their own security, and imposed tightly controlled regimes in which there were few independent power centers that the CIA could manipulate.

If Eisenhower could come back to life, he would see the havoc that his regime-change operations wreaked. After his overthrow of Mossadegh, Iran fell under royal dictatorship that lasted a quarter-century and was followed by decades of rule by repressive mullahs who have worked relentlessly to undermine American interests around the world. The operation he ordered in Guatemala led to a civil war that killed 200,000 people, turning a promising young democracy into a charnel house and inflicting a blow on Central America from which it has never recovered. His campaign against Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, which included the fabrication of a poison kit in a CIA laboratory, helped turn that country into one of the most violent places on Earth.

How would Eisenhower respond to the long-term disasters that followed his covert action victories? He might well have come up with a highly convincing way to excuse himself. It's now clear, he could argue, that covert action to overthrow governments usually has terrible long-term results -- but that was not clear in the 1950s. Eisenhower had no way of knowing that even covert regime-change operations that seem successful at the time could have devastating results decades later.

We today, however, do know that. The careful analysis that is at the center of Covert Regime Change makes clearer than ever that when America sets out to change the world covertly, it usually does more harm than good -- to itself as well as others. O'Rourke contributes to the growing body of literature that clearly explains this sad fact of geopolitics. The intellectual leadership for a national movement against regime-change operations -- overt or covert -- is coalescing. The next step is to take this growing body of knowledge into the political arena. Washington remains the province of those who believe not only that the United States should try to reconfigure the world into an immense American sphere of influence, but that that is an achievable goal. In the Beltway morass of pro-intervention think tanks, members of Congress, and op-ed columnists, America's role in the world is usually not up for debate. Now, as a presidential campaign unfolds and intriguing new currents surge through the American body politic, is an ideal moment for that debate to re-emerge. If it does, we may be surprised to see how many voters are ready to abandon the dogma of regime change and wonder, with George Washington, "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?"

This article was originally published in the June 2019 edition of Future of Freedom .


This post was written by: Stephen Kinzer Stephen Kinzer is an author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than 50 countries on five continents. His books include "Overthrow" and "All the Shah's Men".

[Jun 15, 2019] WATCH US economist urges covert violence to provoke war with Iran

Notable quotes:
"... The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians. The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets. The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen. ..."
Jun 14, 2019 | off-guardian.org

WATCH: US economist urges covert violence to provoke war with Iran "I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down – someday one of them might not come up." Admin

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TzSjPDaSNMQ

Many believe war with the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the dream of some hardcore neocons in Washington since at least 2001. Back in 2012 former employee of the IMF and current economist for the World Bank, Patrick Clawson , provided fuel for this belief when he was videoed obliquely advocating using covert violence so that the US president "can get to war with Iran."

In a startlingly frank speech, Clawson makes it clear he believes (and apparently approves) that the US has a history of seeking war for profit, and of using provocations to goad its perceived enemies into starting such wars. Clawson highlights in particular the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 , which, he says, was deliberately engineered by president Lincoln in pursuit of an excuse to launch a war on the Southern secessionist states.

In light of the recent alleged attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, timed to coincide with the visit of the Japanese prime minister to Iran, and in light of Secretary of State Capone Pompeo's precipitate and predictable claim the attacks were likely perpetrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, this is an apposite time to recall this telling little incident.

Below see the transcript of Mr Clawson's remarks

Transcript

"I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough and it's very hard for me to see how the United States president can get us to war with Iran which leads me to conclude that if in fact compromise is not coming that the traditional way of America gets to war is what would be best for US interests

Some people might think that mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us in to the World War two as David mentioned. You may recall we had to wait for Pearl Harbor.

Some people might think mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War One. You may recall he had to wait for the Lusitania episode

Some people might think that mr. Johnson wanted to send troops to Vietnam. You may recall they had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin episode.

We didn't go to war with Spain until the USS Maine exploded, and may I point out that mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call off the federal army until Fort Sumter was attacked which is why he ordered the commander at Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which the South Carolinians had said would cause an attack.

So if in fact the Iranians aren't going to compromise it would be best if somebody else started the war

But I would just like to suggest that one can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down – someday one of them
might not come up.

Who would know why?

We can do a variety of things if we wish to increase the pressure. I'm not advocating that but I'm just suggesting that a it's this is not a either-or proposition of, you know, it's just sanctions has to be has to succeed or other things.


DunGroanin

Always follow the money they made lots instantly from the firework display, it aint rocket science!

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-14/senators-switched-key-votes-bill-gulf-arms-ban-hours-after-tanker-attacks

mark
What do you expect from a Zionist Front like WINEP? They've been inciting wars for Israel for decades. "Getting the stupid goys to fight Israel's wars for decades."
Jen
If Patrick Clawson is typical of the kind of economist employed at the IMF and then promoted to a leading position at the World Bank, I dread to think of the calibre of people who also applied for his job in the past and were rejected. His speech is so garbled and full of unconscious slip-ups.
andyoldlabour
The US has convinced itself of its own so called "exceptionalism", where they can say anything out in the open, reveal their greatest desires, their unholy plans. There must be some "good" Americans who can stop this madness, or have they all become inflicted/infected with some hate virus?
Milton
Interesting that this Israeli-First traitor Clawson mentions Lincoln and Ft. Sumter. He finally admits what genuine historians of the Civil War long knew: Lincoln was a warmonger and tyrant, not an emancipator. The Civil war was fought to eliminate true freedom and equality in this country and it has been downhill ever since. The working class and soldier-class in America today are slaves in every sense of the word. Slaves to Zion. No wonder the certified warmonger and racist Lincoln is worshiped equally by Left and Right today, whilst genuine American patriots like Robert E. Lee have their legacy torn down. Lincoln was the proto-Neocon. Tom Dilorenzo summed up the real Lincoln when he wrote in Lincoln Unmasked:

"Imagine that California seceded from the union and an American president responded with the carpet bombing of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco that destroyed 90 percent of those cities. Such was the case with General Sherman's bombardment of Atlanta; a naval blockade; a blocking off of virtually all trade; the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes (as occurred in Atlanta in 1864); the destruction of most industries and farms; massive looting of private property by a marauding army; and the killing of one out of four males of military age while maiming for life more than double that number. Would such an American president be considered a 'great statesman' or a war criminal? The answer is obvious.

A statesman would have recognized the state's right to secede, as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, among other places, and then worked diligently to persuade the seceded state that a reunion was in its best interest. Agreat statesman, or even a modest one, would not have impulsively plunged the entire nation into a bloody war.

Lincoln's warmongering belligerence and his invasion of all the Southern states in response to Fort Sumter (where no one was harmed or killed) caused the upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -- to secede after originally voting to remain in the Union. He refused to meet with Confederate commissioners to discuss peace and even declined a meeting with Napoleon III of France, who offered to broker a peace agreement. No genuine statesman would have behaved in such a way.

After Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in manipulating the South Carolinians into firing at Fort Sumter. A great statesman does not manipulate his own people into starting one of the bloodiest wars in human history."

mathias alexand
Here's a man who holds a press conference to announce a secret plan. Only in America.
Gezzah Potts
False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the 'masters of the universe'. We know who was responsible for the tanker attacks. Who are the 3 countries absolutely desperate to take Iran down and install a completely pliant puppet regime answerable to Washington, Tel Aviv and to a lesser extent Riyadh. And creatures like Clawson, and all the other vermin can only see $$$$. Thats all they care about. Opening up more markets to further enrich themselves. I echo the other commenters also. The evil men stoop to for greed, power and control. Psychopaths.
harry law
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible."
Unbelievable, The UK vassal will use this to as one more reason to evade their responsibilities in implementing the JCPOA.
William HBonney
A Riyadh/Tel Aviv conspiracy. Genius!
Gezzah Potts
Er . just a rough guess Bill going on the belligerent foaming at the mouth by people in those places along with the likes of Bolton and Pompeo. In fact, you can probably go all the way back to about 1980 or so.
mark
I think the real giveaway was when all three rogue states openly stated their intention of doing this 1,000 times over the past 10 years. That was the crucial clue Sherlock Holmes was looking for.
Wilmers31
And who funds the Washington Institute? Last time I looked the International Crisis Group existed thanks to Soros and is usually treated like a serious organisation.

Many Europeans are not in love with the idea of war with Iran, just to achieve obedience to the US. 90 million people is bigger than Germany.

wardropper
These are the shysters, the spivs and the con men of bygone times. They are the ones who lurked at street corners, waiting for someone to come along who was gullible enough to buy the Moon from them.
But, for some reason, they are all in politics today.
Now how could that be?

Only because there are people whom it currently suits to use shysters, spivs and con men in order to create enough chaos for us to want to give up and just let those people have their way.

I agree with Rhys below. There is no more disgusting example of sub-humanity to be found on earth than these warmongers.
To deal with them, however, we will have to realize that their "philosophy", if you can call it that, runs very deep. It didn't just enter their heads last week.
They are reared and trained in it.

It will be a tough battle.

wardropper
I should add that, in bygone times, the police and the law were usually able to deal with the shysters, spivs and con men, since their lack of conscience often gave them away.
The modern version, however, which has moved into politics, was shrewd enough to use a few decades of bribery and threats in order to build around itself a nice little shell, through which the law simply cannot penetrate, except on special occasions, mainly for show.
Rhys Jaggar
There is a big cabal of warmongers who stoke the fuel but never see action. I find those people more disgusting than anyone on earth.

Draft dodgers, academics, 'historians' etc etc.

Ball-less pricks is what I call them .

mark
All fully paid up members of the Bill Clinton Light Infantry.
andyoldlabour
The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.
The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets.
The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen.
William HBonney
The easiest, and perhaps best metric by which to judge a country, is 'do people aspire to live there? '.

I see you admire the Soviet Union, but at its dissolution, people were queuing to leave. And yet the US, and the UK, according to you, iniquitous places of tyranny, are oversubscribed. Could it be, that for all your implied erudition, you are merely a bellend?

BigB
Well, even as a pacifist: if that is his sentiment – I hope he has sons or daughters in the military stationed in CENTCOM in Qatar. I bet he hasn't, though.
Rhisiart Gwilym
He should be right there on the frontline himself. That would straighten the disgusting creep's ideas out about the 'usefulness' of deliberately provoking war

[Jun 13, 2019] Congress Investigates the Iran Hawks' Creepy Smear Campaign by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no legitimate public interest: ..."
"... could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition. ..."
"... Take a look at previous secretaries of state - leading American foreign policy - Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation destroying policies and mass deaths. The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the European nations and America and Iran. ..."
"... Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games. Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry on the Iran deal. Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life, including American troops dying? Ah no ..."
"... "Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. " ..."
"... It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with serious consequences. ..."
Jun 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Daragahi report on the response in Congress to the scandal over State Department funding for the so-called Iran Disinformation Project:

United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime.

State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails. Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad.

"It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of escalation and conflict with Iran," a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on condition of anonymity.

The State Department's Global Engagement Center erred from the beginning by entrusting the effort to counter Iranian regime propaganda to an outside contractor with such hard-line views. There was clearly a failure to supervise what the contractor was doing with the funding provided by the department, and the result was outsourcing the department's work to self-serving ideologues. Had it not been for the public outcry and investigations by several of the people being targeted by this department-funded operation, the department might not have realized what was being done with its own resources until much later and it might not have acknowledged the error at all.

The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no legitimate public interest:

E-Collaborative for Civic Education, co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department contractor.

It purports to promote democratic political life and empower civil society inside Iran, but it appears to have no presence inside the country and instead confines itself to engaging with Iranians in the Diaspora.

In this case, the engagement with Iranians in the diaspora amounted to shouting abuse at many of them and harassing those that didn't toe a certain ideological line. As the scandal proves, hard-line regime changers have a very warped idea of what qualifies as pro-regime rhetoric and who can be considered a regime supporter, and so it should come as no surprise that this operation turned its ire on the many Iranian-American professionals that didn't get with the hawkish program. This calls into question whether the department is capable of countering disinformation from foreign governments without indulging the worst and most hawkish people that want to use such efforts to settle scores against their fellow Americans. It is good that Congress is looking into how this particular scandal happened, but there have to be changes made to how the department runs the Global Engagement Center so that something like this can't happen again.

One of the absurdities of this smear campaign is that it has targeted the very journalists and analysts that have been far more effective in countering the Iranian government's false claims through their reporting and analysis. The Iran Disinformation Project went after these journalists and analysts because they refused to recite arguments in favor of regime change and war. They were targeted because they were independent and credible observers and critics of Iran and U.S. Iran policy, and that meant that they used their expertise and understanding of the country to question the wisdom and efficacy of sanctions and spoke out against the folly of military intervention. Iran hawks desperately need to discredit and smear people like this because they pose a major threat to the promotion of the hawks' agenda. Fortunately, their smear tactics aren't working very well these days.


Christian J Chuba , says: June 11, 2019 at 6:00 pm

How long before these Congressman are denounced as traitors by the likes of Tom Cotton. 'No one can challenge me, I was in Iraq, how dare they shoot at me, it's my country not theirs.'
Oleg Gark , says: June 11, 2019 at 6:22 pm
I think American citizens should engage their own State Department with lawsuits and criminal indictments. The legal discovery process should air the place out quite nicely.
Tourmaloony , says: June 11, 2019 at 7:20 pm
It's kind of odd that this is something that's being highlighted and looked into, considering the total lack of interest in charging Bolton, Dean, Giuliani, Ridge, and others for their material support to terrorists when they were promoting MEK when it was still on the FTO list.

Sorry, that was a long sentence.

Thanks for your efforts, Larison.

WorkingClass , says: June 11, 2019 at 9:08 pm
" .the department might not have realized what was being done with its own resources until much later and it might not have acknowledged the error at all."

Oh well. We all make mistakes. Or could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition.

Fayez Abedaziz , says: June 12, 2019 at 2:06 am
Take a look at previous secretaries of state - leading American foreign policy - Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation destroying policies and mass deaths. The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the European nations and America and Iran.

The above three were truly terrible people to have representing the U.S. They bullied and gloated about the deaths in other nations: see Albright defending the deaths of children in Iraq due to sanctions and Hillary laughing at the deaths and mayhem in Libya.

Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games. Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry on the Iran deal. Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life, including American troops dying? Ah no

rayray , says: June 12, 2019 at 2:19 pm
To your point, what I enjoyed about John Kerry was his full throated effort to bring back the ideal of what the State Department is supposed to be doing that is, using the mechanisms of diplomacy to make peace and increase communication.

All the other Sec States felt like they wished they were part of the military.

Burn Bag , says: June 12, 2019 at 4:47 pm
Don't give me this "Global Engagement Center" crap. Pompeo? "Global Engagement"?

It's simple. Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. The next step is obvious. Find who did it and throw them in prison.

Loadbearing , says: June 12, 2019 at 8:52 pm
@Burn Bag says

"Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. "

It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with serious consequences.

[Jun 11, 2019] American Exceptionalism and American Innocence A People's History of Fake News_From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror

Jun 11, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Like a thunderbolt that penetrates the dark fog of ideological confusion, American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News -- From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror , illuminates the hidden spaces of the official story of the territory that came to be known as the United States of America.

Meticulously researched, American Exceptionalism and American Innocence utilizes a de-colonial lens that debunks the distorted, mythological liberal framework that rationalized the U.S. settler-colonial project. The de-colonized frame allows them to critically root their analysis in the psychosocial history, culture, political economy, and evolving institutions of the United States of America without falling prey to the unrecognized and unacknowledged liberalism and national chauvinism that seeps through so much of what is advanced as radical analysis today.

That is what makes this work so "exceptional" and so valuable at this moment of institutional and ideological crisis in the U.S. This crisis is indeed more severe and potentially more transformative than at any other moment in this nation's history.

With unflinching clarity, Sirvent and Haiphong go right to the heart of the current social, political, economic, and ideological crisis. They strip away the obscurantist nonsense pushed by liberal and state propagandists that the Trump phenomenon represents a fundamental departure from traditional "American values" by demonstrating that "Trumpism" is no departure at all, but only the unfiltered contemporary and particular expression of the core values that the nation was "founded" on.

What Sirvent and Haiphong expose in their work is that American exceptionalism and its corollary American innocence are the interconnected frames that not only explain why the crude white nationalism of a Donald Trump is consistent with the violence and white supremacy of the American experience, but also why that violence has been largely supported by large sections of the U.S. population repeatedly.

As the exceptional nation, the indispensable nation, the term President Obama liked to evoke to give humanitarian cover to the multiple interventions,

destabilization campaigns, and unilateral global policing operations on behalf of U.S. and international capital, it is expected and largely accepted by the citizens of the U.S. that their nation-state has a right and, actually, a moral duty to do whatever it deems appropriate to uphold the international order. It can do that because this cause is noble and righteous. Lest we forget the words of Theodore Roosevelt, considered a great architect of American progressiveness, "If given the choice between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness."

In a succinct and penetrating observation, Sirvent and Haiphong point out:

American exceptionalism has always presumed national innocence despite imposing centuries of war and plunder. The American nation-state has been at war for over ninety percent of its existence. These wars have all been justified as necessary ventures meant to defend or expand America's so-called founding values and beliefs. A consequence of centuries of endless war has been the historical tendency of the U.S. to erase from consciousness the realities that surround American domestic and international policy, not to mention the system of imperialism that governs both.

But the acceptance of state violence in the form of economic sanctions and direct and indirect military interventions is not the only consequence of the cultural conditioning process informed by the arrogance of white privilege, white rights, and the protection of white Western civilization. The racist xenophobia, impunity for killer-cops, mass incarceration, ICE raids and checkpoints, left-right ideological convergence to erase "blackness," are all part of the racial management process that still enjoys majoritarian support in the U.S.

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence 's focus on the insidious and corrosive impact of white supremacy throughout the book is a necessary and valuable corrective to the growing tendency toward marginalizing the issue of race, even among left forces under the guise of being opposed to so-called identity politics.

Centering the role of white supremacist ideologies and its connection to American exceptionalism and innocence, Sirvent and Haiphong argue that "communities and activists will be better positioned to dismantle them." American exceptionalism and notions of U.S. innocence not only provide

ideological rationalizations for colonialism, capitalism, empire, and white supremacy, but also a normalized theoretical framework for how the world is and should be structured that inevitably makes criminals out of the people opposing U.S. dominance, within the nation and abroad.

Paul Krugman, a leading liberal within the context of the U.S. articulates this normalized framework that is shared across the ideological spectrum from liberal to conservative and even among some left forces. I have previously referred to this view of the world as representative of the psychopathology of white supremacy:

"We emerged from World War II with a level of both economic and military dominance not seen since the heyday of ancient Rome. But our role in the world was always about more than money and guns. It was also about ideals: America stood for something larger than itself -- for freedom, human rights and the rule of law as universal principles . . . By the end of World War II, we and our British allies had in effect conquered a large part of the world. We could have become permanent occupiers, and/or installed subservient puppet governments, the way the Soviet Union did in Eastern Europe. And yes, we did do that in some developing countries; our history with, say, Iran is not at all pretty. But what we mainly did instead was help defeated enemies get back on their feet, establishing democratic regimes that shared our core values and became allies in protecting those values. The Pax Americana was a sort of empire; certainly America was for a long time very much first among equals. But it was by historical standards a remarkably benign empire, held together by soft power and respect rather than force." 1

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence refutes this pathological view of the U.S. and demonstrates that this view is a luxury that the colonized peoples of the world cannot afford.

The bullet and the bomb -- the American military occupation and the police occupation -- are the bonds that link the condition of Black Americans to oppressed nations around the world. This is the urgency in which the authors approached their task. The physical and ideological war being waged against the victims of the colonial/capitalist white supremacist patriarchy is resulting in real suffering. Authentic solidarity with the oppressed requires a

rejection of obfuscation. The state intends to secure itself and the ruling elite by legal or illegal means, by manipulating or completely jettisoning human freedom and democratic rights. Sirvent and Haiphong know that time is running out. They demonstrate the intricate collaboration between the state and the corporate and financial elite to create the conditions in which ideological and political opposition would be rendered criminal as the state grapples with the legitimacy crisis it finds itself in. They know that Trump's "make America great again" is the Republican version of Obama's heralding of U.S. exceptionalism, and that both are laying the ideological foundation for a cross-class white neofascist solution to the crisis of neoliberal capitalism.

The U.S. is well on its way toward a new form of totalitarianism that is more widespread than the forms of neofascist rule that was the norm in the Southern states of the U.S. from 1878 to 1965. Chris Hedges refers to it as "corporate totalitarianism." And unlike the sheer social terror experienced by the African American population as a result of the corporatist alignment of the new Democratic party and national and regional capital in the South, this "new" form of totalitarianism is more benign but perhaps even more insidious because the control rests on the ability to control thought. And here lies the challenge. Marxist thinker Fredrick Jamison shares a very simple lesson, "The lesson is this, and it is a lesson about system: one cannot change anything without changing everything." This simple theory of system change argues that when you change one part of a system you by necessity must change all parts of the system, because all parts are interrelated.

The failure of the Western left in general and the U.S. left in particular to understand the inextricable, structural connection between empire, colonization, capitalism, and white supremacy -- and that all elements of that oppressive structure must be confronted, dismantled, and defeated -- continues to give lifeblood to a system that is ready to sweep into the dustbins of history. This is why American Exceptionalism and American Innocence is nothing more than an abject subversion. It destabilizes the hegemonic assumptions and imposed conceptual frameworks of bourgeois liberalism and points the reader toward the inevitable conclusion that U.S. society in its present form poses an existential threat to global humanity.

Challenging the reader to rethink the history of the U.S. and to imagine a future, decolonial nation in whatever form it might take, Sirvent and Haiphong include a quote from Indigenous rights supporter Andrea Smith

that captures both the subversive and optimistic character of their book. Smith is quoted saying:

Rather than a pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness that depends on the deaths of others . . . we can imagine new forms of governance based on the principles of mutuality, interdependence, and equality. When we do not presume that the United States should or will continue to exist, we can begin to imagine more than a kinder, gentler settler state founded on genocide and slavery.

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence gives us a weapon to reimagine a transformed U.S. nation, but it also surfaces the ideological minefields that we must avoid if we are to realize a new possibility and a new people.

[Jun 08, 2019] Judging by the comment thread, US Navy propaganda crew is hard at work

US navy plays dangerous games. Sooner or later Russia or China or Iran maybe, or any hot spot in the world - encounters the situation wherein the US both must and can be slapped.
Notable quotes:
"... Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off. ..."
"... This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the other side to back off. ..."
"... Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess. ..."
"... I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the time of the incident ..."
"... If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts above. ..."
"... "The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code Flag 'D' may be flown." ..."
"... In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough jargon to dazzle the journalists. ..."
"... There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes (ball-diamond-ball). ..."
Jun 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Peter AU 1 , Jun 7, 2019 5:09:13 PM | 66
Judging by the comment thread, these boys are hard at work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_communication_specialist
"Mass Communication Specialist (abbreviated as MC) is a United States Navy occupational rating. MCs practice human-centered design to develop creative communication solutions and align communication strategies and tactics to leadership's intent; conduct research and develop audience profiles; prepare, process, and print publications and media products; create sketches, storyboards, and graphics; design publications; produce still imagery, and written, audio, video, and multimedia information products; collect, analyze, and report media project and communication plan feedback and performance information; create media project plans; conduct community outreach, news media operations, leadership communication operations, and organizational communication operations; plan and direct communication campaigns and events and serve as communication advisors to commanders; and develop content strategies, create data stories, and ensure communication products and experiences are designed to enhance understanding and discoverability. MCs serve aboard ships, in expeditionary units and at shore commands in the United States and overseas.[1]"

Peter AU 1 , Jun 7, 2019 5:56:41 PM | 72
My guess is the Russian anti submarine ship was on a parallel course to keep track of the US attack submarines with the carrier group. US ship was sent out to push it away. As you say, the helicopter may have been sent out to capture some video or stills that could be used to back up the 'US is innocent' propaganda already planned.

One thought on this - If the Russian ship did not change course, with the US ship slowing under reverse thrust, the Russian ship most likely would have hit it somewhere near the center. A great video of a Russian ship aggressively ramming a 'peaceful and innocent' US ship.

Yonatan , Jun 7, 2019 6:03:30 PM | 74
A 1:49 video filmed from the US vessel. The cameraman was taking leisurely close in shots of the Russian vessel's comms systems. The two vessels were sailing close to parallel for all this time and there is a view of the infamous Russian sunbathers on the helicopter landing platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5SDldfZ3dE

Abe Jonson , Jun 7, 2019 6:24:16 PM | 76
There was something on Press TV about the US ship getting too close to a Russian UUV undergoing trials / on a covert op which caused the Russian escort ship to intercept the US ship.

Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off.

This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the other side to back off.

Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess.

Krollchem , Jun 7, 2019 8:31:15 PM | 86
Robert@78

Apparently you didn't read "b" post and know nothing about Russian vs US ship construction:

"The crew of the Chancellorsville should call itself lucky. Russian ships are build with a strong bow to travel in icy waters. Had the Admiral Vinogradov not made the emergency turn to its right, its bow would have cut their ship in half."

There are a lot of other idiotic comments at the US Navy site: https://twitter.com/USNavy/status/1136978500185919488

eagle eye , Jun 7, 2019 8:43:30 PM | 87
I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the time of the incident

82 sums it up nicely. The Yanks f..ked up, yet again.

uncle tungsten , Jun 7, 2019 9:13:20 PM | 90
Posted by: Robert | Jun 7, 2019 5:41:03 PM | 70

My sympathies are with the crew too. The reckless heroics of the bridge gang are deplorable. These encounters do not happen at high speed. Minutes go by. Both vessels should have been aware of their potential for close encounter.

If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts above.

The Russians could easily have adjusted course to pass behind the yankee vessel. All these ships have more than adequate electronics and personnel to calculate converging course and time of encounter. That they chose to come so close could indicate a FU attitude or perhaps they were on a 'collision stations' maneuver in real time. It is also probable they were monitoring US communications systems that are limited in range and only detected up close. Understanding those systems enables one to build a jamming device. The crew on that vessel would have been mighty anxious too.

Hyped egos, poor training and warships are a very stupid mix. See the Forrestal debacle where the ships fire crew were wiped out in the first response and untrained sailors sprayed the deck with water rather than foam thus washing fuel below decks and setting the stern ablaze.

karlof1 , Jun 7, 2019 9:42:39 PM | 92
Here we have manual : Helicopter-Ship-Operations . From page 37, Section 5.4.1:

"The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code Flag 'D' may be flown."

"D" translates as "Keep clear of me." From COLREGS, "Day shapes" mentioned above would be "1 ball+1 diamond+1 ball" organized vertically, which translates as "Restricted in ability to maneuver" ( here ).

But none of what the Regs require is visible--none! Russia wins its case, and it was all too easy!

Carl Nyberg , Jun 7, 2019 10:14:19 PM | 94
In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough jargon to dazzle the journalists.

The failure to mention USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) had the appropriate day shapes flying is simply too in the weeds for the PAOs and admiral's staff who wrote the press release/story.

There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes (ball-diamond-ball).

Even if the officer of the deck & the helicopter control officer did fail to tell the signalman to do those things, the vast majority of signalmen would have reminded the OOD. Signalmen have relatively few things to pay attention to, so they are pretty self directed.

[Jun 05, 2019] Military Intelligence? by Hugh O'Neill

Notable quotes:
"... " nothing to address poverty, homelessness, healthcare, low income, incarceration; nor does it address climate change Military spending diverts resources. If we want genuine socio-economic and climate justice, new thinking is essential" ..."
"... 'failure to do his utmost' ..."
Jun 05, 2019 | off-guardian.org
For no important reason, I was thinking about the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier, HMS "Queen Elizabeth II". This ship has been in the news, but for all the wrong reasons: her commander was recently removed by helicopter whilst anchored in the Forth, accused of having used the ship's car for personal use whilst in the US (maybe he should have used a helicopter?).

Even Lord West of Spithead (former head of the RN) expressed his bemusement at the style of management. But if this really is a question of misuse of public money, then it seems but a drop in several oceans compared with the bigger pictures – firstly of defence spending, secondly of defence strategy, and lastly of man-management.

Firstly, the cost to build these two 65,000T aircraft carriers is currently about $10 Billion (when it comes to such eye-watering amounts of money, the figures always expand because defence spending is notoriously adrift). This is however a bargain compared with US super-carriers (100,000T) which are nuclear-powered, cost about $15 Billion to build (and $3 Billion to de-commission).

The US fields about 10 such ships: they are quite defenceless (thus have to be escorted by various surface escorts and submarines) thus 5-6,000 men. The 2013 cost of clothing, training, feeding, paying such numbers put the daily running costs to USD $6.5 Million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier). If the Royal Navy deems her Captain over-used the ship's car, then money must be tight.

But what of the aircraft the ship was built to carry? QEII is supposed to carry 36 F-35Bs (designed for US Marines) built by US firm, Lockheed-Martin.

The F-35 programme was 7 years behind schedule and $150 Billion over-budget (perfectly acceptable in defence spending!). Lockheed-Martin are not Boeing – and any reference to their 737 Max would be inappropriate – but when half remain grounded for lack of spares, then one (for-the-price-of-two) costs $300 million.

The 72 aircraft for two ships adds $11 Billion. (N.B. these are their off-the-shelf price, not their whole-of-life cost).

Secondly, QE II apparently now has 12 F-35Bs and will be attached to the US Marines. British taxpayers' money has not been well spent. I don't know how much a supersonic missile or torpedo costs, nor indeed a swarm of plastic drones, but such an expensive ship makes for a very juicy target.

The first aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, was launched in 1919 and technology has changed in 100 years, but not strategy. Carriers' vulnerability puts a serious counterweight to any 'prestige' they might bring to erstwhile superpowers; indeed, the UK's prostrated serfitude to the US destroys any last pretence of British Sovereignty.

All empires fall: losing one may be a misfortune, but to lose two is pure incompetence. Australia, Canada and NZ cling on like drowning men, weighed-down by oxymoronic military intelligence and misplaced political allegiance. Peace benefits Humanity. Wars profit Bankers.

As per the latest NZ Budget, our military will spend $5 Billion, doing " nothing to address poverty, homelessness, healthcare, low income, incarceration; nor does it address climate change Military spending diverts resources. If we want genuine socio-economic and climate justice, new thinking is essential".

Finally, man-management: the Royal Navy in 1757 executed Admiral Byng for 'failure to do his utmost'. Voltaire considered that this was the British way "pour encorager les autres". Is it likely that the removed commander will ever again do his utmost for King & Country?

British Secretary of Defense (Stupid Boy, Gavin Williamson) has walked the plank for breaching Cabinet duplicity, and PM May has been given a seat on the next helicopter. Napoleon said: Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.


andyoldlabour

Aircraft carrier = very large target.
Sink the carrier after it launches aircraft and where are the aircraft going to land?
Modern missile technology has made large ships obsolete.
William HBonney
Anti missile technology is devastatingly effective. If carriers are sitting ducks, you'd struggle to name the last one sunk.
harry law
An MIT security expert says that Israel's famed Iron Dome missile defense system is flawed, with a success rate of under five percent.

During the November 2012 conflict, a detailed review of a large number of photographs of Iron Dome interceptor contrails revealed that the rocket-defense system's success rate was very low -- as low as 5 percent or, perhaps, even less. A variety of media outlets have attributed the low casualty number to the supposed effectiveness of the Iron Dome system, quoting Israeli officials as saying it has destroyed 90 percent of the Hamas rockets it targeted. But close study of photographic and video imagery of Iron Dome engagements with Hamas rockets -- both in the current conflict and in the 2012 hostilities -- shows that the low casualties in Israel from artillery rocket attacks can be ascribed to Israeli civil defense efforts, rather than the performance of the Iron Dome missile defense system.
https://thebulletin.org/2014/07/the-evidence-that-shows-iron-dome-is-not-working/
Note this against Hamas 'Roman candles' not against ballistic missiles travelling at mach 10 [7,500 MPH]

mark
The last major naval engagement where US fleet carriers were under any serious threat was the invasion of the Philippines in 1944. Of course the Japanese were not equipped with anti ship missiles at the time. There were many instances of damage from aircraft in suicide attacks, but a single hit would not sink a fleet carrier. From memory I believe at least one smaller escort carrier was sunk in 1945.

I think several British carriers were sunk, one by a submarine early in the war, one off Norway in 1940 and the Ark Royal in 1941. There may have been others. Some scort carriers were also lost. Germany introduced the first anti ship missiles in 1943, the Fritz X and Henschel 293. They were very effective in a number of attacks off Italy, damaging the battleship Warspite and sinking a cruiser and a number of other targets, as well as the Italian battleship Roma as it was on its way to surrender.

In Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, opposing naval forces were so weak as to be virtually non existent. Anti ship missiles were used by Argentine forces in 1982 to sink two large vessels, the Coventry and Atlantic Conveyor, a merchant ship converted into a makeshift aircraft carrier. The last case occurred in 2006, when Hezbollah severely damaged and nearly sank a large Israeli warship. It appears that the missile actually failed to explode.

Countries like Iran and DPRK are now equipped with a large number of anti ship missiles of far greater sophistication than any previously employed in battle. There are surprises in every war, and no one can accurately predict what will occur until battle is joined. Experienced and competent commanders expected cavalry to play an important part in WW1. Many others doubted that armoured and mechanised forces would be effective in WW2, because of problems of supply and command and control, or that aircraft would be capable of sinking heavily armoured warships. But it seems reasonable to draw attention to the increasing vulnerability of large aircraft carriers.

Yarkob
I'd also struggle to name the last conflict in which a CVG was put under any threat at all, ..the new gen of AM (lasers) will be the nuts, but I'd still not like to be on board a ship these days in a "real" conflict.
andyoldlabour
The Japanese had 20 aircraft carriers sunk in WW", including the "unsinkable" Shinano. The US had 12 carriers sunk in that war, and the UK lost 8.
The last aircraft carrier to be sunk, was the IJN Amagi in Kure Harbour in July 1945.
William HBonney
So, seventy four years ago

Island nations need carriers, the threat is always from the sea.

Tim Jenkins
I think you'll find that Jamaica has more jet skis, than aircraft carriers . . .

Regardless, the biggest threats from the seas, were always the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, False Flag Pirates and good ole' Uncle $ham's navy,
on the hunt for corporate resources to thieve . . .

Perhaps you would like to stress your brain, (rather than arguing some mathematical stupidity) and give us all just one example of when Aircraft Carriers were used defensively, William ? Additionally, Bill, even friendly fire and silly lil' accidents with old munitions can immobilise an aircraft carrier, to the point where somebody like John McCain jumps ship ASAP, for example on the USS Forrestal

"I'm an old Navy pilot. I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck,"
Sen. McCain said >>> records show otherwise !

Show some respect for others' intelligence.

mark
McCain had to be flown off the Forrestal. He was in serious danger of being lynched by his crewmates after his negligence caused around 130 dead.
William HBonney
I have great respect for the intelligence of others, but I fear my country could become a satellite of Russia.

The UK isn't Jamaica. It has more people, and a tradition of invention which has elevated its position in the world.

As to aircraft carriers, they are an offensive weapon (attack being the better part of defence) , but always part of a carrier group. The defense of the vessel dependent on the air power of her aircraft, and to a lesser extent the accompanying fleet.

The world is a dangerous place, don't take the freedoms we have in the UK for granted. If you doubt that, live in an undemocratic country. I do, and it makes me love my country more.

John
"My country had become a stale lite off Russia" fuck right off you're a puppet nation as it is you MSM led sissy
mark
The UK already is a satellite. It is a US satellite. It is more of a US satellite than the old GDR ever was of the Soviet Union.

The world certainly is a dangerous place. I'm sure that most Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, Palestinians, Iranians and Venezuelans would fully agree with you. It is a dangerous place largely because of the homicidal antics and military adventures of rogue terrorist regimes like the USA and its satellites like the UK as they rampage across the planet slaughtering, starving and immiserating tens of millions, like Nazi Germany on steroids. Which even now are simultaneously threatening further criminal wars of aggression against three of those countries.

You're certainly wise not to take freedoms for granted. They are ancient history. In the UK as in the USA, stringent censorship is being imposed and civil liberties are being shredded. Whistleblowers and dissidents who reveal evidence of numerous war crimes and atrocities are increasingly subject to persecution and intimidation by a corrupt and politicised judicial system, with a growing number of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. We are all subject to an Orwellian system of state snooping and surveillance. Torture has bee normalised, and we have a "Leader of the Free World" who is an enthusiastic advocate of torture, inheriting a long established global Gulag of concentration camps, torture chambers and secret prisons in a score of countries, including UK territory, where thousands of unfortunates have been and are being tortured and murdered on an industrial scale.

I agree with you that you live in an undemocratic country. If that makes you love your country more, good luck to you.

UreKismet
I dunno why they still bother with carriers, I realise the fleet bossfella likes to hang out on one, but if the navy is still any use for escorts or carrying troops etc which it likely isn't as sea is slow and planes do most of that stuff now, but anyway if the navy does need it's own aeroplanes for anything more than empire building I woulda thought it would be smarter to do what my old man did in ww2.

He flew an avengerMk2 in the english fleet air arm as escort for convoys up to Murmansk. They didn't use aircraft carriers I dunno why, prolly just not wanting to waste resources on commies, truth be told. Instead he and his cobbers were launched into the air by steam catapult off the foredeck of freighters.

They flew patrol looking out for nazis then landed their plane (which had floats) beside the 'mothership' and got craned aboard.
That would seem to me to be smarter as it doesn't require putting all yer eggs in one basket. As far as the old bastard was concerned it was better too, since the english navy appears to have learned bugger all from the battle of Jutland in the first half of the 20th century euro war where the english navy lost lost 3 battlecruisers, 3 armored cruisers, and 8 destroyers off the coast of Denmark in 1916.

Navy architects appear to have done nothing about protecting the cordite magazines from flash explosion in the 20+ year interregnum between the two blues, cause the HMS Hood had exactly the same design flaw of a bottleneck with inboard cordite distribution causing lax safety practices as the boats in the Jutland debacle, resulting in the 'mighty hood' going down a coupla minutes after first being hit by a german shell. The magazine blew up, 3 men survived and more than 1300 crew did not.

Then the ark royal, the one boat the old bugger did fly off early on in his ww2 gig, was sunk thanks to incredible stupidity and incompetence by its leadership.
No wonder all the kiwi pilots were only too happy to take the 'shit detail' the english navy offered of flying off freighters in the North Sea.

Building vast floating targets seems to me to have been more about admirals' penis envy than sensible strategic planning. Useful for a handful of years in the thousands of years old arseholes have been getting young men to kill each other, by the end of ww2 aircraft carriers had become surplus to needs and nothing has happened since then to alter that.
Same same goes for huge nuke subs, no matter how many kazillions is spent on making them invisible, the edge is lost in a matter of months and within a short time even small non-superpower navies know where all the genocidal, population-killing, nuke subs are. If USuk ever do decide in a fit of lunacy to attack Iran, I betcha the Iranians will knock off most of the big stuff (aircraft carriers, battleships and nuke subs) with a flotilla of craftily utilised inflatables in the first few days.

All that money literally billions every year, which could be used employing citizens to do constructive stuff within their communities gets blown in bribes, boats and bombs just so that scummy politicians and brainless navy bosses get to show off in the most facile dick measuring contest since Churchill needed a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to try and meet Uncle Joe's challenge way back when. lol.

andyoldlabour
I have to correct you about no aircraft carriers being used on the Russian convoy operation, there were several.
They were mostly converted merchant ships, with decks around 500 feet long, and carried Hurricanes, Swordfish and Martlets.
I know this because my late uncle served on HMS Avenger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Avenger_(D14)

http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/ESCORT/ACTIVITY.htm#.XPdqqo97mUk

http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/ESCORT/TRACKER.htm#.XPdr7I97mUk

UreKismet
Fair enough, my knowledge is confined to what the old man said. He was always whining about his back getting permanently buggered by the catapult.
In defense I will say that after checking the links that the so called aircraft carriers used on the Murmansk run all appear to be freighters converted into 'carriers' rather than purpose built ships.
I have a brother who lapped all that war stuff up who would most likely know more, the little I know was when in some sort of weird post his karking it curiosity I bought (but never actually put together ) a model of a fleet arm avenger Mk2 as far as I can work out he was in either 851 or 855 squadron but am not even sure of that.
William HBonney
Salisbury (military action by an antagonistic foreign power using WMD's), demonstrates what happens if a country is not resolute about its defence.

Sometimes that means building weapons systems capable of taking the consequences right up to the enemies coastline.

A carrier is only a 'sitting duck' if one considers it as a single vessel, but no navy would use them like that. They are an integrated weapons system, and kept well out of harms way. Typically, a carrier group would destroy the means to wage war on it long before any missiles were launched at it.

John
Well we spotted the liberal shill who believes every MSM story printed. Are you antonym in his new Jew profile? Probably
mark
Salisbury (false flag operation by out of control Spook Agencies) demonstrates what happens when we are ruled by half wits concocting transparent provocations as a pretext for aggression.
Yarkob
"Salisbury (military action by an antagonistic foreign power using WMD's), demonstrates what happens if a country is not resolute about its defence."

LOL

sorry, that's all your comment warranted. For a proper response, see: OffG, Craig Murray, MoA et al..

again, LOL

Northern
For a start, you're on the wrong website if you think your first statement won't go unchallenged.

All the Salisbury incident 'demonstrated' was that Cold War spy games are still very much a part of our psychopathic leader's toolbox. Everything else beyond that is unsubstantiated speculation of which we'll likely never know the truth and you'd have to be either a simpleton, or a blatant liar to suggest otherwise.

I won't bother with the rest of your post because arguing the pros and cons of a Carrier's military capabilities and application means I have to implicitly accept the terminological trick (pulled by both yourself above, our governments and the companies that build these things) that an aircraft carrier somehow qualifies as a 'defensive' weapon.

Tutisicecream
Ah "When I was a lad"

Be careful to be guided by this golden rule. Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, and you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!

When you realise how much money is poured into these HMS Sitting Ducks you realise just how far we have been duped when told there is never enough money for the NHS.

Hugh O'Neill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQ-wgPGTp8
Tut, your last paragraph reminded me of Eisenhower's "Humanity hanging from a cross of iron" speech from 1953. Things shave got steadily worse since then.
Not if but when
Military Intelligence?

I would argue, yes, there is a lot of intelligence, because one cannot be dumb stupid idiot when able to appropriate vast amount of vital resources to build plain criminal evil destructive instruments of death.

Not if but when

.. put the daily running costs to USD $6.5 Million

The ship broadside, if in Australia, can be used to promote/advertise racing and gambling.

Grafter
Why are we allowing this shit to happen ?
John
Because Brits are cowards and have had decades of being told to do a Gandhi aka fuck all in regards to getting change. Voting never changed a thing you asked for violence on the other hand does. Do you think our leaders would listen if they knew they had a good chance of having no head left?
Not if but when
.. what power(s) do 'we' have to prevent shit from -- any shit -- from happening?
harry law
This from the 'war nerd' describing how new missiles have made the carriers obsolete
"Every single change in technology in the past half a century has had "Stop building carriers!" written all over it. And nobody in the navy brass paid any attention.
The lesson here is the same one all of you suckers should have learned from watching the financial news this year: the people at the top are just as dumb as you are, just meaner and greedier. And that goes for the ones running the US surface fleet as much as it does for the GM or Chrysler honchos. "The purpose of the Navy," Vice Admiral John Bird, commander of the Seventh Fleet, tells me, "is not to fight." The mere presence of the Navy should suffice, he argues, to dissuade any attack or attempt to destabilize the region. From Yokosuka, Guam, and Honolulu
That's the kind of story people are still writing. It's so stupid, that first line, I won't even bother with it: "The purpose of the Navy is not to fight." No kidding. The Seventh Fleet covers the area included in that 2000 km range for the new Chinese anti-ship weapons, so I guess it's a good thing they're not there to fight". http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
Hugh O'Neill
Harry, thanks for the superb link: the war nerd takes no prisoners.
mark
In the next war, carriers will be more vulnerable to missile attack than battleships were to air attack in WW2. Imagine a 100,000 ton carrier sinking with its air group and 5-6,000 crew, its crippled nuclear reactors poisoning the ocean.
nwwoods
I understand that Japan recently committed to purchasing a fleet of F-35s, perhaps because they are by default optimized for kamikaze ops.
Hugh O'Neill
Nwwoods – Great response: financial kamikaze. Divine flatulence
mark
Perhaps they could supply the captain with a bicycle instead, painted the appropriate shade of navy blue, and save a bit of money.

These 65k ton carriers are the biggest ships ever operated by the Navy. Its battleships and fleet carriers of WW2 were 35,000 and 25,000 tons respectively. They might as well have been named HMS White Elephant I and II. One will be mothballed immediately (maybe they could sell it to the Chinese?) The other may operate with a much reduced complement of a handful of aircraft (if the F35s ever work.)

This is a ludicrous prestige project that will be seen as a national embarrassment as time goes by, like the scrapped Nimrod AEW. It reflects the delusions of our ruling elite ("What if we want to bomb North Korea?") and those of people like Admiral West.

To operate, aircraft carriers require an escort of 5-6 frigates and destroyers and a submarine, for anti aircraft and anti submarine defence. These won't be available. Britain has a grand total of 17 frigates and destroyers, 5 – 6 of which are out of commission undergoing refits at any one time. British frigates and destroyers are less well equipped than their foreign counterparts. Crewing even one of these ships will be a major headache. The personnel strength of the Navy is currently 29,000. Even the cost of fuel for operations is prohibitive. The US carriers have nuclear reactors which only require refuelling around once every fourteen years.

It would have made much more sense to buy a few extra frigates and destroyers instead. Maybe the odd small aircraft carrier of around 20,000 tons like the Invincible class, if they really wanted. Though most people think in any future wars large aircraft carriers against a half competent enemy would be little more than floating coffins, very vulnerable to the new class of anti ship missiles like the Yakhonts/ Sunburn. In recent times, they have only been used in modern colonial style warfare against the present day equivalent of the Zulus and the Fuzzy Wuzzies. Brave but not terribly well equipped fighting men who don't have so much as an Airfix model Spitfire for air defence. Aircraft carriers would be terribly vulnerable if used even against countries like Iran or North Korea.

And then there are the aircraft. I think the actual unit cost of the F35 comes in at something around $400 million a pop all in. Whether it will ever work is open to question. America has problems building aircraft that don't work. This thing has problems with its engines, which keep conking out in mid flight, with the oxygen system, which keeps failing with rather unfortunate consequences for the pilot, and the cannon, which won't fire because its computer won't work. It has wings which are too small for a good fighter, and it can't bomb anything if it faces any stronger opposition than a few tribesmen with AK47s. Apart from that, it's okay, though we probably can't afford more than a dozen of them. The previous F22 was a similar failure. The production line was closed down after 100 – odd of them had been made, though they were supposed to produce 1,000.

America used to produce some very good aircraft, like the F14/15/16/18. The F35 is supposed to replace them, but the new aircraft is grossly inferior to them all. They are talking about putting the F18 and A10 back into production. This is eerily reminiscent of the Luftwaffe in WW2, whose new aircraft projects like the Messerschmitt 210 and Heinkel 177 were flying death traps. They were forced to put obsolete aircraft like the Junkers 87 and the Heinkel 111 back into production till the end of the war, so that they had something to fight with, however inadequate.

Still, so long as Lockheed's profits are okay, I suppose that's the main thing. And Gavin Pugwash Williamson, or his successor, can posture and preen about how Britain rules the waves with HMS White Elephant and its dozen Flying Turkeys, even if they can't scrape a crew together for it. Why should England tremble?

Rhys Jaggar
HMS White Elephant was an electoral bung of Gordon Brown. Whose constituency built the damn thing?

Real warfare now is about blasting the ionosphere to create awful weather in enemy territory. It is releasing super pests onto other contitenrs to infest agricultural crops. It is engineering viruses to be more harmful and releasing them abroad. It is crashing global stock markets to wipe competitors out.

Aircraft carriers had their day. In about 1945 .

I do not want proxy wars either. Not in Ukraine, not in Syria, not in North Korea, not in Venezuela.

But all our corrupt officials and representatives think wasting trillions of our money on archaic overpriced ersatz masturbation toys is just fine and dandy.

It is not ok to sell their daughters into foreign prostitution though.

Oh no .

Mucho
By my estimations, the only way out of this mess is to buckle the machine and arrange mass withdrawal of labour. Crash the whole rotten lot of it
Maggie
Fantastic idea, however I think you will find that many workers don't even know what or who they are working for.
Pity we can't post a list of companies?
mark
The only problem with that is that they don't need the labour any more. The proles are surplus to requirements and can now be culled, as the Davos/ Bilderberg crew have decided. They aren't needed any more to dig coal, smelt steel ingots, or hammer rivets in shipyards.
Mucho
it's the only weapon we have, either that, or we remain eternally enslaved by the forces of evil
Mucho
Here is a link to a CIA document showing details of the effects of millimeter waves on biological structures. It is a translation of the original Soviet files from research done in 1977, declassified in 2012. This comes from the Fullerton Informer, who, by my estimation, is a truly great person, a beacon of light. 5G equals permanent exposure to this man made radiation, 24/7. This is an enormous threat to you and your family, wherever you are. TIME TO START TAKING ACTION AGAINST THIS EVIL
https://thefullertoninformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cia-millimeter-waves-1.pdf
wardropper
Re: aircraft carriers in general:
I sometimes feel that I could show up somewhere in the corridors of the Pentagon with a plan to recycle people's shirts and underwear cheaply into some sort of instant camouflage in the event of an "enemy" guided-missile attack upon one of "our" aircraft carriers, and there would be a high-ranking official there daft enough to fund me to the tune of billions of dollars to develop it.
Certifiable insanity is no stranger to the military environment of modern western government.
Ramdan
"When the Way governs the world, the proud stallions drag dung carriages. When the Way is lost to the world, war horses are bred outside the city."

"Weapons are ominous tools. They are abhorred by all creatures. Anyone who follows the Way shuns them."

"Those who advice the ruler on the Way, do not want the world subdued with weapons."
Tao Te Ching

We live in society that grew accustomed to war and violence as the sole mean to "solve" its conflicts. The irony of this is that now there is a hughe issue with bullying and cyber-bullying and people are still 'wondering' how was this ever possible in a, so called, civilized society.
A 'civilized society' that still debates what's the best (more economic and efficient) way to go to war, that is, the more efficient way to manslaughter .

wardropper
I think our main problem is that most people are, essentially, decent, whereas politicians are not.
And it's the politicians who make the decisions
Mucho
Welcome to the Age of the Stupid – we know virtually all the answers to our problems, but do the opposite for the benefit of a few thousand of Satan's agents
wardropper
That is extremely well-said.
And I am, myself, probably sometimes guilty of what you say too, although I do try not to be.
DiggerUK
With missile capabilities at the level they have now reached, aircraft carriers are as useless as WW2 battleships turned out to be in the 1940's.

Russia recently demonstrated the maximum tactical use they can be put to, when they sent their one remaining carrier to Syria. Against a smaller power they give you the advantage of air superiority when deployed as a 'pop up airfield', but against another major power they would be useless. The recent US sabre waving in the Gulf may impress the gormless, but even Iran has the missile capability to make them worthless.

As to the racket that is war, Major General Smedley Butler published this pamphlet in 1935 based on an after dinner speech he made. Not the finest writing, but well worth a read _
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf

SO.
The AK's not a carrier in the conventional sense so you shouldn't really consider it as such.

Whilst it's original function might have been considered to be a nuclear launch platform (there were 500kT nukes under it's deck) it's real purpose was as an area denial system designed to kill aircraft within it's engagement envelope.

As such, somewhat ironically the ancient old soviet aircraft carrier is probably the only thing afloat that could withstand a modern missile attack by itself.

mark
The AK also served another useful purpose, generating hysteria in the media, with Sid Scurvy, Ace Reporter of the Daily Bugle, warning how Putin was about to murder us all in our beds when it came within a couple of hundred of miles of the UJK coastline. Whilst simultaneously running pieces about how the thing was so clapped out it was about to sink.
DunGroanin
The Anglo-Imperialists (self loving white peoples) are prepared to go down fighting.. if they can't have it, neither can anyone else.

Time that the non- brain dead 5-eyes morons realused that we didn't win the second world war by outselves. There were many millions of Sub-continentals, Africans and Afro-Caribbeans as well Afro-Americans, Native Americans etc. AND the millions and millions of Russians, military and civilians, who actually stopped the Anglo-Imperialists proxy Nazi mercenaries and wiped out their military strength. Only than did the 'Allies' make a token effort at invasion.

Aircraft carriers are totally useless in modern warfare. They are visible from the sky and vulnerable to missiles – hypersonic and ballistic, never mind frogmen with limpets.

John
Can tell you Gott two thumbs down for the use of her word 'white'. Fucking skin colour pussies are to easy to scare
Jen
Let me be the first to say it!

Military intelligence? Does that even exist in the context of the British armed forces?

" Finally, man-management: the Royal Navy in 1757 executed Admiral Byng for 'failure to do his utmost' "

Yes, doing his utmost meant he should have arranged with the enemy to execute him.

Paul
Byng was the victim of politicians and the Admirality who were actually responsible for the failure to stop the French taking Menorca by sending his fleet late and ill- equipped. It was embarrassingly obvious to most involved that it was an unjust, vindictive and low life response. He was shot on the deck of his own ship. It was a typically British way of doing things, when in trouble, blame somebody else and punish them. Nobody at the top is ever to blame in Britain; it's a tradition that is still well maintained
mark
The powers that be seemed determined to uphold these traditions by treating Julian Assange as a latter day Admiral Byng.
mark
Then, as now, shit flows downhill.
Fair dinkum
Proof.
That humans are headed for extinction.
wardropper
Unless, of course, those who believe in the human spirit are right, and further evolution lies in that direction
It looks indeed as if our physical existence at least is headed nowhere – in its current form at any rate
Maggie
So Wardropper – It appears that Brave New World was actually predictive programming? And all these years I thought it was a fiction.
wardropper
I think we can safely relax, Maggie – somewhat.
It is certainly fiction.
So we have our fiction on one side, and our personal experience on the other.
What kind of cocktail we make of that is up to us, I reckon.

[May 25, 2019] The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan

Highly recommended!
Note Firefox does not pickup the user name in Zero hedge anymore. So user names in comments were omitted... BTW comments from Zerohedge reflect very well the level of frustration and confusion of common Americans with the neoliberal social system. Neoliberal elites clearly lost most of the legitimacy in 2016.
While this is pretty poignant critique of American empire it does not ask and answer the key question: "What's next?" The crisis of neoliberalism and the end of cheap oil probably will eventually crush the US led global empire and dollar as the reserve currency. Although it probably will be much slower and longer process then many expect.
Are we talking about 20, 40 or 80 years here?
But what is the alternative to the neoliberal and the US dominated global neolinberal empire established after dissolution of the USSR in 1991? That's the question.
Notable quotes:
"... Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct. ..."
"... There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty. ..."
"... Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments. ..."
"... Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. ..."
"... To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent. ..."
"... The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ..."
"... But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise ..."
"... The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role. ..."
"... In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China. ..."
"... Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form. ..."
"... How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted? ..."
"... Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner ..."
May 23, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the 'stone age' with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities -- pounded into dust."

– Arundhati Roy

"As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. "

― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ."

― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket

"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 31 March 1968

Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct.

Violence is the sole language of empire. It is this only currency it uses to enforce its precepts and edicts, both at home and abroad. Eventually this language becomes internalized within the psyche of the subjects. Social and cultural conditioning maintained through constant subtle messaging via mass media begins to mold the public will toward that of authoritarian conformity. The American Empire is emblematic of this process. There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty.

But the social conditioning of the American public has led toward a bizarre allegiance to its ruling class oppressors. Propaganda still works here and most are still besotted with the notion of America being a bastion of "freedom and democracy." The growing gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poor and the gutting of civil liberties are ignored. And blind devotion is especially so when it comes to US foreign policy.

Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments.

The persecution of Chelsea Manning, much like the case of Julian Assange, is demonstrative of this. It is a crusade against truth tellers that has been applauded from both sides of the American establishment, liberal and conservative alike. It does not matter that she helped to expose American war crimes. On the contrary, this is seen as heresy to the Empire itself. Manning's crime was exposing the underbelly of the beast. A war machine which targeted and killed civilians and journalists by soldiers behind a glowing screen thousands of miles away, as if they were playing a video game.

Indeed, those deadened souls pulling the virtual trigger probably thought they were playing a video game since this is how the military seduced them to serve in their ranks in the first place. A kind of hypnotic, addictive, algorithmic tyranny of sorts. It is a form of escapism that so many young Americans are enticed by given their sad prospects in a society that has denuded the commons as well as their future. That it was a war based on lies against an impoverished nation already deeply weakened from decades of American led sanctions is inconsequential....

... ... ...

Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. The imposed suffering on these nations has been twisted as proof that they are now in need of American salvation in the form of even more crippling sanctions, coups, neoliberal austerity and military intervention. As the corporate vultures lie in wait for the next carcass of a society to feed upon, the hawks are busy building the case for the continuation and expansion of capitalist wars of conquest.

Bolton and Pompeo are now the equivalent of the generals who carved up Numidia for the wealthy families of ancient Rome, with Trump, the half-witted, narcissistic and cruel emperor, presiding over the whole in extremis farce. Indeed, the bloated orange Emperor issued the latest of his decrees in his usual banal fashion, via tweet:

"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"

One can query when Iran, or any other nation has ever "threatened" the United States, but that question will never be asked by the corporate press who are also in service to Empire. They are, in fact, its mouthpiece and advocate. The US has at least 900 military bases and colonial outposts scattered around the planet, yet this is never looked at as imperialistic in the least by the establishment, including its media. Scores of nations lie in ruins or are besieged with chaos and misery thanks to American bellicosity , from Libya to Iraq and beyond. But the US never looks back in regret at any of its multiple forays, not even a few years back.

To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent.

... ... ...

American Empire knows no other language sans brutality, deceit and belligerence...

... ... ...

The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ...

But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise . After all, billions of dollars are spent to keep the bloated military industrial complex afloat in service to the ruling class while social and economic safety nets are torn to shreds...

Comments from The Belligerence Of Empire Zero Hedge

9 hours ago

Nowadays the US has a massive military and little else. And "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail" - Wesley Clark, Former US General.

14 hours ago

Twaddle. Capitalism has lifted out of poverty more people around the globe than all other "successful" systems combined; and in a fraction of the time. Education. Health. Wealth. Not to mention Arts and Sciences.

Go demand a refund for your liberal education. And stop spreading lies.

11 hours ago (Edited)

Poppycock! Capitalism has traded real sovereign wealth for fiat debt backed funny money at the barrel of a gun! You assholes have been forcing otherwise healthy communities into poverty for decades so you could steal their resources and molest their children! Why? Because children are the only people impressed by your tiny d!cks!

The white male gaze that drives child sex tourism Feelings of disempowerment lead to vulnerable families, children

The organization described the average sex tourist as a middle-aged white male from either Europe or North America who often goes online to find the " best deals. " One particular Web site promised "nights of sex with two young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas."

Sowmia Nair, a Department of Justice agent, said the Thai government often "turns a blind eye" to child sex tourism because of the country's economic reliance on the tourist trade in general . He also said police officers are often corrupt.

" Police have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution," Nair said. "Some police directly exploit the children themselves."

A report from the International Bureau for Children's Rights said the majority of child prostitutes come from poor families in northern Thailand, referred to as the "hill tribes." With limited economic opportunities and bleak financial circumstances, these families, out of desperation, give their children to "recruiters," who promise them jobs in the city and then force the children into prostitution.

Sometimes families themselves even prostitute their children or sell them into the sex trade for a minuscule sum of money.

This is not by accident! This is by design!

14 hours ago

Capitalism has nothing to do with this. For the average American the empire is a losing proposition.

13 hours ago (Edited)

Empire good. Emperor bad. Kingdom good. King bad. Country good. President bad. Village good. Idiot bad.

13 hours ago (Edited)

Empire is cancer. Especially the present one that leaves a trail of failed states and antangonism in its wake.

16 hours ago

We are part of a scientific dictatorship - the 'Ultimate Revolution' Huxley spoke of in 1962 where the oppressed willingly submit to their enslavement. Social conditioning - promoted by continuous propaganda stressing that the state is their protector, reinforced by endless 'terrorist threats' to keep the masses fearful is but one part of the system.

The state no longer has to use threats and fear of punishment to keep the masses under control - the masses have been convinced that they are better off as slaves and serfs than they were as free men.

The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role.

18 hours ago

Capitalism and corporatism are not the same. When corporate interests effectively wield gov power, you have corporatism, not Capitalism.

14 hours ago

Corporatism=Fascism.

18 hours ago 'Muricanism is the gee-gaw of the chattering classes.

18 hours ago (Edited)

The US is its own worst enemy. They have no idea what they are doing. 2008 – "Oh dear, the global economy just blew up" Its experts investigate and conclude it was a black swan.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

It is a black swan if you don't consider debt. They use neoclassical economics that doesn't consider debt.

They can't work out why inflation isn't coming back and the real economy isn't recovering faster.

Look at the debt over-hang that's still left after 2008 in the graph above, that's the problem. The repayment on debt to banks destroy money pushing the economy towards debt deflation.

QE can't enter the real economy as so many people are still loaded up with debt and there are too few borrowers.

QE can get into the markets inflating them and the US stock market is now at 1929 levels. They have created another asset price bubble that is ready to collapse leading to another financial crisis.

We need a new scientific economics for globalisation, got any ideas?

What if we just stick some complex maths on top of 1920s neoclassical economics?

No one will notice.

They didn't either, but it's still got all its old problems.

The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.

What's the problem?

  1. The belief in the markets gets everyone thinking you are creating real wealth by inflating asset prices.
  2. Bank credit pours into inflating asset prices rather than creating real wealth (as measured by GDP) as no one is looking at the debt building up

1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking.

https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-13.52.41.png

What was just a problem in the 1920s in the US is now global.

At 25.30 mins you can see the super imposed private debt-to-GDP ratios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAStZJCKmbU&list=PLmtuEaMvhDZZQLxg24CAiFgZYldtoCR-R&index=6

The 1920s problem in the US is now everywhere, UK, US, Euro-zone, Japan and China.

20 hours ago (Edited)

Capitalism is based on darwinian economic competition driven by a desire to accumulate material wealth. When a capitalist becomes sufficiently rich, he can (and does) buy politicians and armies to do his bidding. Ironically, although capitalism is based on the assumption of competition, capitalists actually hate competition and harbor the urge to put competitors out of business. The true goal of a capitalists is monopoly-- as long as it is them.

Imperialism is a logical (and historically predictable) expansion of capitalism.

18 hours ago

Capitalism may not be the path to peace, but just about every other ism, including socialism and communism delivered worse.

Attacking capitalism for common failings is off base.

15 hours ago

Socialism and ultimately communism appear when capitalism goes rampant, and it is normal for the socium to embrace socialism when the inequality becomes too large.

In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China.

So don't mistake the people's desire for equal world with totalitarian capitalism masked as socialism.

14 hours ago

the real issue is NO GROUP OF HUMANS can be trusted will any form of power. ever. period.

so it goes that no "xyz"ism" will ever work out for the whole. yet humans are social animals and seek to be in groups governed by the very people that strive to lead that exhibit sociopathic tendencies, which are the worst possible leaders. how fuked up is that?

so how can that work? it does for a while. then we end up in the same spot every time, turmoil, the forth turning.

the luck of life is the period of time you live during, where and what stage of human turmoil the society is in...

21 hours ago (Edited)

" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees".

Capitalism did all that huh? It had nothing to do with corrupt politicians in bed with corporations and banks. Now they even have the military singing the same stupidity. Governments make these messes, not capitalism. Someone who risked their life for a corrupt government giving the pieces of **** that put him there a free pass by blaming it on capitalism. What a moron. When politicians hear this stupidity, it's like music to their ears. They know they've successfully shifted the blame to a simple ISM. Governments want to blame the very thing that will fix all of this, for the sake of self-preservation.

18 hours ago

Every system acts to centralise power, even anarchism. So you say it was wealth that enabled what was to follow but it was really power.. something every -ism will centralise and enable.

22 hours ago

Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form.

16 hours ago

Really! Did you miss the Smedley Butler quote?

22 hours ago

Could you please distinguish between capitalism and political, monetary, fiscal, press, and legal aberrations that can occur in capitalist systems because of government sloth and malfeasance? Media monopoly, mass illegal immigration, and offshoring are not the essence of capitalism. And socialist systems can see hideous abuses.

Please read something more than **** and Jane adventures.

23 hours ago

"... is still the owner of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal."

===

Here is the list of all nine countries with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-with-nuclear-weapons/

23 hours ago

It is now building a $100 million dollar drone base in Africa...

====

China 'negotiates military base' in Djibouti | News | Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/05/150509084913175.html

China is negotiating a military base in a strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, according to the AFP news agency. The move raises the prospect of US and Chinese bases side-by-side in the ...

China May Consider These Countries For Its Next Overseas ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/10/10/china-is-most-likely-to-open-future-military-bases-in-these-3-countries/

Oct 10, 2017 · China and the small African nation of Djibouti reached an agreement in July to let the People's Liberation Army establish up its first overseas military base there. The base on Africa's east ...

China is building its first military base in Africa . America ...

https://www.theweek.com/articles/598367/china-building-first-military-base-africa-america-should-nervous

China is building its first military base in Africa . America should be very nervous. ... In Africa , China has found not just a market for money but for jobs and land -- crucial components of ...

23 hours ago (Edited)

Oh noes! 1 base in Africa.....meanwhile the empire has 800 outposts around the world and despite that, like a snowflake, is bitching about China's one.

Isn't it fascinating how the Chinese do not find it necessary to resort to retarded regime change projects and stoopid kikery to "win" influence? Easy peasy. Methinks the Anglo-Zionists can learn a trick or two from China.

23 hours ago

The empire of 800 outposts is puny compared to the 1960's and 1970's. I can provide the information if you'd like. Almost all the 800 have company sized or smaller contingents. Still, I'd like to see much of it dismantled. No world Policeman.

23 hours ago

The entire world is in favor of a more peaceful planet Earth, except the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul

War puts money in their pockets. Lots of money. It's in the trillions of dollars.

23 hours ago (Edited)

How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted?

Now you know why wars happen. If "we the people" can't stop this beast, another nation's military will.

21 hours ago

@BH II

Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner. The only way out of the morass is to find men of very high character to correctly lead the way out. America needs a Socrates.

[May 22, 2019] The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning

Notable quotes:
"... As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II. ..."
"... None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well. ..."
"... The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy. ..."
"... The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us. ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... Overlooked might be Germany's copycat foreign policy posturing too often hidden behind 'humanitarian' language. https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/projects/new-power-new-responsibility/the-paper/ ..."
"... Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us". ..."
"... This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia. ..."
"... One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological. ..."
"... Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension. Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake up. By Robert W. Merry May 22, 2019

President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday, November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. ( Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain, from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win world are gone.

For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential threat."

Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge," released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there." The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."

The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."

As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II.

America has been projecting significant power into Asia since the 1890s, when President William McKinley acquired Hawaii through annexation, then seized Guam and the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. For good measure, he cleared the way for the construction of the Panama Canal and continued his predecessors' robust buildup of the U.S. Navy. President Theodore Roosevelt then pushed the Canal project to actual construction, accelerated the naval buildup, and sent his Great White Fleet around the world as a signal that America had arrived on the global scene -- as if anyone could have missed that obvious reality.

With the total victory over Japan in World War II, America emerged as the hegemon of Asia, with colonies, naval bases, carrier groups, and strategic alliances that made it foolhardy for any nation to even think of challenging our regional dominance. Not even the Vietnam defeat, as psychologically debilitating as that was, could undercut America's Asian preeminence.

Now China is seeking to position itself to push America back into its own hemisphere. And judging from the language of the National Defense Strategy, America doesn't intend to be pushed back. This is a clash of wills, with all the makings of an actual military conflict.

But if China represents the greatest potential threat to America's global position, making an eventual war likely (though not inevitable), why is Washington not acting like it knows this? Why is it engaging in so many silly military capers that undermine its ability to focus attention and resources on the China challenge? While the National Defense Strategy paper suggests that U.S. officials understand the threat, America's actions reveal an incapacity to grapple with this reality in any concentrated fashion.

Here's a general idea of what a U.S. foreign policy under Trump might look like if it was based on a clear recognition of the China threat:

Iran: Since the end of the Cold War, the sheer folly of Trump's Iran policy has been exceeded only by George W. Bush's Iraq invasion. Barack Obama bequeathed to his successor a rare gift in the Iran nuclear deal, which provided an opportunity to direct attention away from Tehran and toward America's position in East Asia. In no way did it serve America's national interest to stir up tensions with Iran while the far more ominous China threat loomed. A policy based on realism would have seized that opportunity and used the channels of communication forged through the nuclear deal to establish some kind of accommodation, however wary or tenuous. Instead, America under Trump has created a crisis where none need exist.

Personnel: While the Iran policy might be difficult to reverse, a reversal is imperative. And that means Trump must fire National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While their bully boy actions on the global stage seem to mesh with Trump's own temperament, the president also appears increasingly uncomfortable with the results, particularly with regard to their maximum pressure on Iran, which has brought America closer than ever to actual hostilities. Whether Trump has the subtlety of mind to understand just how destructive these men have been to his broad foreign policy goals is an open question. And Trump certainly deserves plenty of blame for pushing America into a zone of open hostility with Iran. But he can't extricate himself from his own folly so long as he has Bolton and Pompeo pushing him toward ever more bellicosity in ever more areas of the world. He needs men around him who appreciate just how wrongheaded American foreign policy has been in the post-Cold War era -- men such as retired Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor and former Virginia senator Jim Webb. Bolton and Pompeo -- out!

Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.

The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted, it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.

Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli -- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.

Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.

NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist. The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as well.

So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's, while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.

This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led, not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked, should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization itself.

And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course, any Russian provocations.

The Middle East: The United States should reduce its footprint in the region on a major scale. It should get out of Afghanistan, with assurances to the Taliban that it will allow that country to go its own way, irrespective of the outcome, so long as it doesn't pose a threat to the United States or its vital interests. U.S. troops should be removed from Syria, and America should stop supporting Saudi Arabia's nasty war in Yemen. We should make clear to Israel and the world that the Jewish state is a major U.S. ally and will be protected whenever it is truly threatened. But we should also emphasize that we won't seek through military means to alter the regional balance of power based on mere perceptions of potential future threats to countries in the region, even allies. The United States won't get drawn into regional wars unrelated to its own vital interests.

Far East: Once the other regional decks are cleared, America must turn its attention to Asia. The first question: do we wish to maintain our current position there, or can we accept China's rise even if it means a U.S. retreat or partial retreat from the region? If a retreat is deemed acceptable, then America should secure the best terms possible over a long period of tough and guileful negotiations. But if we decide to maintain regional dominance, then China will have to be isolated and deterred. That will mean a long period of economic tension and even economic warfare, confrontations over China's extravagant claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea and elsewhere, strong U.S. alliances with other Asian nations nurtured through deft and measured diplomacy, soaring technological superiority, and a continual upper hand in any arms race.

In this scenario, can war be averted? History suggests that may not be likely. But either way, America won't remain an Asian power if it allows itself to be pinned down in multiple nonstrategic spats and adventures around the world. Asia is today's Great Game and China is winning. That won't be reversed unless America starts playing.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century . MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 27 comments 27 Responses to The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning

Fran Macadam, says: May 21, 2019 at 10:36 pm

None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well. That allows U.S. legal decisions to have extra territorial scope as the real international power, not now irrelevant toothless international institutions like the UN.
Whine Merchant , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:02 am
Nice summary, Mr Merry. Even the most die-hard Trumpet can find something to disagree upon with their Dear Leader while supporting everything else he does, but this clear and succinct outline leaves no where for the Deplorables to hide. Coupled with the China trade war fiasco, thias is pretty grim.

Of course, come 2020, all will be forgiven by the GOP, and even one criticism with be blasted with a twitter assault.

Fazal Majid , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:22 am
The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy.

Unfortunately our support for the treacherous Pakistanis has poisoned our relationship with India. In 1971, Nixon actually sent a carrier group in the Bay of Bengal to intimidate the Indians into stopping support for the Bangladeshis fighting a war of independence against the genocidal (West) Pakistan, and the Indians had to call on the Soviets to send nuclear submarines to deter that threat. Like all ancient nations, Indians have long memories. Ironically, that reckless action was in cahoots with China.

The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us.

likbez , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:29 am
Great article. Thank you very much!

Pragmatic isolationism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby. But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exceptionalism ( which can be viewed as a form of far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:

From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C.

If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.

Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).

"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."

In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China.

Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that wrong.

Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing.

Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant.

His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.

There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)

In this limited sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR used to exist.

I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA.)

Piero , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:06 am
Your current foreign policy simply seems to reflect the astonishing degree of violence that permeates your society, when observing you Americans from a place like Hong Kong or China it's really frightening, I would be more scared to visit the US than Liberia or Sierra Leone, with those innumerable ( armed ) nutcases roaming your streets, you are by now used to it, and it saddens me, thinking of how grateful we should be for all you have done in the distant past for so many countries in the world
Fayez Abedaziz , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:30 am
The blockheads advising know nothing Trump about history and geo-politics don't care a whit about the American people or what is ten years down the road. These people, Bolton, Pompeo and the joke-Kushner- are ego/power lovers and are doing the opposite of a sane policy to every part of the globe.
How the hell do you goad and threaten Russia, for example, for no good reason and how do you threaten Russia, which, like the U.S., with the push of several buttons can turn any city in the world to ashes, in minutes.

The American people are not only dumb as a wall, they don't care about foreign policy and they don't wanna know. The're looking at celebrities and looking at their smart phones for fun and weirdness. The phones are smarter than them and they pay the price when clown Trump does things like trade wars and so on.

Yeah, the average American, what prizes they are, as in they look and say,

Is that the actress there on the 'news' oh, what's she wearing is that the 'genius' athlete, what does that smelly guy say today hey, let's order food delivered so we can watch and tomorrow to the sports bar and

Kent , says: May 22, 2019 at 6:32 am
This article forgets to mention why it would be in the American people's interest to be the hegemon of East Asia. I can't think of any reason myself. Anyone?
JR , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:11 am
Thanks for this article.

Overlooked might be Germany's copycat foreign policy posturing too often hidden behind 'humanitarian' language. https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/projects/new-power-new-responsibility/the-paper/

Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us".

This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia.

The result is a thoroughly corrupt indebted Ukraine disenfranchising more than 60% of its population through imposing forced 'Ukrainization'.

Cavin , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:51 am
I agree with the article, but not the title. The article acknowledges two important points, but leaves out another.

First, it correctly acknowledges that our obsession with Iran is vastly disproportionate to the threat it poses. In fact, we would do well to scale back our adventurism in the Middle East. If China is winning in the Far East, it is largely because we have chosen to devote resources elsewhere.

Second, it correctly acknowledges that continued antagonizing of Russia by the West is needless. It is time to normalize relations with Russia, recognize its legitimate interest in having some buffer against the West, and repatriate Russian nationals who have recently immigrated to the West.

Third, the article fails to acknowledge that China, like Russia, is also entitled to some sphere of influence. And there is historic precedence for certain such claims. Those claims are tenuous when it comes to Japan and the Korean peninsula. But there is little reason why American Navy ships should be sailing right up to the borders of China, just as there is little reason why Chinese Navy ships should be sailing off the coast of Oregon. We also need to understand that provoking a trade war that slows the Chinese economy merely enhances the power of President Xi. Trump has given President Xi a massive political gift, and for no good reason. The trade imbalance is evidence of the strength of our economy, not a sign that we're losing out to China.

Grits Again , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:02 am
One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological.

If we are to compete effectively with China and other global players, if we are to have a balanced and effective foreign policy in general, we need to remove the Middle East blinders, get Israel and Saudi Arabia off our back, and start seeing the world as it is, rather than as Israel and Saudi Arabia pay our politicians to see it.

Collin , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:25 am
Simple questions: Why should we care? And how does all this soft power benefit the average citizens? And for all the China fears, they appear to react very rationally and avoid military conflicts.

Ok, it is true Chinese oil buying is probably keeping Iran in a better economic situation but again this seems more of a problem of Iran hawks not the average citizen. Honestly, I wish the US had more of treasury focused foreign policy and stop worrying about US power.

Mommsen the Younger , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:26 am
Excellent. Merry has it exactly. (Note: Have reread paragraph 9 several times and believe the copy editor fell asleep here)
Chris Cosmos , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:30 am
Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension. Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game.

Any rational analysis of the past couple of decades forces us to come to that conclusion. The reason why this whole scheme is unlikely to fail in the short and medium term is US military involvement in 150 countries has brought much of the world under Washington's control–or at least their ruling elites. The best China can do is provide an alternative to the Empire and live in some sort of harmony with it because China has not shown any intention of competing militarily with the US. Iran is a key part of the Silk Road project and that is the strategic reason for the attempt to crush or destroy Iran that is central to the strategy. The US wants to keep China and Russia out of Europe–that, if you look at policy, seems to be the main contest.

HenionJD , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:30 am
The conflict with Iran has assumed heightened importance because,at 70 years old, John Bolton has to face the possibility that he might die without having started a war somewhere.
Thaomas , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:32 am
The author misses two other two other components of of a proper China "containment" policy: Immigration and trade policy. The US should be actively trying to attract immigration of skilled young workers and entrepreneurs (including from China) and encouraging university graduates from abroad to remain. The US ought to join the TPP in order to increase our leverage in negotiating reductions in Chinese restrictions on trade and investment.
Sid Finster , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:47 am
Why would Russia want to make a deal with the United States, which cannot be trusted to keep its word, or even to act rationally in pursuit of its own interests?
TheSnark , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:20 am
Generally a good article, but it misses an important point. While China and Russia do have natural spheres of influence, the countries within those natural spheres hate being there.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam are naturally within China's influence, but they don't trust the Chinese at all, and surely don't want China to dominate their countries. And given they way the Chinese empire treats Tibetan and Uigurs, they have good reason for that.

Similarly in Eastern Europe, where Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States might be in Russian sphere, but they sure don't want to be. The fact is that NATO did not aggressively seek them out for membership, those small countries begged to join NATO out of their historical fear of Russia.

While recognizing such spheres of influence, do we want to abandon friendly, democratic countries to a hostile, autocratic power? The Cold War model of Finland give some hope for a compromise, but it won't be easy to implement outside of Finland.

david , says: May 22, 2019 at 1:41 pm
This article is another vivid illustration of how disoriented and narrow-minded when a typical intelligent and well-meaning American is talking about China. For examples:

1. The author has no problem acknowledging specific geopolitical interests to accommodate Russia or even Iran, but when he comes to China, he fails completely to mention any of the legitimate interests China has in East Asia.

2. The author repeats the nonsensical China haters' allegation about China's threat to America, and China's intention to push American out of East Asia.

3. The author resorts back to a typical zero-sum or even cold-war style mentality when talking about overall China strategy, without even considering the possibilities that China and America can co-exist in a friendly manner, where all the peaceful competition between the two countries ultimately translating into net positive results that benefit the people of both countries and the world.

Unfortunately, our so-called "experts" in China are consistently failing Americans badly, because they lack the knowledge and perspective to think from the other side of the coin.

Steve , says: May 22, 2019 at 1:50 pm
I scrolled for quite a bit before finding Thaomas' comment about TPP. Leaving it will prove to be one of the Trump's admin's greatest blunders (which is saying something) and any column about China strategy that omits it is incomplete.
hooly , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:01 pm
So why exactly should Russia be accommodated and be allowed its sphere of influence and a 'defense perimeter' and not China? I don't get it. And why should the USA be allowed the fruits of its aggression in the form of an annexed and brutally conquered Hawaii? why can't Uncle Sam be satisfied with San Diego as a naval base?

The USA has the Monroe Doctrine giving it dominion over the Western Hemisphere, and China holds the Mandate of Heaven granting it hegemony over everything else. Can't the Dragon and the Eagle get along on that basis??

Ken Zaretzke , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:06 pm
In terms of geography, China vitally needs Russia in order to close off a corridor through which Muslims will flow to China. Without that cooperation from Russia, China will be seriously hobbled by unassimilable and hostile migrants in its south. At least symbolically, this will cripple its superpower claims.

The U.S. would be stupid not to seek an alliance with Russia, given Russia's geographical strengths, which also includes its proximity to the Arctic and therefore a legal claim to the oil and gas buried there.

Geography is Russia's long-term strength, and not incidentally is a reason why trying militarily to force Putin to surrender Crimea could easily lead to nuclear war, which might begin with tactical (battlefield) Russian nukes aimed at NATO garrisons in eastern Europe.

China isn't fated to win its contest with the U.S. if it must depend on Russia in order to become an unquestioned superpower. We need Russia for strategic security as much as Russia needs us for economic growth.

fabian , says: May 22, 2019 at 2:47 pm
Nice summary. In my view the US (not Trump) make a big mistake to throw Russia in the arms of China. It's not only its geopolitical situation that is the problem but the fact the it gives China unlimited access to natural resources. In a generation, if things goes the way they do now, the only saving grace for the US will be a failure of this partnership. Because if it works, by the sheer force of gravity it will swallow Europe. But betting on the adversary's failure is not a good strategy.
workingdad , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:08 pm
eh, keeping pressure on Iran keeps Saudi Arabia happy which means they stay in our sphere; as opposed to China's.

Until Venezuala wants to become part of the Oil-for-dollars system or we all drive electric cars and only oil for remote work and emergency military expeditions then we need the Saudis on our side.

Un Citoyen , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:58 pm
This kind of mentality is the reason why I think the demise of America is necessary to achieve world peace.

Why on God's green earth should America dominate East Asia? Last time I checked, America is NOT part of Asia. We are not even in the same hemisphere for crying out loud. Why can't we just leave Asia to the Asians?

When was the last time China invaded a country? Never. These are the same people who discovered Africa and America long before the Europeans, but only wanted to "do business" and trade. They already have 1.3 Billion mouths to feed, the last thing the Chinese government needs is more mouths to feed.

Meanwhile, when Washington thinks of invasion, all they think of is guns, tanks, battleships. The Chinese are already quietly invading and conquering the west -- through immigration. All along the East and West coasts, Chinese dominant cities and schools are popping up everywhere. America really is the stupidest country on earth sometimes. All brawn and no brain. We want to start wars with everybody in the name of protecting "American interests", while the rest of the world are already conquering us from within through immigration. Wake up America.

Ricardo Toledano , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.

It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.

It's a reckless game for me.

Ricardo Toledano , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.

It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.

It's a reckless game to me.

Tom Diebold , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:32 pm
I would assume that the US is "in" East Asia, to a significant extent, because Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have sought US security and defense guarantees. The US has not forced itself into the region. Korea has reasons to be concerned about China, due to its experiences during the Korean War, and Taiwan, which wishes to remain independent of Chinese control, is directly threatened by China.

As for other allies in the region, Philippine president Duterte's overtures, upon taking office, to China, and his especially disparaging remarks about the US while making an official visit to China, seem quite puzzling, given China's illegitimate seizing of Philippine territory in the West Philippine Sea. US relations with the Philippines needs to be reexamined in light of this development. While Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are first-level allies in the region, the Philippines is not.

[May 22, 2019] Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made. ..."
"... It is fitting that they have been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its obligations. ..."
"... Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits ..."
"... A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that he claims after every unsuccessful summit. ..."
"... The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

May 22, 2019, 1:16 PM

J.Bicking/Shutterstock One of the obvious consequences of violating the JCPOA is that the U.S. can't be trusted to negotiate anything else with Iran:

Zarif told CNN this week Iran had "acted in good faith" in negotiating the deal that Washington abandoned. "We are not willing to talk to people who have broken their promises.".

Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made.

It is fitting that they have been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its obligations.

Iran hawks are always complaining about the "fatally flawed" nuclear deal, but they are the ones that exploited what was perhaps its only true flaw, namely the built-in assumption that our government would observe the terms of the agreement in good faith as long as Iran did what it promised to do. Other major powers and Iran now know they shouldn't expect the U.S. to be a reliable partner in future talks, and they will reasonably conclude that offers to "talk" from the administration that seeks to destroy the JCPOA are just so much hot air.

As I was saying yesterday, Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits:

Trump has said Washington is not trying to set up talks but expects Tehran to call when it is ready. A U.S. official said last week Americans "were sitting by the phone", but had received no call from Iran yet

Foad Izadi, a political science professor at Tehran University, told Reuters that phone call is not coming.

"Iranian officials have come to this conclusion that Trump does not seek negotiations. He would like a phone call with Rouhani, even a meeting and a photo session, but that's not a real negotiation," Izadi said.

A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that he claims after every unsuccessful summit.

The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

SteveM May 22, 2019 at 2:47 pm

Related to "America the Untrustworthy" is the economic total war that the U.S. has declared on the rest of the planet. Very complex business relationships and supply chains are being destroyed. The Trump administration's objectives are to economically strangle China and Russia and do economic beat-downs on any country that gets in the way. No company or country wants to do business with that kind of political volatility. And what can't go on forever – won't.

What the idiots in Washington don't realize is that the Chinese and the Russians have suffered 100x mores deprivation than Americans. They will suck it up now and then do whatever it takes to decouple themselves economically from the United States. (See what happens in the U.S. when the Chinese tell Apple to pound sand.)

And to think that the Chinese don't have the organic capability to technically compete with the U.S. now is nuts. China has the resources and intellectual horsepower to compete with the U.S. regardless of what the arrogant "City on a Hill" exceptionalists in Washington think. And given that China has 5X the number of STEM grads, it's easy to do the math.

America the Untrustworthy on the economic front is telling the rest of the planet to find other partners because doing business with an erratic Gorilla is more trouble than its worth.

Scott , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:44 pm
At some point, Americans are going to be outraged when they realize that most of the world doesn't view us as someone to admire but rather a rogue nation.

We have lost so much standing under Trump

BD , says: May 22, 2019 at 3:53 pm
I wonder if it ever occurred to Trump–or any of his advisers–that pulling out of a deal for no other reason than "we didn't like the terms that everyone agreed to" (rather than noncompliance by Iran) only makes it impossible for anyone to trust a new deal he wants to make later. But I guess this is why it's unwise to govern based on what Fox and Friends tells you each morning.
Barry , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:20 pm
"A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. "

I don't think that any future president will be able to do this. Dubya was a shock to the rest of the world, in that they realized that there was indeed 'no there there'. Congress isn't helping.

Obama was a relief, but then along came Trump. At this point, all other countries know that (a) any competent Democratic President will be followed by a destructive and reckless GOP president, and (b) that the GOP Congress will aid and abet this.

A reputation for reliability has to be maintained.

Christian J Chuba , says: May 22, 2019 at 6:37 pm
And there is a 90 / 10 chance that we will break the agreement. This is not a Trump'ism, we never keep our word regardless of the Administration.
  1. Libya/Gaddafi GWB made the promise, Obama killed him.
  2. Saddam Hussein – Bush Sr. made the promise, get rid of WMD and live, GWB killed him.
  3. JCPOA – Obama made the agreement, Trump broke it.
  4. Russia – Bush Sr. promised not to expand NATO, Clinton expanded NATO like mad.

When have we ever kept an agreement?

[May 21, 2019] 2020 Elections: It's Militarism and the Military Budget Stupid! by Ajamu Baraka

May 17, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

U.S. ships are involved in provocative "freedom of navigation" exercises in the South China Sea and other ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal Elliot Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela with another illegal "regime change" intervention. But people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and Hip-Hop, the Mueller report, and Game of Thrones. In fact, while millions can recall with impressive detail the proposals and strategies of the various players in HBO's latest saga, they can't recall two details about the pending military budget that will likely pass in Congress with little debate, even though Trump's budget proposal represents another obscene increase of public money to the tune of $750 billion.

This bipartisan rip-off could not occur without the willing collusion of the corporate media, which slants coverage to support the interests of the ruling elite or decides to just ignore an issue like the ever-expanding military budget.

The effectiveness of this collusion is reflected in the fact that not only has this massive theft of public money not gotten much coverage in the mainstream corporate media, but also it only received sporadic coverage in the alternative media. The liberal-left media is distracted enough by the theatrics of the Trump show to do the ideological dirty work of the elites.

Spending on war will consume almost 70% of the budget and be accompanied by cuts in public spending for education, housing, the environment, public transportation, jobs trainings, food support programs like food stamps and Meals on Wheels, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Most of the neoliberal candidates running in the Democratic Party's electoral process, however, haven't spoken a word in opposition to Trump's budget.

The public knows that the Democratic Party's candidates are opposed to Trump's wall on the southern border, and they expect to hear them raise questions about the $8.6 billion of funding the wall. But while some of the Democrats may oppose the wall, very few have challenged the details of the budget that the U.S. Peace Council indicates . For example:

"$576 billion baseline budget for the Department of Defense; an additional $174 billion for the Pentagon's Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war budget; $93.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8 billion for State Department; an additional $26.1 billion for State Department's Overseas Contingency Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21 billion for NASA (militarizing outer space?); plus $267.4 billion for all other government agencies, including funding for FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice."

The Peace Council also highlights the following two issues: First, the total US military and war budget has jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion since 2015. That is a $252.6 billion (about 35%) increase in five years. Second, thesimultaneous cuts in the government's non-military spending are reflected in the proposed budget.

Here are some of biggest proposed budget cuts:

+ $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds $1.2 trillion for a "Market Based Health Care Grant" -- that is, a block grant to states, instead of paying by need. It's not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.

+ An $845 billion cut to Medicare over 10 years. That is about a 10 percent cut .

+ $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability insurance.

+ A $220 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) over 10 years , which is commonly referred to as food stamps, and includes mandatory work requirements. The program currently serves around 45 million people.

+ A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , an already severely underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation's poorest.

+ $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans.

+ Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs , which would hit Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program , among others.

The working classes and oppressed peoples of the U.S. and around the world can no longer afford the unchallenged ideological positions of the Pentagon budget and the associated expenditures for so-called defense that are considered sacrosanct in the U.S. They cannot afford that much of the U.S. public is not concerned with issues of so-called foreign policy that the military budget is seen as part.

The racist appeals of U.S. national chauvinism in the form of "Make America Great" and the Democrats' version of "U.S. Exceptionalism" must be confronted and exposed as the cross-class, white identity politics that they are. The fact that supposedly progressive or even "radical" politics does not address the issue of U.S. expenditures on war and imperialism is reflective of a politics that is morally and political bankrupt. But it also does something else. It places those practitioners firmly in the camp of the enemies of humanity.

The objective fact that large numbers of the public accept that the U.S. can determine the leadership of another sovereign nation while simultaneously being outraged by the idea of a foreign power interfering in U.S. elections demonstrates the mindboggling subjective contradictions that exist in the U.S. For example – that an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can assert that she will defer to the leadership of her caucus on the issue of Venezuela or that Barbara Lee can vote to bring Trump's budget proposal out of committee or that Biden can proudly support Trump's immoral backing of a neo-fascist opposition in Venezuela and they will all get away with those positions – reveals the incredible challenge that we face in building an alternative radical movement for peace, social justice and people(s)-centered human rights.

So, we must join with U.S. Peace Council and the other members of the Anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist communities in the U.S. to "resist and oppose this military attack on our communities, our livelihoods and our lives." This is an urgent and militant first step in reversing the cultural support for violence and the normalization of war that currently exists in the U.S. Now is the moment to demand that Congress reject and reverse the Trump Administration's military budget and the U.S. Government's militaristic foreign policy. But now is also the moment to commit to building a powerful countermovement to take back the power over life and death from the denizens of violence represented by the rapacious 1%. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Ajamu Baraka

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine.

[May 21, 2019] Where Lyme Disease Came From and Why It Eludes Treatment by David Swanson

May 17, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
A new book called Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby adds significantly to our understanding of Lyme disease, while oddly seeming to avoid mention of what we already knew.

Newby claims (in 2019) that if a scientist named Willy Burgdorfer had not made a confession in 2013, the secret that Lyme disease came from a biological weapons program would have died with him. Yet, in 2004 Michael Christopher Carroll published a book called Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory . He appeared on several television shows to discuss the book, including on NBC's Today Show, where the book was made a Today Show Book Club selection. Lab 257 hit the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list soon after its publication.

Newby's book reaches the same conclusion as Carroll's, namely that the most likely source of diseased ticks is Plum Island. Newby reaches this conclusion on page 224 after mentioning Plum Island only once in passing in a list of facilities on page 47 and otherwise avoiding it throughout the book. This is bizarre, because Newby's book otherwise goes into great depth, and even chronicles extensive research efforts that lead largely to dead ends, and because there is information available about Plum Island, and because Carroll's best-selling book seems to demand comment, supportive or dismissive or otherwise.

In fact, I think that, despite the avoidance of any discussion of Plum Island, Newby's research complements Carroll's quite well, strengthens the same general conclusion, and then adds significant new understanding. So, let's look at what Carroll told us, and then at what Newby adds.

Less than 2 miles off the east end of Long Island sits Plum Island, where the U.S. government makes or at least made biological weapons, including weapons consisting of diseased insects that can be dropped from airplanes on a (presumably foreign) population. One such insect is the deer tick, pursued as a germ weapon by the Nazis, the Japanese, the Soviets, and the Americans.

Deer swim to Plum Island. Birds fly to Plum Island. The island lies in the middle of the Atlantic migration route for numerous species. "Ticks," Carroll writes, "find baby chicks irresistible."

In July of 1975 a new or very rare disease appeared in Old Lyme, Connecticut, just north of Plum Island. And what was on Plum Island? A germ warfare lab to which the U.S. government had brought former Nazi germ warfare scientists in the 1940s to work on the same evil work for a different employer. These included the head of the Nazi germ warfare program who had worked directly for Heinrich Himmler. On Plum Island was a germ warfare lab that frequently conducted its experiments out of doors . After all, it was on an island. What could go wrong? Documents record outdoor experiments with diseased ticks in the 1950s (when we know that the United States was using such weaponized life forms in North Korea ). Even Plum Island's indoors, where participants admit to experiments with ticks, was not sealed tight. And test animals mingled with wild deer, test birds with wild birds.

By the 1990s, the eastern end of Long Island had by far the greatest concentration of Lyme disease. If you drew a circle around the area of the world heavily impacted by Lyme disease, which happened to be in the Northeast United States, the center of that circle was Plum Island.

Plum Island experimented with the Lone Star tick, whose habitat at the time was confined to Texas. Yet it showed up in New York and Connecticut, infecting people with Lyme disease -- and killing them. The Lone Star tick is now endemic in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

If Newby agrees or disagrees with any of the above, she does not inform us. But here's what she adds to it.

The outbreak of unusual tick-borne disease around Long Island Sound actually started in 1968, and it involved three diseases: Lyme arthritis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and babesiosis. A U.S. bioweapons scientist, Willy Burgdorfer, credited in 1982 with discovering the cause of Lyme disease, may have put the diseases into ticks 30 years earlier. And his report on the cause of Lyme disease may have involved a significant omission that has made it harder to diagnose or cure. The public focus on only one of the three diseases has allowed a disaster that could have been contained to become widespread.

Newby documents in detail Burgdorfer's work for the U.S. government giving diseases to ticks in large quantities to be used as weapons, as they have been in Cuba in 1962, for example. "He was growing microbes inside ticks, having the ticks feed on animals, and then harvesting the microbes from the animals that exhibited the level of illness the military had requested."

Burgdorfer published a paper in 1952 about the intentional infecting of ticks. In 2013, filmmaker Tim Grey asked him, on camera, whether the pathogen he had identified in 1982 as the cause of Lyme disease was the same one or similar or a generational mutation of the one he'd written about in 1952. Burgdorfer replied in the affirmative.

Interviewed by Newby, Burgdorfer described his efforts to create an illness that would be difficult to test for -- knowledge of which he might have shared earlier with beneficial results for those suffering.

Newby, who has herself suffered from Lyme disease, blames the profit interests of companies and the corruption of government for the poor handling of Lyme disease. But her writing suggests to me a possibility she doesn't raise, namely that those who know where Lyme disease came from have avoided properly addressing it because of where it came from.

Newby assumes throughout the book that there has to have been a particular major incident near Long Island Sound, either an accident or an experiment on the public or an attack by a foreign nation. Burgdorfer reportedly claimed to another researcher that Russia stole U.S. bioweapons. Based on that and nothing else, Newby speculates that perhaps Russia attacked the United States with diseased ticks, coincidentally right in the location where the U.S. government experimented with diseased ticks.

"What this book brings to light," Newby writes, "is that the U.S. military has conducted thousands of experiments exploring the use of ticks and tick-borne diseases as biological weapons, and in some cases, these agents escaped into the environment. The government needs to declassify the details of these open-air bioweapons tests so that we can begin to repair the damage these pathogens are inflicting on human and animals in the ecosystem."

Another product of U.S. bio-weapons tax dollars at work, of course, was the anthrax mailed to politicians in 2001. While Newby speculates that perhaps someone was trying to demonstrate the danger for our own good, I don't think we should forget that one purpose served -- whether or not intended -- by the "anthrax attacks" was a significant augmentation of the Iraq war lies. The attacks were falsely blamed on Iraq, and even if people have forgotten that, they fell for it long enough for it to matter. The one bit of truth in current public understanding of Lyme disease is that it has not been falsely blamed on some country the United States is eager to bomb. Let's keep it that way! Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: David Swanson

David Swanson wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org His new book is War No More: The Case for Abolition .

[May 20, 2019] EP.744 Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel -- Joe Biden's Conventional Wisdom is AMERICAN IMPERIALISM!

May 11, 2019 | www.youtube.com

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel who discusses why he is joining the race to pull the debate to the left, the nature of his contenders such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders, US regime change attempts in Venezuela and escalating tension with Iran, Julian Assange's imprisonment in the UK and the US' extradition request. Next we speak to Chris Williamson MP, in his first international interview since being suspended by the Labour Party.

He discusses NHS privatisation by stealth with the new GP contracts due to be signed next week, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Trump's escalation against Iran and Julian Assange's on-going imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison.


Gary Salisbury , 1 week ago (edited)

Pompeo Finally Tells the Truth: 'We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal'" !! He makes me want to Puke !! His duplicity has no bounds !! A swamp dweller of NOTE !!

B. Greene , 1 week ago (edited)

Senator Gravel needs 100k unique contributions to qualify for the DNC debates. Help him shake things up with a $1 donation at: www.mikegravel.com

TrickyVickey , 1 week ago (edited)

Pompeo is a murderous "dictator pusher" for the military industrial complex.

harriet , 6 days ago (edited)

Love Mike gravel, honest, good, genuine person with pure heart and soul! Donate dollar to get him on the debates! Love Chris Williamson also a great men we need more people like these! This channel should have way more subs and views, great show!

Muzza Man , 1 week ago (edited)

The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling 297 billion barrels . They are going to be INVADED by the real world terrorists, the USA,BRITAIN, and their puppet allies !!!! Need I say more?

invisble man , 1 week ago

Joe Biden could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and sniff everybody and he would not lose any voters.

[May 20, 2019] US bullying caprices stain its credibility

Those are pretty strong words from the official agency...
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world. ..."
"... As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements. ..."
"... When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple." ..."
"... Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union. ..."
"... In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status. ..."
"... Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.xinhuanet.com

Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-20 17:11:21 | Editor: Xiang Bo

BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Modern international trade relations are based on credibility and the spirit of the contract. However,in the year-long China-U.S. trade negotiations, Washington repeatedly reneged on its promises and played "face changing" tricks, leaving stark stains on its credibility.

During Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to Washington last May, Beijing and Washington agreed not to engage in a trade war. Only days later, the Trump administration said it will impose a 25-percent tariff on 50 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports which contain industrially significant technology.

Soon after the recent setbacks in China-U.S. trade consultations, the Trump administration, in the name of "national security," rolled out measures to hit Chinese tech firms. The White House's executive order will kill many business contracts between Chinese and U.S. firms.

The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world.

As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements.

These bullying behaviors have sent a clear signal: one can arbitrarily tamper with the original contracts regardless of cooperation partners' interests and concerns, as long as it has the power to do so. That is "the logic of gangsters" and "the law of jungle." Such bullying tactic has stirred global opposition, including from Washington's allies in Europe.

When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple."

Also, America's bullying actions have gone far beyond multilateral economic and trade realms.

Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union.

These self-serving moves have disgraced Washington's credibility as a responsible major country, and seriously eroded the foundation for international cooperation.

In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status.

Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests.

[May 20, 2019] "Us" Versus "Them"

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks

Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their assigned puppets.

Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.

Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion, pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP), rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.

There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase.

Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.

When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.

I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line, "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses, thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public. There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election. This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last election by referencing another famous cynic.

"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks

Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.

As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.

I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since 2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way. I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not their words.

Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.

I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive. Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have gotten it done when he controlled both houses.

The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.

I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.

With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered winning in present day America.

The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the day. Truthfulness not required.

The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human trait over two hundred years ago.

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over 300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches, and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.

These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president.

The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning. What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).

If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.

In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine whether he can defeat the Deep State.


TerryThomas , 32 minutes ago link

"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus, despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism, cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here, too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer

666D Chess , 11 minutes ago link

Divide and conquer, not a very novel idea... but very effective.

Kafir Goyim , 32 minutes ago link

If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers

That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of it, but they're still pissed.

Rich Monk , 33 minutes ago link

These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.

yellowsub , 42 minutes ago link

Ya'll a dumb fool if you think gov't as your best interests first.

legalize , 46 minutes ago link

Citation needed.

Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm swallowing it.

I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?

bshirley1968 , 51 minutes ago link

"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."

If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".

If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real leadership and not another political hack.

The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side" you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the minute they become them and not one of us.

Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.

Fish Gone Bad , 37 minutes ago link

Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at Arkancide.com and start counting the bodies.

Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that situation.

bshirley1968 , 31 minutes ago link

Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of **** as my governor for 12 years.

NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped bafoon.

Kafir Goyim , 28 minutes ago link

I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.

Giant Meteor , 9 minutes ago link

Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..

Great theater..

Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream, vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now. If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.

Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest, but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect .. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.

Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" / current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..

666D Chess , 15 minutes ago link

Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for Trump and they were laughing their asses off.

HoodRatKing , 55 minutes ago link

The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned nightmare..

Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive & risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.

I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life, own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore, laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to live in poverty & homelessness in.

At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not = a financial death sentence.

bshirley1968 , 39 minutes ago link

Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no electricity.....no running water......no roads....

There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.

The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke.

There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.

911bodysnatchers322 , 56 minutes ago link

This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army

Giant Meteor , 25 minutes ago link

And yet, I'll never forget all the smiling faces at the gala wedding affair.

Happier times ..

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/us/politics/ex-ally-donald-trump-now-heaps-scorn-on-bill-clinton.html

And yes, thanks in advance for noting the link is from New York slime, but i believe the picture in this case anyway, was not photo shopped.

She is, (hillary) after all, good people, a real fighter ..

**** .. mission accomplished ..

ExPat2018 , 1 hour ago link

The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful countries

You must have intelligent people

America doesn't have that anymore.

JuliaS , 1 hour ago link

Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds of obedient citizens.

911bodysnatchers322 , 54 minutes ago link

This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions

istt , 1 hour ago link

The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy, and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.

fersur , 1 hour ago link

There's an old saying; "Congress does 2 things well Nothing and Protest" said by Pence Live-Streamed 4 hours ago at USMCA America First speech !

Good, Bad and Ugly

The Good is President Trump works extreme daily hours trying his best !

The Bad is Haters miss every bit of whatever their President Trump does that is good !

The Ugly is Hater Reporters ignoring World events, scared of possibly shining President Trump fairly !

SHsparx , 1 hour ago link

You really are making it a bit too obvious, bro.

911bodysnatchers322 , 52 minutes ago link

The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them barely read, though they probably can

SHsparx , 1 hour ago link

I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.

Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago link

If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants, liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny continues to grow and fester as a cancer.

Zoomorph , 1 hour ago link

In other words, those amendments are already lost... we're just waiting for the final dictate to come down.

Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago link

You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.

SHsparx , 49 minutes ago link

@ Zeusky Babarusky

I couldn't agree with you more.

Unfortunately, it is what it is, which is why I used the word "dying."

Those two amendments are on their deathbed, and if a Dem gets in the house, that'll be the nail in the coffin.

bshirley1968 , 1 hour ago link

If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your life.

I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's God.

I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life. There are worse things than dying.

Nephilim , 1 hour ago link

THEHAZELFLOCKOFCRANES

BRINDLED FOOT,

AUSTRALIAN.

caveofgoldcaveofold

Zoomorph , 1 hour ago link

"Why do we have wars?"

"Because life is war: fighting for survival, resources, and what is best in the world."

"Why do people say war is bad?"

"Because they are useful idiots who have been tricked by religion and/or weak degenerates who are too weary to participate."

delta0ne , 1 hour ago link

This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke! this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.

We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of England and the issued of the British-pound currency.

George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way of the phony revolution.

Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks, Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The same parasite remains within our government.

djrichard , 1 hour ago link

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/

It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution, and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.

To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while they are being manipulated.

[May 19, 2019] Lawrence Wilkerson Warns The US Is Driving Down A Highway To War With China

Notable quotes:
"... More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the money keeps flowing. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, warns in a new The Real News interview with host Sharmini Peries that the United States government is driving down a "highway to war" with China -- a war for which Wilkerson sees no sound justification.

The drive toward war is not undertaken in response to a real threat posed by China to the people of America. Instead, argues Wilkerson, the US government is moving toward war for reasons related to money for both the military and the broader military-industrial complex, as well to advance President Donald Trump's domestic political goals.

Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity's Academic Board, elaborates on the US military's money-seeking motivation to advance the new China scare, stating:

All of this right now, first and foremost, is a budget ploy. They want more money.

And that's largely because their personnel costs are just eating their lunch. And, second, it's an attempt to develop - and this has something to do with money too of course - another threat, another cold war, another feeding system .

The military just hooks up like it is hooking up to an intravenous, you know, an IV system and the money just pours out-slush fund money, appropriated money, everything else.

More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the money keeps flowing.

Watch Wilkerson's complete interview here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/42LauiK_rbY

* * *

Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[May 19, 2019] The OPCW, Douma, The Skripals

Notable quotes:
"... The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East. ..."
"... Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense. ..."
"... A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time. ..."
"... The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation. ..."
"... The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know. ..."
"... The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect. ..."
"... Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later). ..."
"... The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all. ..."
"... She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day. ..."
"... If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East. ..."
"... So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility? ..."
"... This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first. ..."
"... If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this. ..."
"... But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval. ..."
"... The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end. ..."
"... Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever. ..."
"... In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran. ..."
"... The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Off-Guardian.org,

In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma "chemical attack" were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.

The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.

You can read the whole article here .

* * *

PRIMARILY UK INITIATIVE?

The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East.

Since at least 2001 and the launch of the "War on Terror" the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.

This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the "response".

The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the attacks, and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.

Trump's attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation. But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense.

A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.

You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.

The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation.

The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?) voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.

Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma "attack", and the claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It's possible this time there were other considerations in the mix beside the usual need to "be seen to do something" and Trump's perpetual requirement to appease the liberal Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.

THE SKRIPAL CONSIDERATION

Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn't this way. Since some time in mid to late March it's been clear the entire thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.

The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.

The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.

  1. It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
  2. Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
  3. It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the "toxic substance" found in the Skripals' blood is omitted, and the only thing tying it to the UK government's public claims of "novichok" is association by inference and proximity.

Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).

None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.

The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.

She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.

Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative, snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can't completely control.

Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma "gas attack" and subsequent drive for a concerted western "response" have to do with trying to fix that?

IS THIS WHAT HAPPENED?

If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East.

So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?

Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?

Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?

So, did they push on with the now virtually useless "chemical attack", botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied "response" to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?

This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.

It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed UK government is less appealing.

And it would explain why the "reprisals" when they came were so half-hearted.

If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this.

This is very bad.

But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.

This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it's unlikely that will happen.

So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn into this.

Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more "reprisals"? Or will this signal some other change in direction?

We'll all know soon enough.

* * *

Back to today...

...and while things have moved on, we're still puzzling over all the same issues.

All these questions stand, and are important, but more important than all of that is the lesson: They tried it before, and just because it didn't work doesn't mean they won't try it again.

Last spring, the Western powers showed they will deploy a false flag if they need too, for domestic or international motives. And they have the motives right now.

The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end.

Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever.

Britain had the most to gain, of all NATO countries, and that is still true. We don't know what they might do.

This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home and would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction.

In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran.

That's not to say Syria is safe, far from it. They are always just one carefully place false-flag away from all-out war. Last year, Mattis (or whoever) decided war with Syria was not an option – that it was too risky or complicated. That might not happen next time.

Clearly, the US hasn't totally seen sense in terms of stoking conflict with Russia – as seen by the decision to pull out of the INF Treaty late last year. And further demonstrated by their attempts to overthrow Russia's ally Nicolas Maduro. Another ripe candidate for a false flag.

The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media.

But because recognising what they were trying to do last time , is the best defense when they try it again next time .

[May 18, 2019] Under the neocon enforced regime of the US militarism winning the competition takes precedence over working together, and diplomacy is reduced to making and enforcing US demands.

May 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , May 18, 2019 10:26:39 AM | link

What we need is a true and functional global community of nations and people, where governments truly work together to balance out the stronger world powers.

The US national security state which enjoys a huge military budget and 800 overseas bases necessarily sees the world in a masculine competitive sense, not in a feminine cooperative sense. So winning the competition takes precedence over working together, and diplomacy is reduced to making and enforcing US demands.

from the recent US National Defense Strategy. . .

We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security. China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea. . . here

[May 18, 2019] The mentality of a nation founded by people who considered themselves God's Chosen is crippled forever

May 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , May 18, 2019 1:46:55 AM | link

Thanks to everyone who replied to my comment @ 25.

I certainly agree with Peter AU 1 @ 33 and 40 that the Western (or more specifically the English) mentality of the period in which the US was founded as a set of colonies and then later became a nation was a significant influence on the US' later conception of its place in the world. The Pilgrims must have certainly felt themselves blessed by God in surviving (with the help of native individuals like Squanto) their early years of crop failures and famines; at the same time they regarded their new environment as theirs for the taking (in their mind-set, God had willed it so) and the native people, being non-Christian, as their enemies. The Pilgrims may have seen themselves as God's Chosen people cast into the wilderness like the Israelites wandering in the Sinai under Moses for 40 years. This is one root of 'Murica's belief in itself as the Exceptional Nation. (It probably also is the root of the Special Relationship between the US and Israel.)

Overthrowing British monarchical rule and replacing it with a republican form of government (and nicking the idea of federal government from the Iroquois confederacy of indigenous nations around the Great Lakes region) no doubt reinforced this self-belief in being the Exceptional Nation. Add to that the territorial expansion across the prairies and the Rockies, then receiving waves of immigrants from northern, central and eastern Europe (mostly German-speaking) through the 19th century, wars (War of 1812 and the American Civil War) in which the British are either the enemy or aid the Confederate States, the genocide of indigenous peoples by the US government in the late 1800s and the legacy of slavery (which American slave-owning states claimed was supported by the Bible) and you have the foundation for a nation that believes that everyone around the world looks up to it for moral and spiritual leadership.

The mentality of a nation founded by people who considered themselves God's Chosen probably also finds unusual parallels in the superhero phenomenon. Most comic superheroes like Superman, Spiderman et al are "chosen" in some way (even if by accident as in the case of Spiderman). They are blessed with unusual powers and make a choice as to how to use their powers, whether for good or evil. They nearly always work alone and if they work together, they don't necessarily collaborate well but tend to work in parallel against evil. Superheroes like Batman work alone (or with a junior partner) aided by loads of technology which require his alter ego to be an insanely wealthy and eccentric industrialist. As Wage Laborer @ 35 says, all this definitely is internalised: I didn't even have to look up anything on Batman to be able to say all this!

[May 17, 2019] US military complex is a 'malignant virus' that's evolved to defend itself

May 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: Next New Comment May 16, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT

@9/11 Inside job Andrew Cockburn: "US military complex is a 'malignant virus' that's evolved to defend itself" https://www.rt.com/usa/459505-us-military-industrial-virus/

"The MIC is embedded in our society to such a degree that it cannot be dislodged, and also that it could be said to be concerned, exclusively, with self-preservation and expansion, like a giant, malignant virus."

The system has evolved to be very good at defending itself – while leaving the country, "in reality so poorly defended".

One Tribe , says: May 16, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT
Thanks again CJH for all the chuckles. It is time all 'real' people acknowledged that

The NYT is the " Propagandist of Record ".

Nothing more. And it's been like that for quite a while. While it would be logical to identify the systemic bend, and blindness that it has, it is probably against the law, like all discussions about [redacted]

A pattern that has played out consistently for over 2000 years, and can be seen for what it is in reviewing the Pale (of Settlements) and the conditions for those not included in the [redacted]. But really, it's beyond the pale, isn't it. People, slowly but surely, are building immunity to the perception management programs, even with the wildly amplified volume and frequency , we see the early adapters adapting, and opting for the red pill .

Just a co-incidence that while the psychotic ' leaders ' of a small colonial ' government ' squatting on expropriated land, committing escalating genocidal programs against the indigenous population, and actively conflating it with anti-[redacted], while the co-affiliates resident in the empire's other nation-states keep quiet, there seems to be an epidemic of anti-[redacted]?!

" It's a trick, and we use it a lot. "
he, he, aren't we so clever!

This ruse is coming to an end soon
and all of those people working in the desert somewhere, writing stuff online, are going to have to get real jobs.

[May 14, 2019] Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan

Highly recommended!
Trump provided to be another Obama -- master of "bait and switch". His promise to disengage from foreign wars remains an unfulfilled promise. Due to thefact that he is owned by pro-Israel lobby he broung into his administrations such rabid neocons as chickenhawk Bolton and smug ruthless careerist masquerading as far-right zealot as Pompeo (and before them Haley). His promises to raise the standard of living of middles class (which is impossible without cutting the military budget) remains fake. He is a fake. The second fake after obama -- Republican Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come. ..."
"... According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. ..."
"... In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years. ..."
Apr 10, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come.

According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid.

The Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts "smaller" poverty alleviation projects and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.

Rutherford Institute's founder and director John W. WhiteHead writes in his institute's website that the American nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments. He remarks:

"Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national security and urgent military needs".

He writes "you know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government's fiscal year? Government agencies – including the Department of Defense – go on a 'use it or lose it' spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year".

"We are talking about $97 billion worth of wasteful spending"

He maintains that the nation's educational system is pathetic, the infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by the day and the health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most.

The tax cuts on super-rich, outflow of huge sums in interest payment for debt and more spending are plunging the US economy into a new crisis, according to many authors. The US economy faces a deficit which means the spending especially on military and defence is far exceeding the tax revenues.

In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years.

According to a study regarding world powers' overseas military bases

In other words, the US possesses up to 95 per cent of the world's military bases . The Department of Defense says that its locations include 164 countries. Put another way, it has a military presence of some sort in approximately 84 percent of the nations on this planet.

The US Military Bases Abroad Are Disrupting the World Order

The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated US$ 150 billion annually. The US bases abroad cost upwards of US$ 50 billion only for building and maintenance, which is enough to address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing and infrastructure.

In 2017 and 2018, the world's largest military spenders were the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India. The UK took over France as sixth largest spender in 2018 while Japan and Germany stood at eighth and ninth positions.

In early 2018, Pentagon released a report saying that Afghan war costs US$ 45 billion to taxpayers in the preceding year. Of this amount, US$ 5 billion has been spent on Afghan forces, US$ 13 billion towards US forces in Afghanistan and the rest on economic aid.

But these costs are far lower than the time when the US military was highly engaged in Afghanistan. With nearly 100,000 soldiers in the country from 2010 to 2012, the price for American taxpayers surpassed US$ 100 billion each year. For now, there are around 16,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into Afghanistan, the US admits it failed in war against militants in Afghanistan.

In November 2018, another study published by CNBC reported that America has spent US$ 5.9 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001 including in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The study also reveals that more than 500,000 people have been killed in the wars and nearly 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.

The US has reportedly spent US$ 1.07 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001 which include Overseas Contingency Operations funds dedicated to Afghanistan, costs on the base budget of the Department of Defense and increase to the budget of the Department of Veteran Affairs.

In Afghanistan, the US costs of war in 2001 commenced with US$ 37.3 billion that soared to US$ 57.3 billion in 2007 and US$ 100 billion in 2009. The year with record spending was 2010 with US$ 112.7 billion that slightly plummeted to US$ 110.4 billion in 2011 but took downwards trend in the later years.

Due to skyrocketing military costs on the US government, Trump Administration recently decided to pack up some of its military bases in Afghanistan and Middle East to diminish expenditures, though it doesn't mean the wars would end at all.

According to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the US Congress has appropriated more than US$ 126 billion in aid for Afghanistan since financial year 2002, with almost 63 percent for security and 28 percent for development and the remainder for civilian operations, mostly budgetary assistance and humanitarian aid. Alongside the US aid, many world countries have pumped millions of dollars in development aids, but what is evident for insiders and outsiders is that a trickle of those funds has actually gone into Afghanistan's reconstruction.

With eighteen years into Afghan war, the security is deteriorating; Afghan air force is ill-equipped; poppy cultivation is on the rise; roads and highways are dilapidated or unconstructed; no mediocre hospital and health care has been established; weekly conflict causalities hit 150-250; electricity is still imported from Central Asian countries; economy remains dependent upon imports; unemployment rate is at its peak; more than three quarters of population live under poverty line and many, many more miseries persist or aggravate.

The US boasts of being the largest multi-billion dollar donor for Afghanistan, but if one takes a deeper look at the living standards of majority and the overall conditions, it can be immediately grasped that less than half of that exaggerated fund has been consumed. The US-made government of Afghanistan has deliberately been left behind to rank as the first corrupt country in the world. Thanks to the same unaddressed pervasive corruption, a hefty amount of that fund has been either directed back to the US hands or embezzled by senior Afghan officials.

Afghanistan's new Living Conditions Survey shows that poverty is more widespread today than it was immediately after the fall of Taliban regime, or in other words, in the early days of US invasion.

Next month, Kabul will host a Consultative Loya Jirga attended by around 2,000 representatives from Afghanistan which will cost the Afghan Ministry of Finance AF 369 million (equivalent to five million US$). Even as the past has proved that these events are only symbolic and further complicating the achievement of peace, a country with great majority under poverty line doesn't deserve to organize such costly gatherings.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Masud Wadan is a geopolitical analyst based in Kabul. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Salon.com

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Masud Wadan , Global Research, 2019

[May 11, 2019] US Army Colonel Pentagon's Latest China Report A Budget Ploy To Bleed The Taxpayer

May 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777 More ridiculous Civil Asset Forfeiture shenanigans by TDB - May 10, 2019 1:46 pm Chicago police run a vehicle impound racket

"A Little Fear" Makes for an Exciting Week in Gold and Silver by Sprott Money - May 10, 2019 11:45 am Trade Wars, Tariffs, and Volatility. Oh my! US Army Colonel: Pentagon's Latest China Report A "Budget Ploy" To Bleed The Taxpayer

by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/10/2019 - 21:45 2 SHARES

A former US Army Colonel has blasted Department of Defense's (DOD) latest report on China's military capabilities as a "budget ploy" .

"You're looking at a situation where the only thing [the DOD] can ask for, in terms of fixing any of this, is money -- more and more money " retired Colonel Lawrence "Larry" Wilkerson said of the DoD's annual report prepared for Congress entitled, "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2019".

US Navy in the Pacific Ocean, via US Navy/Reuters

Wilkerson, who served as former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, described in an interview with The Real News that hyping the China threat taps into a well-trodden American pastime of fear-mongering in order to squeeze more precious taxpayer dollars towards inflated budgets .

The Pentagon report focused heavily on President Xi's plans for rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), especially China's ambitious plans for the region's "largest navy" -- which has lately included ongoing construction of the country's third aircraft carrier (the first full-sized one), with plans for seven total by 2025.

Watch the interview with Army Col. (ret.) Larry Wilkerson below.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/42LauiK_rbY?start=60

Col. Wilkerson dismissed the idea that China's aircraft carrier or latest much reported naval modernization initiatives were real causes for concern:

We've got a dozen [aircraft carriers]. They've got one at sea, one about to come out, and another one perhaps, and ours are so far ahead of theirs that it's 10, 15, 20 years before they even achieve the kind of capacity we have .

He explained that "aircraft carriers are extraordinarily vulnerable and we're going to find that out when one of them with 5,000 hands and $14bn worth of taxpayer money is sunk in less than 30 minutes, whenever we get engaged in something real."

Now a military analyst who teaches at The College of William & Mary in Virginia, Wilkerson addressed the familiar Pentagon cycle of threat inflation in the interview:

The [US] army could not expand; it could not take on a real enemy today without massive conscription and full mobilization . And I wonder if the nation could even stand that today. And so, you're looking at a situation where the only thing [the DOD] can ask for, in terms of fixing any of this, is money -- more and more money.

However, he did warn that the heightened rhetoric and blustering amidst a trade war could serve to paint both sides into a corner, resulting in a scenario of blindly bumbling toward war, as other analysts have described of the so-called "Thucydides Trap".

Wilkerson said an increasingly aggressive US posture toward Beijing could create a "self-fulfilling prophecy," wherein each minor escalation based on inflating threats begins "demarcating the highway to war with China," - according to the interview.

[May 08, 2019] America's Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think

May 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

America's Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think

by Tyler Durden Tue, 05/07/2019 - 18:50 3 SHARES Authored by William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger via TomDispatch.com,

Each year, Congress approves hundreds of billions of dollars for the US defense budget... but the real number exceeds $1 trillion.

In its latest budget request, the Trump administration is asking for a near-record $750 billion for the Pentagon and related defense activities -- an astonishing figure by any measure. If passed by Congress, it will be one of the largest military budgets in American history, topping peak levels reached during the Korean and Vietnam wars. And keep one thing in mind: That $750 billion represents only part of the actual annual cost of our national security state.

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There are at least 10 separate pots of money dedicated to fighting wars, preparing for yet more wars, and dealing with the consequences of wars already fought. So the next time a president , a general , a secretary of defense , or a hawkish member of Congress insists that the US military is woefully underfunded, think twice. A careful look at US defense expenditures offers a healthy corrective to such wildly inaccurate claims.

Now, let's take a brief dollar-by-dollar tour of the US national security state of 2019, tallying the sums as we go, and see just where we finally land (or perhaps the word should be "soar"), financially speaking.

The Pentagon's base budget: The Pentagon's regular, or base, budget is slated to be $544.5 billion in fiscal year 2020 -- a healthy sum but only a modest down payment on total military spending.

As you might imagine, that base budget provides basic operating funds for the Department of Defense, much of which will be squandered on preparations for ongoing wars never authorized by Congress, overpriced weapons systems that aren't actually needed, or outright waste, an expansive category that includes everything from cost overruns to unnecessary bureaucracy. That $544.5 billion is the amount publicly reported by the Pentagon for its essential expenses and includes $9.6 billion in mandatory spending that goes toward items like military retirement.

https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855

Among those basic expenses, let's start with waste, a category even the biggest boosters of Pentagon spending can't defend. The Pentagon's own Defense Business Board found that cutting unnecessary overhead, including a bloated bureaucracy and a startlingly large shadow workforce of private contractors, would save $125 billion over five years. Perhaps you won't be surprised to learn that the board's proposal has done little to quiet calls for more money. Instead, from the highest reaches of the Pentagon (and the president himself) came a proposal to create a Space Force, a sixth military service that's all but guaranteed to further bloat its bureaucracy and duplicate work being done by the other services. Even Pentagon planners estimate that the future Space Force will cost $13 billion over the next five years (and that's undoubtedly a low-ball figure).

In addition, the Defense Department employs an army of private contractors -- more than 600,000 of them -- many doing jobs that could be done far more cheaply by civilian government employees. Cutting the private contractor work force by 15 percent to a mere half-million people would promptly save more than $20 billion per year . And don't forget the cost overruns on major weapons programs like the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent -- the Pentagon's unwieldy name for the Air Force's new intercontinental ballistic missile -- and routine overpayments for even minor spare parts (like $8,000 for a helicopter gear worth less than $500 -- a markup of 1,500 percent).

Then there are the overpriced weapons systems the military can't even afford to operate, like a $13 billion aircraft carrier, 200 nuclear bombers at $564 million a pop, and the F-35 combat aircraft, the most expensive weapons system in history, at a price tag of at least $1.4 trillion over the lifetime of the program. The Project on Government Oversight has found -- and the Government Accountability Office recently substantiated -- that, despite years of work and staggering costs, the F-35 may never perform as advertised.

And don't forget the Pentagon's recent push for long-range strike weapons and new reconnaissance systems designed for future wars with a nuclear-armed Russia or China, the kind of conflicts that could easily escalate into World War III, in which such weaponry would be beside the point. Imagine if any of that money were devoted to figuring out how to prevent such conflicts rather than hatching yet more schemes for how to fight them.

BASE BUDGET TOTAL: $554.1 BILLION

The war budget: As if its regular budget weren't enough, the Pentagon also maintains its very own slush fund, formally known as the Overseas Contingency Operations account, or OCO. In theory, the fund is meant to pay for the War on Terrorism -- that is, the US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere across the Middle East and Africa. In practice, it does that and so much more.

After a fight over shutting down the government led to the formation of a bipartisan commission on deficit reduction -- known as Simpson-Bowles after its co-chairs, former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican senator Alan Simpson -- Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011. It put caps on both military and domestic spending that were supposed to save a total of $2 trillion over 10 years. Half that figure was to come from the Pentagon, as well as from nuclear-weapons spending at the Department of Energy. As it happened, though, there was a huge loophole: The war budget was exempt from the caps. The Pentagon promptly began to put tens of billions of dollars into it for pet projects that had nothing whatsoever to do with current wars (and the process has not stopped). The level of abuse of this fund remained largely secret for years, with the Pentagon admitting only in 2016 that just half the money in the OCO went to actual wars, prompting critics and numerous members of Congress -- including then-Representative Mick Mulvaney, now President Donald Trump's latest chief of staff -- to dub it a "slush fund."

This year's budget proposal supersizes the slush in that fund to a figure that would likely be considered absurd if it weren't part of the Pentagon budget. Of the nearly $174 billion proposed for the war budget and "emergency" funding, only a little more than $25 billion is meant to directly pay for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The rest will be set aside for what's termed enduring activities that would continue even if those wars ended or for routine Pentagon activities that couldn't be funded within the constraints of the budget caps. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is expected to work to alter this arrangement. Even if the House leadership has its way, however, most of its reductions in the war budget would be offset by lifting caps on the regular Pentagon budget by corresponding amounts. (It's worth noting that Trump's budget calls for someday eliminating the slush fund.)

The 2020 OCO also includes $9.2 billion in "emergency" spending for building Trump's beloved wall on the US-Mexico border, among other things. Talk about a slush fund! There is no emergency, of course. The executive branch is just seizing taxpayer dollars that Congress refused to provide. Even supporters of the president's wall should be troubled by this money grab. As 36 former Republican members of Congress recently argued , "What powers are ceded to a president whose policies you support may also be used by presidents whose policies you abhor." Of all of Trump's "security"-related proposals, this is undoubtedly the most likely to be eliminated or at least scaled back, given the congressional Democrats against it.

WAR BUDGET TOTAL: $173.8 BILLION

Running tally: $727.9 billion

The Department of Energy/nuclear budget: It may surprise you to know that work on the deadliest weapons in the US arsenal, nuclear warheads, is housed in the Department of Energy, not the Pentagon. The DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration runs a nationwide research, development, and production network for nuclear warheads and naval nuclear reactors that stretches from Livermore, California, to Albuquerque and Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Kansas City, Missouri, to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to Savannah River, South Carolina. Its laboratories also have a long history of program mismanagement, with some projects coming in at nearly eight times their initial estimates.

NUCLEAR BUDGET TOTAL: $24.8 BILLION

Running tally: $752.7 billion

Defense-related activities: This category covers the $9 billion that annually goes to agencies other than the Pentagon -- the bulk of it to the FBI for homeland-security-related activities.

DEFENSE-RELATED ACTIVITIES TOTAL: $9 BILLION

Running tally: $761.7 billion

The five categories above make up the budget of what's officially known as national defense. Under the Budget Control Act, this spending should have been capped at $630 billion. The $761.7 billion proposed for the 2020 budget is, however, only the beginning of the story.

The Veterans Affairs budget: The wars of this century have resulted in a new generation of veterans. In all, over 2.7 million US military personnel have cycled through the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Many of them remain in need of substantial support to deal with the physical and mental wounds of war. As a result, the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs has gone through the roof, more than tripling in this century to a proposed $216 billion . And this massive figure may not even be enough to provide the necessary services.

\More than 6,900 US military personnel have died in Washington's post-9/11 wars, with more than 30,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. These casualties are, however, just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of thousands of returning troops suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, illnesses created by exposure to toxic burn pits, or traumatic brain injuries. The US government is committed to providing care for these veterans for the rest of their lives. An analysis by the Costs of War Project at Brown University determined that obligations to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will total more than $1 trillion in the years to come. This cost of war is rarely considered when leaders in Washington decide to send US troops into combat.

VETERANS AFFAIRS TOTAL: $216 BILLION

Running tally: $977.7 billion

The Homeland Security budget: The Department of Homeland Security is a mega-agency created after the 9/11 attacks. At the time, it swallowed 22 existing government organizations, creating a massive department that currently has nearly a quarter of a million employees. Agencies that are now part of the DHS include the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Secret Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

While some of the DHS's activities -- such as airport security and defense against the smuggling of a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb into our midst -- have a clear security rationale, many others do not. ICE -- America's deportation force -- has done far more to cause suffering among innocent people than to thwart criminals or terrorists. Other questionable DHS activities include grants to local law enforcement agencies to help them buy military-grade equipment.

HOMELAND SECURITY TOTAL: $69.2 BILLION

Running tally: $1.0469 trillion

The international-affairs budget: This includes the budgets of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. Diplomacy is one of the most effective ways to make the United States and the world more secure, but it has been under assault in the Trump years. The Fiscal Year 2020 budget calls for a one-third cut in international affairs spending, leaving it at about one-fifteenth of the amount allocated for the Pentagon and related agencies grouped under the category of national defense. And that doesn't even account for the fact that more than 10 percent of the international affairs budget supports military aid efforts, most notably the $5.4 billion Foreign Military Financing program. The bulk of FMF goes to Israel and Egypt, but in all over a dozen countries receive funding under it, including Jordan, Lebanon, Djibouti, Tunisia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS TOTAL: $51 BILLION

Running tally: $1.0979 trillion

The intelligence budget: The United States has 17 intelligence agencies. In addition to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the FBI, mentioned above, they are the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Drug Enforcement Agency's Office of National Security Intelligence, the Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, the Office of Naval Intelligence, Marine Corps Intelligence, Coast Guard Intelligence, and Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. And then there's that 17th one, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, set up to coordinate the activities of the other 16.

We know remarkably little about the nature of the nation's intelligence spending, other than its supposed total, released in a report every year. By now, it's more than $80 billion . The bulk of this funding, including for the CIA and NSA, is believed to be hidden under obscure line items in the Pentagon budget. Since intelligence spending is not a separate funding stream, it's not counted in our tally below (though, for all we know, some of it should be).

INTELLIGENCE BUDGET TOTAL: $80 BILLION

Running tally: $1.0979 trillion

Defense share of interest on the national debt: The interest on the national debt is well on its way to becoming one of the most expensive items in the federal budget. Within a decade, it is projected to exceed the Pentagon's regular budget in size. For now, of the more than $500 billion in interest taxpayers fork over to service the government's debt each year, about $156 billion can be attributed to Pentagon spending.

DEFENSE SHARE OF NATIONAL DEBT TOTAL: $156.3 BILLION

Final tally: $1.2542 trillion

So our final annual tally for war, preparations for war, and the impact of war comes to more than $1.25 trillion, more than double the Pentagon's base budget. If the average taxpayer were aware that this amount was being spent in the name of national defense -- with much of it wasted, misguided, or simply counterproductive -- it might be far harder for the national security state to consume ever-growing sums with minimal public pushback. For now, however, the gravy train is running full speed ahead, and its main beneficiaries -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing , Northrop Grumman, and their cohort -- are laughing all the way to the bank.

[May 05, 2019] The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen

Highly recommended!
Pentagon serves Wall Street and is controlled by CIA which is actually can be viewed as a Wall Street arm as well.
Notable quotes:
"... This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. ..."
"... General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . ..."
"... The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence. ..."
"... If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. ..."
"... Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM. ..."
"... Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The two-star army general strode across the stage in his rumpled combat fatigues, almost like George Patton -- all that was missing was the cigar and riding crop. It was 2017 and I was in the audience, just another mid-level major attending yet another mandatory lecture in the auditorium of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The general then commanded one of the Army's two true armored divisions and had plenty of his tanks forward deployed in Eastern Europe, all along the Russian frontier. Frankly, most CGSC students couldn't stand these talks. Substance always seemed lacking, as each general reminded us to "take care of soldiers" and "put the mission first," before throwing us a few nuggets of conventional wisdom on how to be good staff officers should we get assigned to his vaunted command.

This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. Generals can be like that -- utterly "in-the-box," "can-do" thinkers. They take pride in how little they discuss policy and politics, even when they command tens of thousands of troops and control entire districts, provinces, or countries. There is some value in this -- we'd hardly want active generals meddling in U.S. domestic affairs. But they nonetheless can take the whole "aw shucks" act a bit too far.

General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . Of course, it was all cloaked in the macho bravado so common among generals who think that talking like sergeants will win them street cred with the troops. (That's not their job anymore, mind you.) He said nothing, of course, about the role of mid- and long-range nuclear weapons that could be the catastrophic consequence of an unnecessary war with the Russian Bear.

I got to thinking about that talk recently as I reflected in wonder at how the latest generation of mainstream "liberals" loves to fawn over generals, admirals -- any flag officers, really -- as alternatives to President Donald Trump. The irony of that alliance should not be lost on us. It's built on the standard Democratic fear of looking "soft" on terrorism, communism, or whatever-ism, and their visceral, blinding hatred of Trump. Some of this is understandable. Conservative Republicans masterfully paint liberals as "weak sisters" on foreign policy, and Trump's administration is, well, a wild card in world affairs.

The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence.

If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. More of the same is all they know: their careers were built on fighting "terror" anywhere it raised its evil head. Some, though no longer most, still subscribe to the faux intellectualism of General Petraeus and his legion of Coindinistas , who never saw a problem that a little regime change, followed by expert counterinsurgency, couldn't solve. Forget that they've been proven wrong time and again and can count zero victories since 2002. Generals (remember this!) are never held accountable.

Flag officers also rarely seem to recognize that they owe civilian policymakers more than just tactical "how" advice. They ought to be giving "if" advice -- if we invade Iraq, it will take 500,000 troops to occupy the place, and even then we'll ultimately destabilize the country and region, justify al-Qaeda's worldview, kick off a nationalist insurgency, and become immersed in an unwinnable war. Some, like Army Chief General Eric Shinseki and CENTCOM head John Abizaid, seemed to know this deep down. Still, Shinseki quietly retired after standing up to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Abizaid rode out his tour to retirement.

Trump Scores, Breaks Generals' 50-Year War Record Afghanistan and America's 'Indispensable Nation' Hubris

Generals also love to tell the American people that victory is "just around the corner," or that there's a "light at the end of the tunnel." General William Westmoreland used the very same language when predicting imminent victory in Vietnam. Two months later, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong unleashed the largest uprising of the war, the famed Tet Offensive.

Take Afghanistan as exhibit A: 17 or so generals have now commanded U.S. troops in this, America's longest war. All have commanded within the system and framework of their predecessors. Sure, they made marginal operational and tactical changes -- some preferred surges, others advising, others counterterror -- but all failed to achieve anything close to victory, instead laundering failure into false optimism. None refused to play the same-old game or question the very possibility of victory in landlocked, historically xenophobic Afghanistan. That would have taken real courage, which is in short supply among senior officers.

Exhibit B involves Trump's former cabinet generals -- National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelley, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis -- whom adoring and desperate liberals took as saviors and canonized as the supposed adults in the room . They were no such thing. The generals' triumvirate consisted ultimately of hawkish conventional thinkers married to the dogma of American exceptionalism and empire. Period.

Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM.

Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.

Helping Saudi Arabia terror bomb Yemen and starve 85,000 children to death? Mattis rebuked Congress and supported that. He never considered resigning in opposition to that war crime. No, he fell on his "courageous" sword over downgrading a losing 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Not to mention he came to Trump's cabinet straight from the board of contracting giant General Dynamics, where he collected hundreds of thousands of military-industrial complex dollars.

Then there was John Kelley, whom Press Secretary Sarah Sanders implied was above media questioning because he was once a four-star marine general. And there's McMaster, another lauded intellectual who once wrote an interesting book and taught history at West Point. Yet he still drew all the wrong conclusions in his famous book on Vietnam -- implying that more troops, more bombing, and a mass invasion of North Vietnam could have won the war. Furthermore, his work with Mattis on Trump's unhinged , imperial National Defense Strategy proved that he was, after all, just another devotee of American hyper-interventionism.

So why reflect on these and other Washington generals? It's simple: liberal veneration for these, and seemingly all, military flag officers is a losing proposition and a formula for more intervention, possible war with other great powers, and the creeping militarization of the entire U.S. government. We know what the generals expect -- and potentially want -- for America's foreign policy future.

Just look at the curriculum at the various war and staff colleges from Kansas to Rhode Island. Ten years ago, they were all running war games focused on counterinsurgency in the Middle East and Africa. Now those same schools are drilling for future "contingencies" in the Baltic, Caucasus, and in the South China Sea. Older officers have always lamented the end of the Cold War "good old days," when men were men and the battlefield was "simple." A return to a state of near-war with Russia and China is the last thing real progressives should be pushing for in 2020.

The bottom line is this: the faint hint that mainstream libs would relish a Six Days in May style military coup is more than a little disturbing, no matter what you think of Trump. Democrats must know the damage such a move would do to our ostensible republic. I say: be a patriot. Insist on civilian control of foreign affairs. Even if that means two more years of The Donald.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to Truthdig . His work has also appeared in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times , The Nation , Tom Dispatch , and The Hill . He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .

[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

[May 05, 2019] The Establishment clowns Bolton, Pence and Pompeo will keep Trump on track in proving the the USA is lawless brutal empire

May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Michael , April 30, 2019 at 18:40

America's word has never been taken seriously. Ever heard of our treaties with the Native Americans? Clinton abrogated the accords between Gorbachev and Reagan, that NATO would not move one inch to the East. Clinton set up the drunken Yeltsin as his puppet, interfering with Russia's elections and raping their economy.

Bush II desperately wanted to finish his father's Gulf War, ignoring the UN weapons inspectors. He also unilaterally pulled the US out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

America promised Ghaddafi that if he did not pursue nuclear weapons and supporting terrorists (like Saudi Arabia and Israel), he would be left alone. Soon he was dead from bayonet rape with a gleeful chortling Hillary impressing American spooks with her "Libya Model", touted by Bolton, Pence and Pompeo to Kim's face.

Obama's deal with Iran was hated even more by Hillary (and most members of Congress) than by Trump, and was doomed when Obama left office (one of his few achievements, however fleeting).

The Establishment clowns Bolton, Pence and Pompeo will keep Trump on track.

[Apr 30, 2019] Here's how much global military spending rose in 2018

Apr 30, 2019 | www.defensenews.com

WASHINGTON -- Overall military expenditures rose 2.6 percent between 2017 and 2018 , to hit a total of $1.82 trillion, according to new research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The total from 2018 is 5.4 percent higher than 2009, and represents a 76 percent increase over 1998, a 20-year period.

Sixty percent of global military spending came from five countries: The United States ($649 billion), China ($250 billion), Saudi Arabia ($67.6 billion), India ($66.5 billion) and France ($63.8 billion). Russia ($61.4 billion) and the United Kingdom ($50 billion) were the other two countries to spend $50 billion or more on defense.

However, there are ups and downs among the biggest spenders. While the U.S. (4.6 percent, the first overall growth since 2010), China (5 percent) and India (3.1 percent) increased their respective military spending year over year, Saudi Arabia cut its spending by 6.5 percent, France by 1.4 percent and Russia by 3.5 percent.

And overall defense spending per gross domestic product fell to 2.1 percent in 2018, representing $239 per global citizen, a 0.1 percent decrease over one year and a 0.5 percent decrease over 10 years.

Notably, Russia ranked outside the top five for the first time since 2006. China, meanwhile, increased its military spending for the 24th consecutive year, and its spending is almost 10 times higher than it was in 1994; however, researchers warn that Chinese growth may slow in the coming year.

"The annual rate of growth of China's military spending has slowed steadily since it reached a post-2009 high of 9.3 percent in 2013. The growth of 5.0 percent in 2018 was the lowest annual increase since 1995," the authors note. "China has followed a policy of linking growth in military spending with economic growth. With its economic growth slowing in 2018 to the lowest level in 28 years, slower rates of growth in the coming years can be expected if China continues to follow this policy."

Mike Smith

Cuts in DOD should start right here, given the utter absurdity and culture of entitlement that continues unchecked in DOD with the objectively preposterous $21 BILLION per year tax free monthly optional off-ship and of-base surmised "housing" allowances/handouts in our nation's all volunteer military.

Just look at these tax free monthly handouts! They are all beyond ridiculous regardless of location and rank! And most were increased yet again for 2019!

Upwards of $2,000-over $5,000 a month tax free for singles, the vast majority of who could and should be living in the existing and more than adequate singles quarters on the ships and bases they are assigned.

Upwards of eye-popping ranges of $4,000-$6,000-$8,000-$10,677, yes, $10,677 a month tax free for so-called "dual married" volunteer couples. Dual marrieds are two married volunteers. There are approx. 90,000 volunteers who are dual married. And all of these couples get TWO tax free monthly handouts for their ONE family unit.

If they have a kid, one gets the higher "with dependents" tax free rate. And the other gets the slightly lower "without dependents" rate. If no kid, then they both get the tax free monthly "without" rate. And the vast majority of these dual marrieds are already being paid from $100,000-$300,000 and more in combined annual base pays, other pays, and other tax free monthly handouts each year.

These extremely well paid couples should be using their very generous US taxpayer provided de facto salaries to pay for their housing needs just like the taxpaying public. Or at a bare minimum means testing is more than appropriate just as other federal social welfare programs are administered.

And the most outrageous fact concerning these patently absurd tax free monthly handouts is that no proof of any kind is needed to show that these tax free windfalls are actually being used for off base "housing" needs or expenses in the first place.

And as a direct result of this utter lack of management control and fiscal responsibility, most volunteers gain much lower cost housing (e.g., most singles opt to roommate) so they can divert, although currently legally, hundreds and even many thousands tax free into their pockets each month and/or divert them into luxury auto purchases and other items of excess so they can live vastly premature affluent lifestyles off the backs of the U.S. taxpayers.

And here is a sample of these ludicrous tax free monthly handouts by four cities over four ranks. Cumulatively, there are hundreds of thousands of military volunteers currently assigned throughout these four locations. And although there are many other locations with lower tax free monthly handouts, there are many others with even higher figures.

San Diego Area:

E-3 Singles - $1,995
E-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $4,530

E-7 Singles - $2,535
E-7 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $5,589

O-3 Singles - $2,880
O-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $6,009

O-6 Singles - $3,114
O-6 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $6,936

San Francisco Bay Area:

E-3 Singles - $3,312
E-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $7,623

E-7 Singles - $4,308
E-7 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $9,408

O-3 Singles - $4,806
O-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $9,990

O-6 Singles - $5,169
O-6 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $10,677, YES $10,677

Honolulu/Oahu:

E-3 Singles - $2,139
E-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $4,989

E-7 Singles - $2,856
E-7 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $6,132

O-3 Singles - $3,078
O-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $6,660

O-6 Singles - $3,573
O-6 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $7,557

Washington, DC Area

E-3 Singles - $1,845
E-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $4,200

E-7 Singles - $2,361
E-7 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $5,007

O-3 Singles - $2,571
O-3 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $5,316

O-6 Singles - $2,730
O-6 Dual Marrieds w/kid - $5,973

Rank Key:

  • E-3s are typically GED or HS educated. The vast majority are 19-20 years old with less than 2 years in the military since leaving their parent's homes, literally.
  • E-7s are typically the same as above but add 10-12 years and perhaps a dubious AA or BA "e-degree" gained at full taxpayer expense during their supposed "working" hours from an open enrollment, for profit, on-line diploma mill that caters to DOD staff and relies on taxpayer funds in DOD "training" accounts for its very existence.
  • O-3s are typically twenty somethings with undergrad degrees occupying entry-level or near entry-level military pseudo management or staff positions.
  • O-6s include legions of desk-based administrative support staffers with grad degrees earned 100% off the backs of the U.S. taxpayers

Contact your members of Congress today to help get this $21 billion per year, but little known outside of DOD tax free out of control gravy train stopped in its tracks

[Apr 30, 2019] Boeing Kept Mum to Customers, FAA About Disabling of 737 Max Warning System

Apr 30, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

... ... ...

This basic fact pattern has been revealed to be worse than it first appeared by virtue of Boeing not having been explicit that the angle of attack sensor alerts had been disabled on the 737 Max. Why should Boeing have cleared its throat and said something? Recall that the sales pitch for the 737 Max was that it was so much like existing 737s that it didn't require FAA recertification or pilot simulator training. But the angle of attack sensor alert had been a standard feature in all previous 737s, meaning buyers would assume it was part of the plane unless they were told otherwise. And on top of that, the non-upgraded 737 Max did have lights in the pilots' controls for this alert. But they didn't work unless the buyer had purchased the package of safety extras.

And the proof that Boeing was playing way too cute with its pointed silence about its deactivation of what had been a standard feature? The biggest customer for the 737 Max, Southwest Airlines, had inaccurate information in its pilots' manual because the airline had mistakenly assumed the angle of attack sensor alerts worked as they had on earlier 737s.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Boeing Co. didn't tell Southwest Airlines Co. and other carriers when they began flying its 737 MAX jets that a safety feature found on earlier models that warns pilots about malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated, according to government and industry officials.

Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and supervisors responsible for monitoring Southwest, the largest 737 MAX customer, also were unaware of the change, the officials said.

The alerts inform pilots whether a sensor known as an "angle-of-attack vane" is transmitting errant data about the pitch of a plane's nose .

Southwest's management and cockpit crews didn't know about the lack of the warning system for more than a year after the planes went into service in 2017, industry and government officials said. They and most other airlines operating the MAX learned about it only after the Lion Air crash in October led to scrutiny of the plane's revised design.

"Southwest's own manuals were wrong" about the availability of the alerts, said the Southwest pilots union president, Jon Weaks.

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allan , April 29, 2019 at 10:16 am

C-suite still in denial:

Boeing suppliers ramp up schedule for MAX: 52/mo by July, 57/mo by August [Leeham News]

Boeing reduced the production rate on the 737 line in mid-April from 52/mo to 42/mo in response to the grounding of the airplane by regulators worldwide.

The company and others said they didn't know how long the airplane would be grounded.

But Boeing told suppliers to keep producing parts, components and the fuselage at rate 52.

Boeing already had a ramp-up plan in place;

According to the information LNA learned at the, this is the schedule for ramping back up:

• Rate 42/mo, April and May;
• Rate 47, June;
• Rate 51.5, July and August; and
• Rate 57, September.

Boeing originally planned to go to 57/mo in June or July.

Good luck with that. The upside is that this corporate controlled flight into terrain
will someday make a great B-school case study.

Edit: If you Captcha-train an autonomous vehicle not to run into bicycles, and it gets into an accident,
are you legally liable? Asking for a friend.

The Rev Kev , April 29, 2019 at 10:55 am

Oh man, this is bad. Really bad. This story just gets worse and worse over time. It's like one of those Russian Matryoshka dolls – just when you think that you have a handle on what happened, you find that there is a whole new layer of ugliness underneath. When the hell did safety become an optional extra on Boeing aircraft? After reading this, I think that it was a minor miracle that there were no 737 MAX crashes in the continental United States. By the sounds of this article, it would have likely been a Southwest airliner if it had happened. I am wondering what else will come out of this saga that we don't know about yet.

flora , April 29, 2019 at 12:33 pm

+1.

Self-regulation/certification is a sham.
and
Boeing is toast, imo.

Arizona Slim , April 29, 2019 at 1:21 pm

I agree, flora. I also think that the Max is about to become the Chevy Corvair of airliners. As in, unsafe at any speed.

Wyoming , April 29, 2019 at 1:47 pm

I would say that Boeing easily falls into the 'Too big to fail.' category.

So no matter what happened they will be either made whole (more defense contracts, taxpayer bailout if necessary, whatever is needed) or protected in some way tbd. They are a 100 billion a year company with 150,000+ employees and untold numbers of other contractors and jobs depending on their existence. Going away is just not going to happen.

ex-PFC Chuck , April 29, 2019 at 4:02 pm

Never underestimate the MICC's* capability & inclination to look after its own.

*Military Industrial Congressional Complex

737 Pilot , April 29, 2019 at 10:55 am

Okay, Boeing screwed the pooch again, and they should have been more clear in their communications to the airlines. However, let me add some perspective as a 737 operator.

Given the AOA malfunction in either the Lion Air or Ethiopian accidents, an "AOA Disagree" warning annunciation would have possibly been helpful, but not really crucial to the safe recovery of the aircraft. There were plenty of other indications that the AOA's were disagreeing – namely that only one of the stick shakers was activated. Once you get over the initial surprise, it shouldn't have been that hard to determine this fact. The lack of the AOA display and disagree annunciator is not what doomed these crews.

vlade , April 29, 2019 at 11:04 am

I sort of agree and disagree.

I've never had a flight emergency as a pilot, but had a few as a diver. I suspect that for both of those, when they hit, you need to resolve things quickly and efficiently, with panic being the worst enemy.

Panic in my experience stems from a number of things here, but two crucial ones are:
– input overload
– not knowing what to do, or learned actions not having any effect

Both of them can be, to a very large extent, overcome with training, training, and more training (of actually practising the emergency situation, not just reading about it and filling questionairres).

So, if the crews were expecting to see AoA disagree but it wasn't there, they could have easily be misled and confused. The crews weren't (from what I've seen) hugely experienced. So any confusion would have made a bad situation even worse. How big an impact it made is hard to judge w/o any other materials.

marku52 , April 29, 2019 at 3:42 pm

Well it is rarely just one thing that causes an "accident". There are multiple contributors here. But the one basic overarching cause was Boeing's insistence that there-will-not-be-any-additional-training.

Without that management decree, the Max could be flown without the hack of MCAS, just that the pilots be trained on the new pitchup characteristics.

And releasing MCAS into the wild without even alerting pilots to its existence, well, that is manslaughter, if not outright murder.

CraaaaaaaaaazyChris , April 29, 2019 at 4:02 pm

My takeaway from the IEEE article was that the AOA sensor is almost a red herring. The dog that didn't bark was a pitch sensor, and the cardinal sin (from a software perspective) was that the MCAS algo did not consider pitch sensor values when deciding whether or not to angle the plane towards ground.

Synoia , April 29, 2019 at 11:09 am

Blame the pilots then? Is that your point?

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 1:50 pm

I suggest reading some of the other pieces on the 737 debacle on NC. There's been extensive discussion of the details, and yes the pilots may be partially to blame, but are the least culpable out of all parties involved.

GooGooGaJoob , April 29, 2019 at 12:03 pm

Given that story states that Boeing was more or less silent on the disabling of the sensor alerts, it's is reasonable to posit that any 737 pilot stepping into a 737 MAX would expect the sensor to be active.

I can understand the position that a pilot still needs to be skilled enough to not be 100% reliant on sensors, warning lights etc. to fly the plane. However, if I already assume that a sensor is active and it's not providing a signal that I would be potentially anticipating, it's going to seed doubt in my mind in a scenario where you don't have much time at all to think things through.

flora , April 29, 2019 at 12:44 pm

On the other hand: a safety light that is deactivated without telling the airlines and pilots gives false negatives to pilots at a critical juncture. They assume it's active, check it, and see a false negative they don't realize is false.

Imagine having a 'check engine' or 'oil' light on your car's dashboard that's been deactivated. They never come on. But they're still there. The driver assumes they'll light if there's engine trouble that needs attention.

Boeing's actions don't pass the 'reasonable man' test.

Jim A. , April 29, 2019 at 1:23 pm

Yeah, normally if a mechanical gauge "knows" that it isn't working there will be a little flag that pops up across the display. Leaving the light there but inoperative instead of either removing the light or covering it up with an "inoperative" cover is a really bad idea. It is EVEN WORSE than making safety features optional, and that is bad enough.

John k , April 29, 2019 at 1:30 pm

Let's see
First, they didn't know MCAS existed, so had no idea or training in what to do when it was erroneously engaged by system.
Then, they think both Aos sensors are working properly.
And, Boeing tells everybody plane is just like previous versions, no need for simulations.
I'm glad I'm not one of the dead pilots you're blaming.
By the way, it's apparently just chance that the bad sensors affected foreign and not domestic flights, no public reports that superior domestic pilots had no problem when it hit the fan on their watch although some domestic airlines were told (warned) that bad sensor light was optional extra so possibly a domestic plane cancelled flight on account of bad sensor.
But imagine a really experienced pilot would have saved the day so Boeing should say only really experienced pilots should fly the plane? Maybe simulators help you get really experienced, especially with unexpected emergencies?
Personally, I'll avoid the plane for a few years if simulators aren't required hate to have a pilot not experienced with what we now know is not such a rare event.

Old Jake , April 29, 2019 at 3:22 pm

We seem to be forgetting that, in the Lion Air case, a really experienced pilot did save the day the previous day on the same aircraft . The issue was reported, the airline neglected to repair the issue and nobody seems to have told the new aircrew about the issue. This seems to support 737 Pilot's position. It is also another egregious failure, this time on the part of the airline.

dcrane , April 29, 2019 at 3:42 pm

That pilot was a third set of eyes. Since he didn't have to fly the plane, he was free to observe and fortunately his attention eventually focused on the repeating trim wheel movements. A standard two-person crew doesn't have this luxury. Worth keeping in mind.

That lion crew also seems to have written up the problem incompletely. They didn't mention, for example, that they had the stick shaker going for the entire flight.

JerryDenim , April 29, 2019 at 4:51 pm

Your point is legitimate but without the benefit of a CVR recording I think you may be affording too much credit to the jumpseating pilot who is rumored to have provided the flight crew with the excellent advice of disabling the electric stabilizer trim motor. Even if the story is entirely true it's not like turning off the Stab trim motor was esoteric knowledge, maybe 737 pilot can correct me on this but I thought that procedure was a memory item for trim runaway emergencies, meaning the pilots were supposed to have that bit of knowledge firmly committed to memory and they were supposed to execute that procedure without any checklists or undue delay as soon as the condition was recognized. If not a memory item it was in the 737 QRC or QRH emergency procedures guide that is always present for immediate reference on the flight deck. The most important thing the crew of Lion Air 43(?) did (the flight previous to 610 that managed not to crash) was to simply not let themselves become so frazzled they forgot to pull the thrust levers out of the take-off detent after they reached a safe altitude, and not overspeeding an out of trim airplane making a bad situation worse. Maybe the jumpseating pilot had to scream at the crew to reduce thrust and maybe he had to slap the Captain and reduce the thrust levers himself, but absent a CVR recording to verify this slightly far-fetched scenario I would say the previous crew deserves the Lion's share (sorry couldn't resist) of the credit for landing safely.

You are absolutely 100% correct when you point out the non-crashing Captain was far from exemplary. He laid an absolutely vicious trap for the ill-fated crew of flight 610 by failing to mention a great number of things he experienced, especially the uncommanded and unwanted nose down trimming that necessitated turning off the stab trim motor which he also failed to communicate. Not a shining moment for Lion Air pilots, mechanics or Boeing. Despite the obvious and multiple shortcomings and blunders of the Captain/crew of Lion Air 43, I believe that flight proves what the airline pilot commenters here have been saying all along, which is the 737 Max flaws were serious but survivable with a competent crew. That's not the same thing as calling the airplane safe or airworthy and it's certainly not excusing Boeing. They delivered a death trap. Perhaps a bad analogy, but a professional body guard should be able to easily disarm a five year with a knife, but that doesn't mean a murderous five year with a knife isn't dangerous or isn't capable of killing you. Airplanes are machines which inevitably fail and mechanics are humans who make mistakes which is why pilots need to know how to hand fly airplanes absent automation. Reducing thrust during an emergency to avoid overspeeding your airplane really isn't a tall ask for a professional pilot. Pilots get this, non-pilots don't, and it's a point I've grown quite weary of making.

shtove , April 29, 2019 at 1:32 pm

There's been interesting points made back and forth on NC – what do you make of this from Karl Denninger: basically, "You can't fix the problems the 737Max has with software alone"?
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=235578

JerryDenim , April 29, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I made the exact same argument here a couple of days ago, but I will say IF the system was engineered in a way it could have given the Ethiopians a warning prior to eighty knots or V1 (depending on training and pilot judgement) on takeoff, maybe they could have aborted and kept the plane on the ground avoiding the disaster. Having that disagree light or indication immediately after rotation on climbout could have soothed the nerves of the pilots and made them feel more confident trusting the perfectly normal instrumentation on the FO's side of the airplane. But if the high speed clacker, the airspeed tape and the thrust settings aren't enough information to convince a overwhelmed, elevator control fixated pilot that he/she has more than adequate speed to avoid stalling, and they should slow down, then it stands to reason a secondary warning indication would also not break through the mental logjam of two very overwhelmed pilots bombarded by warnings and data. In the case of Lion Air 610 the malfunctioning AOA vane had already caused multiple instrument malfunctions and improper nose down MCAS trimming on three other flights, so it seems like those guys were hellbent on flying that plane no matter what. Even if Lion Air would have had the optional warning system onboard the mechanics most likely would have deferred the warning system as broken. "Ops checks good". They probably would have removed the bulb or stuck a placard on top of it.

And before anyone feels the need to point it out, yes, I'm engaging in speculation, but so is everyone claiming this optional safety system would have made a difference in the two aforementioned tragedies. I'm engaging in speculation as a guy who has reviewed thousands of logbooks and had hundreds, possibly thousands of interactions with airline maintenance technicians. Some of those interactions include contentious debates over what is safe to defer or what can actually legally be deferred so I do have a bit of experience in this department.

Boeing screwed up. They were hasty, they were greedy, they were cavalier, the MCAS trim system with a single point of failure was a terrible design that was most likely criminal. I'm just weighing in on 737 pilot's contention. With a system as poorly designed as the MCAS stall protection trimming, every safety feature available should have come standard from Boeing, but sadly additional fault indications don't always matter in emergency situations. Proper fault diagnosis is only part of any successful emergency outcome. Pilots still have to possess the knowledge and skill required to follow procedures and fly the airplane.

vlade , April 29, 2019 at 10:56 am

The only planes I ever flew you'd fly w/o pretty much any instrumentation (WW2 trainers, hoping to fly a Spitfire or Mustang one day.. ).

But in a modern plane, I'd think that _any_ instrument that is doubled or more (which implies some sort of criticality) should have an automatic "inputs disagree" indicator, which would not be possible to turn off.

Not that you'll have to buy it as a special feature.

JBird4049 , April 29, 2019 at 1:16 pm

I have been thinking about the modern 737. My completely uninformed guess is that the original model, while less "safe" was more informative in a real way than the current one.

In modern cars, especially something like a hybrid, there is not much "feel" to it. In an older old fashion gasoline engine car, there is. I could use the Volkswagen as an example, because it only had some colored lights and the speedometer, and none of the safety features of a modern car. However, I could sense, smell, see just about everything, often subconsciously, even before something went kablowie because there was nothing isolating me from the vehicle and the road. Today, I have to depend on my car's sensors because it has been designed to be quiet and isolating as possible.

John , April 29, 2019 at 11:06 am

The downward slide of corrupt predatory capitalism is not a pretty picture. These cases will continue as long as the responsible executives know they have nothing to lose.

campbeln , April 29, 2019 at 12:30 pm

Just more proof that self regulation works, just look to our favorite sporting events!
There's no need to have refs on the field because everyone involved is a professional and would never cheat, disrespect the sport or do something against the rules because the fans would punish them!
If our sports don't need refs, then surely our markets don't need regulators! Checkmate, big government stooges!

Synoia , April 29, 2019 at 1:20 pm

Absolutely correct. Throw away the huge NFL rule-book, and revert to the rules the of the Roman arena.

It would save the NFL team owners huge amounts of money.

StarryGordon , April 29, 2019 at 12:20 pm

I suppose I am naive, but I am shocked that the behavior of Boeing's management and the FAA are not being treated as a criminal matter. What happened was not a business mistake, it was a crime in which a number of persons deliberately and knowingly decided to risk other people's lives in order to increase profits, as a result of which hundreds of people were killed. I believe the term is 'negligent homicide', upon conviction of which lesser beings than high management and bureaucrats go to jail. In some countries their next of kin would already have received a bill for bullets and services rendered.

Synoia , April 29, 2019 at 1:15 pm

It would be interesting in Ethiopia issues a criminal arrest warrant on these grounds for the Executives of Boeing.

That being the country with jurisdiction for this second crash.

Is there an extradition treaty between Ethiopia and the US?

John k , April 29, 2019 at 1:36 pm

The term used to be criminally negligent homicide, but this no longer applies to those wearing white collars.
Otherwise we would see charges against bankers, opioid pushers, and others.

JBird4049 , April 29, 2019 at 1:30 pm

But Boeing, as part of a duopoly, recognizes that its customers have nowhere to go .at least for the next few years, which might as well be eternity as far as MBAs are concerned.

Even if it meant drastically reducing flights why would any airline buy airplanes that are not guaranteed to be safe? Losing money through fewer paying customers because you are choosing to have fewer flights is better than being boycotted or bankrupted by lawsuits, or arrested and criminally charged.

EoH , April 29, 2019 at 2:00 pm

It is inexplicable that Boeing shut off an indicator system for the Max that had been standard on earlier versions of the 737, when that AoA sensor disagreement indicator was even more important for safe flight.

Turning it on in the Max version was possible but was made part of an extra-cost safety package. How would a purchaser know to buy it when Boeing downplayed its importance so as not to suggest how different the Max was from supposedly similar earlier versions of the 737?

The more that comes out about the conduct of Boeing and its senior management's decisions, the more they look criminally reckless.

WestcoastDeplorable , April 29, 2019 at 4:02 pm

The FAA is mostly responsible for this fiasco because they have a misguided mission. Safety should be their only concern, but over the years that's eroded into a "sort of safety" attitude but mostly being a cheerleader for the aviation industry.
And you can't trust bastards like Boeing to "self-certify" anything, apparently!

Carey , April 29, 2019 at 4:06 pm

Scott Hamilton at Leeham News on Boeing's CEO:

"..It took months before Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg issued a video in which, among other things, he said, "We own it." He was referring to safety of the MAX.

This was widely interpreted as Boeing stepping up and taking responsibility for at least some of the causes of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes.

Last Wednesday, he took it all back.

On the first quarter earnings call, Muilenburg denied there was any "technical slip or gap" in designing the now famous MCAS system. He said "actions not taken" contributed to the crash, a thinly veiled reference once again to pilot error.."

https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/29/pontifications-we-own-it-but/

VietnamVet , April 29, 2019 at 7:03 pm

Boeing and FAA are criminally negligent especially for the Ethiopian Airline crash. The recovered horizontal stabilizer screw jack from the Lion Air crash was found in the full nose down position that forced the plane to dive into the sea. It should have never be in this is flight critical position. Grounding the fleet should have been immediate until the cause and fix were found. On top of all this, it is simply criminal for Boeing to charge Southwest Airlines for additional safety features and then turn them off not telling the airline.

It is tragic that it appears that Americans will have to rely on China to force Boeing to actually fix MCAS and along with Canada to shame the FAA into requiring pilot training on Flight Simulators before flying passengers on the Max.

A Boeing C-Suite executive has to go to jail. If not, there is no chance for the United States of America to survive. With government run by and for profiteers, long term planning is dead. Profit over people. A plague, an economic crash, a world war, a middle-class revolt, flooded coasts, or an autocratic Caesar become inevitable.

[Apr 29, 2019] Let's rename Boeing to BidenAir

Apr 29, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Late Introvert , , April 28, 2019 at 9:19 pm

I noticed that Boeing is incorporated in the great state of Delaware. Ah-hem.

dearieme , , April 29, 2019 at 11:46 am

Oh well, change their name to BidenAir.

[Apr 29, 2019] Ralph Nader Calls Out Boeing for 737 MAX Lack of Airworthiness, Stock Buybacks, and Demands Muilenburg Resign by Lambert Strether

Apr 28, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Ralph Nader has published an open letter to Dennis A. Muilenburg, current CEO of Boeing, which is worth reading in full . There's a personal connection :

[Nader's] niece, 24-year-old Samya Stumo, was among the 157 victims of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash last month, less than six months after a flight on the same aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed in Indonesia.

Nader comments, in Stumo's obituary in the Berkshire Eagle :

"She was compassionate from the get-go. She'd be 8 years old and she'd get a pail of hot water and go to her great-grandmother and soak her feet and rub her feet and dry them. She was always that way."

Clifford Law has brought suit on behalf of the Stumo family in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. From the complaint :

Blinded by its greed, BOEING haphazardly rushed the 737 MAX 8 to market, with the knowledge and tacit approval of the United States Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA"), while BOEING actively concealed the nature of the automated system defects. Numerous decisions by BOEING's leadership substantially contributed to the subject crash and demonstrate BOEING's conscious disregard for the lives of others, including but not limited to BOEING's role in: designing an aircraft with a powerful automated flight control system [the MCAS] susceptible to catastrophic failure in the event a single defective sensor; failing to properly inform pilots of the existence of the new flight control system and educate and train them in all aspects of its operation; failing to properly address the new system in the aircraft's flight manual; refusing to include key safety features as standard in the aircraft rather than optional upgrades; delivering 737 MAX aircraft with a version of the flight control system that was materially different from the version presented to the FAA during certification; and failing to take appropriate action after BOEING learned that the 737 MAX aircraft was not performing as intended or safety, as was made tragically clear with the crash of Lion Air Flight JT 610.

BOEING's decision to put profits over safety is further evident in BOEING's repeated claims that the 737 MAX 8 is so similar to its earlier models that it does not require significant retraining for those pilots familiar with the older generation of 737s.

All pretty much conventional wisdom at this point! The suit also calls for exemplary (punitive) damages ; I've embedded the complaint at the end of the post, in case any readers care to dig into it. I'm not going to examine the case in this post; rather, I'm going to focus on three items from Naders letter that I think advance the story: His framing for 737 MAX airworthiness; his highlighting of Boeing's stock buybacks; and his call for Boeing CEO Muilenburg's defenestration.

Nader on 737 MAX Airworthiness

From Nader's letter :

Aircraft should be stall-proof, not stall-prone.

(Stalling, in Nader's telling, being the condition the defective MCAS system was meant to correct.) Because aircraft that are aerodynamicallly unstable, llke fighter jets, have ejection seats! Now, a pedant would point out that Nader means commercial aircraft , but as readers know, I eschew pedantry in all contexts. That said, Nader manages to encapsulate the problem in a single sentence (using antithesis , isocolon , and anaphora ). Now, we have pilots in the commentariat who will surely say whether Nader's formulation is correct, but to this layperson it seems to be. From 737 MAX, a fan/geek site, on the business and technical logic of the MCAS system :

The LEAP engine nacelles are larger and had to be mounted slightly higher and further forward from the previous NG CFM56-7 engines to give the necessary ground clearance. This new location and larger size of nacelle cause the vortex flow off the nacelle body to produce lift at high AoA [Angle of Attack]. As the nacelle is ahead of the C of G, this lift causes a slight pitch-up effect (ie a reducing stick force) which could lead the pilot to inadvertently pull the yoke further aft than intended bringing the aircraft closer towards the stall. This abnormal nose-up pitching is not allowable under 14CFR §25.203(a) "Stall characteristics". Several aerodynamic solutions were introduced such as revising the leading edge stall strip and modifying the leading edge vortilons but they were insufficient to pass regulation. MCAS was therefore introduced to give an automatic nose down stabilizer input during elevated AoA when flaps are up.

Nader on Stock Buybacks

From Nader's letter , where he is addressing Muilenberg ("you") directly:

Boeing management's behavior must be seen in the context of Boeing's use of its earned capital. Did you use the $30 billion surplus from 2009 to 2017 to reinvest in R&D, in new narrow-body passenger aircraft? Or did you, instead, essentially burn this surplus with self-serving stock buybacks of $30 billion in that period? Boeing is one of the companies that MarketWatch labelled as "Five companies that spent lavishly on stock buybacks while pension funding lagged."

Incredibly, your buybacks of $9.24 billion in 2017 comprised 109% of annual earnings . As you well know, stock buybacks do not create any jobs. They improve the metrics for the executive compensation packages of top Boeing bosses [ka-ching]. Undeterred, in 2018, buybacks of $9 billion constituted 86% of annual earnings .

To make your management recklessly worse, in December 2018, you arranged for your rubberstamp Board of Directors to approve $20 billion more in buybacks. Apparently, you had amortized the cost of the Indonesian Lion Air crash victims as not providing any significant impact on your future guidance to the investor world.

Holy moley, that's real money! Nader's detail on the stock buybacks (see NC here , here , and here ) interested me, because it bears on Boeing's 2011 decision not to build a new narrow-body aircraft in 2011. I summarized the decision-making back in March:

(2) Choice of Airframe : The Air Current describes the competitive environment that led Boeing to upgrade the 737 to the 737 MAX, instead of building a new plane:

Boeing wanted to replace the 737. The plan had even earned the endorsement of its now-retired chief executive. "We're gonna do a new airplane," Jim McNerney said in February of that same year. "We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to an all-new airplane at the end of the decade." History went in a different direction. Airbus, riding its same decades-long incremental strategy and chipping away at Boeing's market supremacy, had made no secret of its plans to put new engines on the A320. But its own re-engined jet somehow managed to take Boeing by surprise. Airbus and American forced Boeing's hand. It had to put new engines on the 737 to stay even with its rival .

Why? The earlier butchered launch of the 787:

Boeing justified the decision thusly: There were huge and excruciatingly painful near-term obstacles on its way to a new single-aisle airplane. In the summer of 2011, the 787 Dreamliner wasn't yet done after billions invested and years of delays. More than 800 airplanes later here in 2019, each 787 costs less to build than sell, but it's still running a $23 billion production cost deficit. . The 737 Max was Boeing's ticket to holding the line on its position -- both market and financial -- in the near term. Abandoning the 737 would've meant walking away from its golden goose that helped finance the astronomical costs of the 787 and the development of the 777X.

So, we might think of Boeing as a runner who's tripped and fallen: The initial stumble, followed by loss of balance, was the 787; with the 737 MAX, Boeing hit the surface of the track.

So, Dennis. How's that workin' out for ya? How does the decision not to build a new plane look in retrospect? Ygeslias writes in Vox, in April:

Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the "build a new plane" plan and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in the current situation. Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal -- a software update here, a new warning light there, etc. -- in hopes of persuading global regulatory agencies to let its planes fly again.

What Nader's focus on stock buybacks shows, is that Boeing had the capital to invest in developing a new plane . From Bloomberg in 2019 :

For Boeing and Airbus, committing to an all-new aircraft is a once-in-a-decade event. Costs are prohibitive, delays are the norm and payoff can take years to materialize. Boeing could easily spend more than $15 billion on the NMA, according to Ken Herbert, analyst with Canaccord Genuity, and Airbus may be forced into a clean-sheet design if sales take off.

The sales force has been fine-tuning the design with airlines for at least five years, creating a "will it or won't it?" drama around the decision on whether to make the plane, known internally at Boeing as the NMA, for new, middle-of-market airplane.

Now, it is true that the "huge and excruciatingly painful near-term obstacles" referred to by the Air Current are sales losses that Boeing would incur from putting a bullet into it's cash cow, the 737, before it turned into a dog (like now?). Nevertheless, Beoing was clearly capable, as Yglesias points put, of "tough[ing]out a few years of rough sales." So what else was "excruciatingly painful"? Losing the stock buybacks (and that sweet, sweet executive compensation). Readers, I wasn't cynical enough. I should have given consideration to the possibility that Muilenburg and his merry men were looting the company!

Nader on Muilenburg

Finally, from Nader's letter :

Consider, in addition, the statement of two Harvard scholars -- Leonard J. Marcus and Eric J. McNulty, authors of the forthcoming book, You're It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When it Matters Most. These gentlemen did not achieve their positions by using strong language. That is why, the concluding statement in their CNN article on March 27, 2019, merits your closer attention:

"Of course, if Boeing did not act in good faith in deploying the 737 Max and the Justice Department's investigation discovers Boeing cut corners or attempted to avoid proper regulatory reviews of the modifications to the aircraft, Muilenburg and any other executives involved should resign immediately. Too many families, indeed communities, depend on the continued viability of Boeing."

These preconditions have already been disclosed and are evidentially based. Your mismanagement is replete with documentation, including your obsession with shareholder value and executive compensation. There is no need to wait for some long-drawn out, redundant inquiry. Management was criminally negligent, 346 lives of passengers and crew were lost. You and your team should forfeit your compensation and should resign forthwith.

All concerned with aviation safety should have your public response.

I can't find anything to disagree with here. However, I'll quote from commenter Guido at Leeham News, March 29, 2019 :

What I don't understand: Muilenburg was the CEO when the MCAS code was implemented. Muilenburg was the CEO when Boeing "tweaked" the certification of the B737Max. It was the Boeing management that decided, that the B737Max must under no circumstances trigger simulator training for pilots.

Muilenburg has for sure not written the code for MCAS by himself, but as the CEO he is responsible for the mess. He is responsible, that the first version of MCAS was cheap and fast to implement, but not safe. It was basically Muilenburg, who allowed a strategy, that was basically: Profits and Quickness before safety. Muilenburg has the responsibility for 346 dead people. You can't kill 346 people with your new product and still be the highly paid CEO of the company. There have to be consequences.

Why are there no calls, that Muilenburg must step down?

Nader has now issued such a call. As [lambert preens modestly] did Naked Capitalism on March 19 .

Conclusion

Wrapping up, Muilenberg has plenty of other lawsuits to worry about :

However, a search of court documents and news reports shows the company is facing at least 34 claims from victims' families and one claim seeking class certification on behalf of shareholders. The claims allege Boeing is responsible for losses after installing an unsafe anti-stall system, called "MCAS" (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), on its 737 Max 8 planes, suspected to have played a role in both crashes. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said it was "apparent" the system had been activated in both crashes.

Added to the uncertainty of potential expenses for Boeing are pending regulator probes. The U.S. Justice Department initiated a criminal investigation into Boeing's Federal Aviation Administration certification, as well as how it marketed its 737 Max 8 planes. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General is also conducting an inquiry.

On April 9, the lawsuit seeking class certification was brought on behalf of shareholders who purchased Boeing stock between January 8, 2019 and March 21, 2019. The proposed class period covers a time frame beginning after the Lion Air crash, and extending beyond the Ethiopian Airlines crash, when Boeing's stock experienced a steep decline.

But then again, Muilenberg may know -- or think -- that Boeing, as a national champion, is too big to fail. So, if Boeing gracefully exits from the commercial aviation business, it may find the warm embrace of government contracting more comfortable. Perhaps that's why propaganda like this suddenly started showing up in my Twitter feed:

me title=

I suppose it's too much to ask that the CEO of a too-big-to-fail company be asked to resign, even if he did kill a lot of people. But if Nader can do with the 737 MAX, at the end of his career, what he did with the Corvair ("a one-car accident") , when he was coming up, everybody except for a cabal of looters and liars in Boeing's Chicago C-suite will be a lot better off. So we can hope.

APPENDIX 1: The Rosy Scenario

From Ask the Pilot :

I keep going back to the DC-10 fiasco in the 1970s.

In 1974, in one of the most horrific air disasters of all time, a THY (Turkish Airlines) DC-10 crashed after takeoff from Orly Airport outside Paris, killing 346 people. The accident was traced to a faulty cargo door design. (The same door had nearly caused the crash of an American Airlines DC-10 two years earlier.) McDonnell Douglas had hurriedly designed a plane with a door that it knew was defective, then, in the aftermath of Paris, tried to cover the whole thing up. It was reckless, even criminal. Then, in 1979, American flight 191, also a DC-10, went down at Chicago-O'Hare, killing 273 -- to this day the deadliest air crash ever on U.S. soil -- after an engine detached on takeoff. Investigators blamed improper maintenance procedures (including use of a forklift to raise the engine and its pylon), and then found pylon cracks in at least six other DC-10s, causing the entire fleet to be grounded for 37 days. The NTSB cited "deficiencies in the surveillance and reporting procedures of the FAA," as well as production and quality control problems at McDonnell Douglas.

That's two of history's ten deadliest air crashes, complete with design defects, a cover-up, and 619 dead people. And don't forget the 737 itself has a checkered past, going back to the rudder problems that caused the crash of USAir flight 427 in 1994 (and likely the crash of United flight 585 in 1991). Yet the DC-10, the 737, and America's aviation prestige along with them, have persevered. If we survived the those scandals we can probably manage this. I have a feeling that a year from now this saga will be mostly forgotten. Boeing and its stock price will recover, the MAX will be up and flying again, and on and on we go.

This is how it happens.

Maybe. But in 1974, the United States was commercial aviation. Airbus had launched its first plane, the A300 , only in 1972. We were also an imperial hegemon in a way we are not now. For myself, I can't help noticing that it was Boeing's takeover of a wretched, corrupt McDonnell Douglas -- the famous reverse takeover -- that ultimately turned Boeing from an engineering company into a company driven by finance. With resulits that we see.

APPENDIX 2: The Stumo Complaint

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ChristopherJ , April 28, 2019 at 4:20 pm

The fact that the CEO and the Board have not resigned just shows everyone that they lack all the essential characteristics of human beings.
Stock buybacks should be illegal. Profits should only be distributed via dividends or reinvested. The fact that companies can do this shows how corrupted our governments are.
The rest of the world may forget this one. I won't and there are millions like me who will never step aboard a boeing plane again.
The only thing that will save this company now is the US govt, which is likely.

JBird4049 , April 28, 2019 at 5:00 pm

Boeing's management is not going to jail and likely will keep their jobs. The deaths of over three hundred people means nothing. They are not even American and probably only middle class so they don't have connections to use. The "American" company Boeing has both money and connections.

Money gives you rights and if you don't have it, you are not even a human being.

Just look at 2008. The Vampiric Octopus called Wall Street was saved by the Feds with almost no one going to jail, or even criminally prosecuted. The exceptions of an innocent small community bank in NYC and some low level employees of a very few loan companies. The entire planetary economy came to with in hours of freezing and then collapsing. Millions of Americans lost homes, often through questionably legal foreclosures, with many millions more losing their jobs.

Nothing going to change and I wish I could believe otherwise.

DHG , April 28, 2019 at 5:33 pm

So I should just fire up my own money press then as should everyone else Money was invented as a limiter by the ancient church then adopted by governments.. Money isnt necessary to live and it will b thrown overboard soon enough.

Plenue , April 28, 2019 at 9:03 pm

"Money was invented as a limiter by the ancient church then adopted by governments"

Er, what?

JBird4049 , April 28, 2019 at 11:42 pm

I think money as a concept arose in Sumer about 6-7 thousand years ago with the clay receipts given by the temple of the local city's patron god for livestock and grain stored there.

But my knowledge of money's history is limited. If anyone wants to correct or clarify, please do.

animalogic , April 29, 2019 at 5:34 am

Might be wrong but think (if my memory of Gerber serves) you refer to credit/debt. Actual money (coin) I think arose along side the use of large scale Armies (armies are both highly mobile & inherently amorphous -- ie people come & go, die, are wounded, loot must be traded etc, all of which is difficult in the absence of currency)

The Rev Kev , April 28, 2019 at 8:37 pm

Stock buybacks were once illegal because they are a type of stock market manipulation. But then Reagan got in and wanted to do his banker buddies a favour-

https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/stock-buybacks-were-once-illegal-why-are-they-legal-now-sHh6HZjtyk2styG-qLgnQg/

To think that Boeing has Ralph Nader of all people on their case. With apologies to Liam Neeson, Nader might be saying to Muilenberg right now: "If you are looking for (forgiveness), I can tell you I don't have (forgiveness). But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you go now, that'll be the end of it."
That sounds like good advice that.

drumlin woodchuckles , April 28, 2019 at 9:03 pm

Re-outlawing the "Stock Buyback" would be one useful reNew The Deal reform. Outlawing compensation in stocks, options, or etc. of any kind except money would be another useful Newer Deal reform. Both together would force-multiply each other's effect.

I hope the four Old Real Democrats have people reading these threads and taking any possibly-good ideas back to headquarters. I hope the New Catfood Democrats and their people aren't spying or eavesdropping on these threads.

JerryDenim , April 28, 2019 at 4:52 pm

Wow. Great post Lambert and nice job Mr Nader!

I love how Nader brings stock buy-backs into his letter and basically connects the dots from a recklessly designed aircraft system full circle to an indictment of our current shareholder value system of capitalism and its perverse incentive structure which includes safety shortcuts and runaway executive compensation. Such a perfect case study for this site!

I think Nader really should beat the drum heavily on the perverse incentive structure at Boeing and how executives shortchanged safety to grab more money for themselves because that's an easy story for a jury to understand. I see where Nader is going with the inherently "stall prone" aerodynamic design stuff, and he's not wrong, but I think he may be treading on dangerous ground. Automatic stabilizer trimming systems designed to overcome the negative aerodynamic attributes of the new 737 Max wing/engine design is a confusing rabbit hole for the lay person. Boeing attorneys and expert witnesses may be able to twist the jury's head into a pretzel on this issue. The debate and discussion here concerning process, decision making, design philosophy etc at Boeing has generally been of very high quality, but has a tendency to go off the rails when the discussion dives too deeply into the subject matter of aerodynamics and aircraft systems. I could see the same dynamic playing out in the courtroom. Nader is the master class-action consumer advocacy attorney not me, but I think he should go heavy buybacks and whistle blower warnings while avoiding unforced errors arguing over the not-so-important point of whether or not the 737 Max crashed because it was stall prone or because it was too stall adverse. Two brand new Boeings crashed, people died, Boeing was greedy, Boeing was hasty, the MCAS trim system was garbage and probably criminal. He's got a slam dunk case arguing the MCAS trim system with a single point of failure was poorly designed and recklessly conceived, I think he should just stick to that and the greed angle and avoid the stall prone vs. stall adverse debate. I wish him luck.

Darius , April 28, 2019 at 10:19 pm

They screwed up the plane design then thought an extra layer of software would ameliorate the problem enough. It sucks but it's probably just good enough. Seems pretty simple.

Darius , April 28, 2019 at 10:40 pm

They effed up the hardware and thought they could paper it over with more software. But at least the shareholders and executives did well.

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 1:15 am

As JerryDenim touched on, a good defense lawyer would probably be able to defeat this argument in front of a jury. There are too many examples of successful and safe commercial aircraft with aerodynamic compromises (the hardware, as you call it) that use software fixes to overcome these limitations. The focus in this case would need to be on the implementation of that software and how criminal neglect occurred there.

JerryDenim , April 29, 2019 at 3:31 am

Boeing's attorneys are going to try and make any lawsuits a question of why the airplanes ultimately crashed. I hate to spoil it for anyone, but I can tell you Boeing's attorneys are going to blame it all on the pilots. Airlines and airplane manufactures always do. Nothing new. Dead pilots can't defend themselves, their families don't have millions in the bank and they aren't going to be placing any billion dollar aircraft orders in the future. If anyone has read my frequently maligned comments, you already know the line of attack. Not following the runaway trim procedures and overspeeding the aircraft with takeoff thrust set. That's why Nader or anyone else pursuing Boeing would do well to sidestep the "why did two Boeing 737 Max Jets crash" question and stick to the details surrounding the horribly flawed MCAS trim system and the Boeing corporate greed story. Steer clear of the pilots' actions and the potentially confusing aerodynamics of modern jetliners, keep the focus squarely on the MCAS trim system design process and executive greed.

animalogic , April 29, 2019 at 5:55 am

Anyone prosecuting Boeing will have to deal with Boeing's defence, which as noted, will play up the commoness of such technical compromises. I do wonder whether Boeing will go after the pilots, though.
Any pilots argument naturally raises Boeing's negligence re : training, flight manuals & communication. The prosecution case will naturally play up the greed aspect as cause/motivation/
context for the crashes & Boeing's direct responsibility /negligence.

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 7:49 am

The defense would likely also pull in the airlines and FAA as targets for liability, as both have some responsibility for these matters. Attacking the FAA would be fodder for the de-regulators (Privatize it! Government is incompetent!). The airlines would complain that competition forces them to cut costs, and that they meet all of the (gutted) legal requirements.

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 1:44 am

I agree with focusing on the greed aspect. Nader's letter has some technical errors such as stating the engines were tilted (they were moved horizontally and vertically, not rotated) that show he hasn't fully understood the details. It doesn't help that many of the changes made to the 737 MAX from previous generations are actually quite subtle, and can't really be discussed individually for this context. It is the sum of these changes that made it an extremely deadly aircraft.

Norb , April 29, 2019 at 8:55 am

The other failure/business feature is the concept of modularity. The software designed to fix the aerodynamic complexities is broken down into modular components, and then sold off as "options". Once again greed sabotages the system. Modularity is a great way to gouge customers and lock in higher profits. The level of technical competence needed to properly evaluate what modules are essential complicates the outcome. But then again, this can be rationalized as a feature not a bug. Blame for failure can be passed around- the customer should have purchased the entire package.

The runaway externalities emanating from the current form of capitalism as practiced in the US must be reigned in. Voluntary compliance to some sort of moral code is useless- worse than useless in that corrupt operators can hide behind lame excuses for failure.

The bigger problem is that Government regulations could solve these problems quickly, as in throwing people in jail and confiscating their property. A strong argument can be made for ill-gotten gains. I surely would vote for that if given the chance. Deal drugs and you can loose your home. What about conscious business decisions
leading to harm?

You need a strong force external to these business concerns for this to happen. The separation of government and business. Business should operate at the will of the government. When the government is run with the wellbeing of the people foremost, then issues like crashing planes can be rectified.

When the interests of business and government merge, then what you have is fascism. American fascism will have a happy face. These unfortunate problems of crashing planes and polluted environments will trundle along into the future. Billionaires will continue to accumulate their billions while the rest of us will trundle along.

But one day, trundling along won't be an option. Maybe only outsiders to the US system can see this clearly.

Ray Duray , April 28, 2019 at 7:07 pm

You ask: "So when the original 737 was designed, did the engineers have the option of using these larger engines? Did they decline to do so because it was a flawed design?"

The larger engines currently in use on the 737 Max 8 were not designed until recently. They did not decline because the current engine wasn't even invented.

Here's an abbreviated design history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Engines

Edward , April 28, 2019 at 7:31 pm

I guess what I am wondering is if the original designers of the 737 had the option of designing a more powerful engine similar to that used in the 737 MAX but declined to do so. No doubt engine technology has advanced during the 50 years since the first 737's were built. Could the engineers 50 years ago have designed engines like those on the 737 MAX? If so, what were there reasons for not doing so?

I also have a second question. I have been told that stalling can be prevented by placing small wings at the front of an airplane. Would such a design have resolved the problems with the 737 MAX?

Plenue , April 28, 2019 at 9:14 pm

Fifty years of technological improvement, yes. The new engines aren't more powerful, they're more fuel efficient. Airbus had put more fuel efficient engines on its planes, so Boeing rushed new engines of its own into service to compete.

But they're really too large to be mounted on the 737; they mess up the center of gravity. MCAS was a janky software fix to solve a fundamental hardware problem, because Boeing didn't want to design a new plane.

And it didn't want to lose money by requiring airlines to retrain pilots, it sold the plane with the new engines as being exactly the same as the old, a painless upgrade.

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 4:48 am

Canards, as the small wings at the front of aircraft are sometimes called, would likely not have been a fix in this case. There are some light aircraft that use these for stall prevention by utilizing the aerodynamic properties of the wing. Since a stall (absence of lift) is often caused by the nose of aircraft being too high, you can design the canard so that it stalls before the main wing. Thus it's difficult for the whole plane to stall, since the nose will sink when the canard loses lift first and returns the plane to a more appropriate attitude. An example here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_VariEze

And explanation of canards here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canard_(aeronautics)

In high performance aircraft canards are used to increase maneuverability by providing another control surface.

We generally don't see them in commercial aircraft for a few reasons:

These are of course all very coarse generalizations – engineering is all about making technical and economic trade-offs.

A radical example of what can be accomplished by a combination of aerodynamics and software is the B-2 bomber – only one main wing, no tail or canards. I know, it has ejection seats but I sincerely doubt any aeronautical engineer has ever sat down and thought, "Hm, well, that's a sketchy design, but screw it, they can just eject if I messed up".

Edward , April 29, 2019 at 9:56 am

Thanks for this clear explanation. Would it make sense to locate the canards on the cockpit roof?

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 10:44 am

Possibly, here's an example, although these fold as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144

There have been many concept aircraft that also had them mounted high.

Edward , April 29, 2019 at 1:58 pm

So would Boeing have to design a new plane to use canards? It would probably require the 737 MAX pilots to have new training. Boeing also seemed to want to hide the instability problem and the canards would be visual evidence for the problem.

Synoia , April 28, 2019 at 7:14 pm

The 737 Was designed in the '60. High bypass turbo fan engines had yet to be developed then. Upgrading the 737 is like adding a plug in hybrid engine to a Ford F100.

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 4:19 am

The original 737 was designed to be quite low to the ground, to allow for easier boarding in an era before widespread jetway use (models have even been offered with integrated pull out boarding stairs), and to allow for more accessible servicing.

This worked well with the engines of the time, which were often low bypass turbofans, and thus smaller in diameter. This combination of height and engines made sense for the market it was designed.

Most modern commercial engines are high bypass turbofans, and therefore larger in diameter. The move to larger fan diameters has been enabled by advances in materials, manufacturing technology, and simulation software, with the goal of increasing engine power and efficiency.

Another factor influencing the engine size that can be used without extensive redesign is the landing gear operation. Because it folds towards the centerline of the plane, and into pockets in the bottom of the fuselage, there is a limit on how long it can be before it becomes too long and each side would collide with the other. And one would need to redesign the wing box structure to accommodate the moved wheels.

VietnamVet , April 28, 2019 at 6:24 pm

Exactly. This is a textbook case of the looting of America.

The $30 billion dollars made by cutting costs including quality inspection, using an existing airframe, tax cuts and ignoring safety went directly to stock buybacks that benefited stockholders and C-suite compensation.

Just like 2008 Boeing is "too big to fail and jailing the executives would cause it to collapse". Unless Americans demand an end to the corruption and the restoration of the rule of law; the plundering will continue until there is nothing left to live on. Boeing could have designed two brand new safe airliners with that cash that would have provided jobs and efficient transportation into the future but instead the money went into the pockets of the connected rich and killed 346 people.

JBird4049 , April 28, 2019 at 8:39 pm

What really gets me is that ultimately that would have given the fools more money because the orders would have kept on coming and probably increase, which would mean more profit and more compensation for everyone. Of course that would have taken a few years instead of immediately. So now the compensation is going to crash. Oh wait! They will just sell again to themselves, strip the company, and sell the nameplate still affixed to some ruin.

I am starting to understand why the Goths had no resistance when in Italy and during the sack the city of Rome. Centuries earlier the Republic and then the Empire routinely raised multiple armies and dealt with catastrophes both natural and man made. At the end, not only could they not readily create an another army, they could not repair the aqueducts. Like we are becoming, Rome became a hollow shell.

drumlin woodchuckles , April 28, 2019 at 9:09 pm

And probably the only stockholders who even benefited would be the individual or family-dynasty rich stockholders who own many thousands to millions of shares of a particular stock at a time. It takes ownership of that many shares for a tiny benefit-per-share to add up to thousands or millions of tiny little benefits-per-share.

People with pensions or 401ks or whatever may well involuntarily "own" 2 or 3 or maybe 10 shares "apiece" of Boeing. But they derived no benefit from the tiny little benefit per share this maneuver gained for the shares.

ChrisPacific , April 28, 2019 at 7:13 pm

Re: appendix 3, over-steer is counter-intuitive as hell. Once it's underway you have to steer left during a right turn and vice versa. I have watched race drivers do it (very skillfully) at the track, but there is no way I would want to be in a car that did that in a pressure or potential accident situation without a lot of training beforehand.

dearieme , April 28, 2019 at 7:19 pm

"your obsession with shareholder value": shareholder value is not being attended to if the company is driven into the ground by virtue of its planes being driven into the ground.

Clearly the definition of "shareholder value" that these bozos use is as defective as their engineering decision-making.

Hang a few of them pour encourager les autres . And hang a few of the regulators who thought it would be a dandy idea to let the firm regulate itself.

drumlin woodchuckles , April 28, 2019 at 9:11 pm

And hang a few of the lawmakers and lawbuyers who legislatively de-budgeted and money-starved FAA into this " turn it over to the plane-makers" corner as well.

Late Introvert , April 28, 2019 at 9:19 pm

I noticed that Boeing is incorporated in the great state of Delaware. Ah-hem.

dearieme , April 29, 2019 at 11:46 am

Oh well, change their name to BidenAir.

oaf , April 28, 2019 at 9:15 pm

There is another case of air disaster often referred to in what is known as *Human Factors* training a L-1011 which *descended* into the glades; while the crew tried to sort out a problem with a light bulb. I suggest familiarizing with it for perspective. (not to exonerate Boeing; just to encourage keeping an open mind)

JerryDenim , April 29, 2019 at 3:09 am

Ahhh, the infamous Captain Buddy. Immortal tyrant of early CRM training fame

Lambert's mention of the DC-10 and it's fatally flawed, explosive decompressing cargo door sent me down a hole of DC-10 disasters and accident reports. Some of those DC-10 incidents like America Airlines flight 96 could have been major tragedies but were saved by level heads and airmanship that by today's standards would be considered exceptional. The AA 96 crew landed safely with no fatalities after an explosive decompression, a partially collapsed floor and severely compromised flight controls. The crew had to work together and use non-standard asymmetrical thrust and control inputs to overcome the effects of a stuck, fully deflected rudder and a crippled elevator. The pilots of the ill fated United flight 232, another DC-10, are celebrated exemplars of the early CRM case studies, both crew members and a United DC-10 instructor pilot who happened to be occupying the jumpseat all worked together to heroically crash land their horribly stricken craft in Sioux City Iowa with only partial aileron control and assymetrical thrust to control the airplane. No elevator, no rudder control. A good number of passengers perished but most lived. Those pilots in the two instances I mentioned were exceptional, and they had to resort to exceptional means to control their aircraft, but in light of airmanship of that caliber from just a few decades ago, it blows my mind that in 2019 the mere suggestion that professional airline pilots should probably still be capable of moving the thrust levers during a trim emergency is somehow controversial enough to expose oneself to charges of racism and bias?! Different times indeed.

Boeing 737 Max aside, airplanes seem to be a lot safer these days than they were in the 1970's and 80's. Widespread acceptance and adoption of CRM/TEM has made personalities like Captain Buddy and many bad cockpit automation practices relics from the past, but automation itself still looks to be increasingly guilty of deskilling professional pilot ranks. In light of that trend, it's a really good thing passenger jets in 2019 are more reliable than the DC-10 and easier to land than the MD-11.

The Rev Kev , April 29, 2019 at 12:53 am

Two more links on the saga of the 737 MAX-

"The Boeing 737 Max crashes show that 'deteriorating pilot skills' may push airlines to favor Airbus" at https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-737-max-crashes-deteriorating-pilot-skills-airbus-2019-4/?r=AU&IR=T

"Southwest and FAA officials never knew Boeing turned off a safety feature on its 737 Max jets, and dismissed ideas about grounding them" at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/boeing-737-max-safety-features-disable-southwest-grounding-discussions-2019-4

JerryDenim , April 29, 2019 at 3:55 am

Deteriorating pilot skills. Yep. Now you're getting it. Problem is, more automation equals more pilot skill degradation. Everything is just peachy with highly automated "idiot proof" airplanes until something breaks, then who is supposed to fly the plane if the pilots can't? The flight attendants? Whoever is sitting in 1A? Airbus airplanes malfunction too, as documented in a number of well publicized disasters and not-so-well publicized near disasters, so while this may be an effective marketing pitch to an airline executive not able or not willing to pay for highly skilled, experienced pilots, it's not a solution to a pilot skill crisis. Long term, it makes the situation worse.

The Rev Kev , April 29, 2019 at 10:05 am

Personally I believe in training the hell out of pilots because if I get into a plane, I want a pilot at the controls and not an airplane-driver. I would bet that even I could be trained to fly an aircraft where most of the functions are automated but when things go south, that is when you want a pilot in control. Training is expensive but having an ill-trained pilot in the cockpit is even more expensive.

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 1:09 am

A thought . A completely fresh plane design is not necessarily safer. There is aways a trade off between innovation and proven reliability. It is surprisingly rare for an entirely new aircraft family to be introduced without at least one problem that threatens (but does not always take) lives.

tim , April 29, 2019 at 3:28 am

787 and 737 MAX are not the only problems Boeing have had.

The 737 NG (Next Generation) airplane using composite materials for the aircraft body, was also outsourced, The idea was that the Body parts would be built to exacting specifications, so they could be connected at the stage of final assembly. However, the sub-contractor couldn't live up to the specifications, so Boeing had to manually re-drill holes to connect the fuselage parts.

Not long after we had a series of crashes, where the fuselage broke up into its parts, something almost never seen before in airplanes.

youtube documentary from Australian SBS News:

Alex V , April 29, 2019 at 6:29 am

For clarity, the 737 NG does not have a composite fuselage.

http://www.b737.org.uk/production.htm

skippy , April 29, 2019 at 5:37 am

Umm the investors and market demanded the executive suite too engage in such behavior or suffer the consequences aka hyper reporting et al.

oaf , April 29, 2019 at 9:18 am

There are other Human Factors at play; regarding pilot ability Measuring ability by simply looking at *hours flown* (often referred to as *experience*) is misleading. Relevant details might include just what types of experience. It is possible to get airline positions *ab initio*, or in-house, if you will (with 500 hours, (IIRC) OR:
Prospective pilots from private sector, or military, may be more likely to have diverse backgrounds; including Flight Instructor background, Upset Recovery training; Aerobatic flying; and Glider or sailplane background. These are not necessarily prerequisites for airline hires. Do they make a difference? in emergencies???

The change in Part 135 minimums for non ab-initio applicants has done little or nothing to improve safety. It did financially squeeze some very competent and capable career minded pilots out of the pipeline to the left front seat. (thanks chuck.)(f.u.) His feel-good legislation:*We're doing something about it!*

James McRitchie , April 29, 2019 at 9:22 am

It isn't just Boeing that is using share buybacks to goose CEO pay. Shareholders of American Express have an opportunity to vote to Deduct Impact of BuyBacks on Pay. See American Express 2019 Proxy Vote Recommendations

DJG , April 29, 2019 at 9:25 am

And lest we forget what a good corporate citizen Boeing is now that it has moved to Chicago to take advantage of the many, errrrr, advantages:

https://chicagoist.com/2017/04/28/boeing_pays_just_01_of_its_profits.php

Carolinian , April 29, 2019 at 10:03 am

But, but Nader made Al Gore lose in 2000. Good to see him out of the shadows (he has a podcst BTW).

While Boeing deserves every form of condemnation and Muilenberg should resign I do think the facts that were all laid out in that should-be-Pulitzer-winning Seattle Times series are being stretched a bit. The problem seems to be, not that the plane is prone to fall out of the sky, but that its handling characteristics differ from the earlier, ubiquitous, 737 models. MCAS is the defective part, and Boeing will pay plenty

tempar555510 , April 29, 2019 at 10:22 am

' But, but Nader made Al Gore lose in 2000. ' Please elucidate .

Tom , April 29, 2019 at 12:23 pm

Florida's presidential election in 2000 was expected to be close and likely to be decisive in the electoral college vote. Nader was a fairly popular third-party candidate for president in that election. Many supporters of Gore over Bush pleaded for Nader to exit that race and ask his supporters to vote for Gore. He did neither. In the end the margin of Bush's win in Florida was tiny, if it existed at all, so there was reason to be angry at Nader, as I was at the time, since if he had quit the race in that state, Gore would very likely have become president instead of Bush.

If you're into counterfactual teleology then you might say Nader's stubborn vanity therefore led to the Iraq and Afghan wars. I don't but it's worth being aware that some people do.

GF , April 29, 2019 at 1:52 pm

I can't find the link right now; but, it stated that after close study, most of the voters who voted for Nadar would not have voted for Gore and would have just sat out the election resulting in an even more pronounced victory for Bush. Gore's defeat came from his inability to win his home state of TN.

Carolinian , April 29, 2019 at 12:25 pm

Should have included the /sarc tag.

EoH , April 29, 2019 at 12:24 pm

Concurrence and causation are not the same.

The claim ignores other factors. Gore's lackadaisical campaign, for one, and its poor response to the BushCheney campaign's misuse of the legal system to stop the Florida recount.

It's not Gore's fault the Supreme Court's conservative majority chose to not let the FL supreme court determine what FL law means, and chose to decide the election itself. But his response to the Florida debacle was weak, like his campaign. That might be one reason so many people voted for Nader. That's on Al and on BushCheney.

Nels Nelson , April 29, 2019 at 11:42 am

Some additional information and clarification about the Corvair.

The Corvair had a rear mounted engine and rear wheel drive. This is a poor design from a handling perspective as the rear weight bias produces a pendulum effect making the Corvair prone to oversteer. This tendency was exacerbated by the Corvair's swing axle independent rear suspension with its inherent camber changes as the wheel moved up and down. These characteristics of the Corvair were deadly in that while cornering if you let off the accelerator, the engine brakes the rear wheels creating a condition called "throttle lift oversteer". Under this situation the counterintutive reaction should be to put your foot on the accelerator and not the brakes. Some of you may recall that comedian Ernie Kovacs was killed when his Corvair spun off the road in wet weather and hit a utility pole.

A paradox here is that the Porsche 911 has a design very similar to the Corvair, rear wheel drive, rear mounted engine and rear weight bias and is praised for its handling. The Corvair was sometimes referred to as a poor man's 911. It too was prone to severe and violent oversteer if the throttle was lifted while cornering but in the case of the 911 it was expected that the driver know that while cornering your foot stayed on the accelerator. As the horsepower of 911s increased over the years the tendency to oversteer was tamed by fitting larger tires on the rear wheels. With the advent of technologies like antilock braking systems ,traction control and advanced computers employing torque vectoring to control vehicle stablity, cars today do have their versions of MCAS and the Porsche can be referred to as a triumph of engineering over design.

marku52 , April 29, 2019 at 3:27 pm

The 911 had pivots at both ends of the stub axles. It would lift throttle oversteer (boy would it lift throttle oversteer -lots of fun if you knew what you were doing), but it would not do the jacking rear-end lift that the corvair (pivots only at the differential end of the half shaft) would do.

Oddly, the VW bug had the exact same layout but Ralph never went after it.

EoH , April 29, 2019 at 12:15 pm

Nader is right to point out the design flaws, which seem to have the potential to cascade into failure.

The new engine nacelles create unusual lift. Being placed forward of the center of lift, that causes the nose of the aircraft to rotate vertically upward. If uncorrected, that would cause the aircraft inappropriately to rise in altitude and/or to approach a stall.

The nacelle-induced lift increases with an increase in engine thrust. That increases speed and/or reduces the time the pilot has to react and to correct an inappropriate nose-up attitude.

Boeing seemed unable to correct that design problem through changes in the aircraft's shape or control surfaces. It corrected it, instead, by having the computer step in to fly the aircraft back into the appropriate attitude. Works when it works.

But Boeing seems to have forgotten a CompSci 101 problem: shit in, shit out. If the sensors feeding the computer report bad data, the computer will generate a bad solution. Boeing also seems to have designed the s/w to reset after manual attitude correction by the pilot, forcing a correction loop the pilots would not always win.

Boeing elected not to inform aircraft purchasers or their flight crews of their automated fix to their new aircraft's inherent instability problem. Murphy's Law being what it is – if something can go wrong, it will – the pilots should have been made aware of the recommended fix so that when something went wrong it, they would have a chance of fixing it with a routine response.

Boeing elected not to do that. In the short run, it avoided the need for expensive additional pilot training. In the long run, Boeing would have hoped to increase sales. When hoping for the best, it is normal practice to plan for the worst. Boeing seems not to have done that either.

The Heretic , April 29, 2019 at 4:41 pm

All this talk of CEO and top managment resignation . honestly they probably don't care. They have made millions, if not tens of millions of dollars on bonuses; they can retire once they walk out the door. To change the behaviour of the C-suite you must affect the C-suite directly, charge convict them with at least criminal negligence or worse.. A drunk driver who causes the accident will most likley go to jail if someone dies in the accident, how come a CEO and his mgmt team, can wilfully go against decades of engineering and aviation best practices that are codified, and still only have to resign??

Pat , April 29, 2019 at 7:07 pm

Reality check. Even with all this news . BA closed at:

$379.05 29 April 2019
$342.79 31 August 2018

Yeap the stock price is up from before the crashes. There are good reasons for the Boeing board to be indifferent – there is no punishment.

[Apr 29, 2019] Heritage Foundation + the War Industry What a Pair by Paul Gottfried

Notable quotes:
"... A 2009 Heritage Foundation report, " Maintaining the Superiority of America's Defense Industrial Base ," called for further government investment in aircraft weaponry for "ensuring a superior fighting force" and "sustaining international stability." In 2011, senior national security fellow James Carafano wrote " Five Steps to Defend America's Industrial Defense Base ," which complained about a "fifty billion dollar under-procurement by the Pentagon" for buying new weaponry. In 2016, Heritage made the case for several years of reinvestment to get the military back on "sound footing," with an increase in fiscal year 2016 described as "an encouraging start." ..."
"... These special pleas pose a question: which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on funds from defense giants, or the foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our military arsenal we'll be endangering "international stability"? ..."
"... note that from the Heritage 2015 IRS 990 submission the then president Jim DeMint was paid over a Million Bucks in total compensation. Trulio will no doubt also be living very large care of the MIC Cronies while in the Big Seat of that Think Pimp Tank ..."
"... Heritage senior national security fellow and defense contractor stooge James Carafano was paid over $300 Grand. Not bad scratch for merely shilling for the Merchants of Death. ..."
"... And those MIC Cronies are shrewd. It's not just Conservative Inc. They buy off EVERYBODY. ..."
"... To demonstrate how insidious the Security State propaganda is in shaping Fake News, Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors are named contributors to ostensibly left-leaning PBS/NPR. ..."
"... And Jeff Bezos' Amazon inked a $600M deal with CIA/NSA to provide cloud computing services, which is Amazon's actual cash cow. You think Bezos' Washington Post will go heavy on the civil liberties intrusions of the Deep State? ..."
"... BTW, Mad Dog Mattis parachuted into the SecDef job from a BoD slot at General Dynamics. Have we heard even a peep from Mad Dog about acquisition reform since he assumed his latest perch on the Security State apparatus? ..."
"... I wonder when Think Tanks will stop being "non-profit" and being issuing stock. ..."
"... When Keynes suggested digging holes to spend money, he did not mean using explosives to do so, and he did not want the bulk of it go to profiteers safely contained within their inflationary "national security" bubble. ..."
"... "In 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that 52 of the biggest defense contractors employed 2,435 former generals, senior executives and acquisition officers. Of those, 422 were in a position to work on defense contracts directly related to their former agencies and at least nine may have been working on the same contracts they previously oversaw." ..."
Nov 30, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Conservative think tank considers Lockheed fixture for its next president.

According to recent reports , the Heritage Foundation, clearly the most established and many would say politically influential conservative think tank in Washington, is considering David Trulio, Lockheed Martin vice president and longtime lobbyist for the defense industry, to be its next president. While Heritage's connection to Washington's sprawling national security industry is already well-established, naming Trulio as its president might be seen as gilding the lily.

If anything, reading this report made me more aware of the degree to which the "conservative policy community" in Washington depends on the whims and interests of particular donors.

And this relationship is apparently no longer something to be concealed or embarrassed by. One can now be open about being in the pocket of the defense industry. Trulio's potential elevation to Heritage president at what we can assume will be an astronomical salary, will no doubt grease the already well-oiled pipeline of funds from major contractors to this "conservative" foundation, which already operates with an annual disclosed budget of almost $100 million.

A 2009 Heritage Foundation report, " Maintaining the Superiority of America's Defense Industrial Base ," called for further government investment in aircraft weaponry for "ensuring a superior fighting force" and "sustaining international stability." In 2011, senior national security fellow James Carafano wrote " Five Steps to Defend America's Industrial Defense Base ," which complained about a "fifty billion dollar under-procurement by the Pentagon" for buying new weaponry. In 2016, Heritage made the case for several years of reinvestment to get the military back on "sound footing," with an increase in fiscal year 2016 described as "an encouraging start."

These special pleas pose a question: which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on funds from defense giants, or the foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our military arsenal we'll be endangering "international stability"? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle: someone who is predisposed to go in a certain direction may be more inclined to do so if he is being rewarded in return. Incidentally, the 2009 position paper seems to be directing the government to throw more taxpayer dollars to Boeing than to its competitor Lockheed. But it seems both defense giants have landed a joint contract this year to produce a new submersible for the Navy, so it may no longer be necessary to pick sides on that one at least. No doubt both corporations will continue to look after Heritage, which will predictably call for further increases, whether they be in aerospace or shipbuilding.

Although one needn't reduce everything to dollars and cents, if we're looking at the issues Heritage and other likeminded foundations are likely to push today, it's far more probable they'll be emphasizing the national security state rather than, say, opposition to gay marriage or the defense of traditional gender roles. There's lots more money to be made advocating for the former rather than the latter. In May 2013, Heritage sponsored a formal debate between "two conservatives" and "two liberals" on the issue of defense spending, with Heritage and National Review presenting the "conservative" side. I wondered as I listened to part of this verbal battle why is was considered "conservative" to call for burdening American taxpayers with massive increases in the purchase of Pentagon weaponry and planes that take 17 years to get off the ground.

Like American higher education, Conservatism Inc. is very big business. Whatever else it's about rates a very far second to keeping the money flowing. "Conservative" positions are often simply causes for which foundations and media enterprises that have the word "conservative" attached to them are paid to represent. It is the label carried by an institution or publication, not necessarily the position it takes, that makes what NR or Heritage advocates "conservative."

In any event, Mr. Trulio won't have to travel far if he takes the Heritage helm. He and his corporation are already ensconced only a few miles away from Heritage's Massachusetts Avenue headquarters, if the information provided by Lockheed Martin is correct. It says: "Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 98,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services." A company like that can certainly afford to underwrite a think tank -- if the price is right.

Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown College, where he taught for twenty-five years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale PhD. He writes for many websites and scholarly journals and is the author of thirteen books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents. His books have been translated into multiple languages and seem to enjoy special success in Eastern Europe.


SteveM, says: November 30, 2017 at 11:19 am

Big Money Indeed

Professor Gottfried, note that from the Heritage 2015 IRS 990 submission the then president Jim DeMint was paid over a Million Bucks in total compensation. Trulio will no doubt also be living very large care of the MIC Cronies while in the Big Seat of that Think Pimp Tank .

Heritage senior national security fellow and defense contractor stooge James Carafano was paid over $300 Grand. Not bad scratch for merely shilling for the Merchants of Death.

And those MIC Cronies are shrewd. It's not just Conservative Inc. They buy off EVERYBODY.

To demonstrate how insidious the Security State propaganda is in shaping Fake News, Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors are named contributors to ostensibly left-leaning PBS/NPR.

You think NPR will ever run a story on the TRILLION dollar boondoggle that is the F-35 or the other hyper-busted weapon systems catastrophes? Or in interviews, challenge the idiotic fear-mongering of the Generals used as fronts for the bankrupt U.S. Global Cop foreign policy?

And Jeff Bezos' Amazon inked a $600M deal with CIA/NSA to provide cloud computing services, which is Amazon's actual cash cow. You think Bezos' Washington Post will go heavy on the civil liberties intrusions of the Deep State?

When the Post was still hard-copy-centric, LockMart and the other defense contractors regularly took out expensive full-color, full-page ads in the Post. When given that Pentagon weapons acquisition is all inside baseball, those adverts had no actual marketing value. They were merely payoffs to the Post to go easy on their reporting of defense contracting pathologies

BTW, Mad Dog Mattis parachuted into the SecDef job from a BoD slot at General Dynamics. Have we heard even a peep from Mad Dog about acquisition reform since he assumed his latest perch on the Security State apparatus?

Nope, given the massive Military-Security State lobbying and propaganda engine that is in place, it's all over but the crying for the deluded taxpayers.

sholto , says: November 30, 2017 at 11:26 am
i like that they dont dare call their reports Military Industrial Complex.

There is an interesting for arguing that these supposed non-profits should be forced to publish all donors and donations.

One Guy , says: November 30, 2017 at 1:22 pm
The US Military is the biggest Jobs Program/Corporate Welfare in the world. And many conservative voters are the biggest dupes in the world for not understanding that we don't need a big, expensive military to defend America.
b. , says: November 30, 2017 at 2:12 pm
'Which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on funds from defense giants, or the foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our military arsenal we'll be endangering "international stability"?'

The chicken-egg here is contrived – the military-industrial-congressional complex in general and 9/11 specifically provide an excellent example to explain punctuated equilibrium.

I wonder when Think Tanks will stop being "non-profit" and being issuing stock.

Until then, there will be many players engaged in vigorous rimming the self-penetrating sinkhole of "national security spending" to extract profits from the channeling of public purse funds financed with Treasury debt backed by the promise of the full tax revenue of government of the USA – supplied by tax cuts. I could accept the tongue wagging as a particularly offensive type of performance art, if the money that goes into the hole did not have to drop as bombs out of airplanes and from drones somewhere beyond the borders to ensure that demand sustains. When Keynes suggested digging holes to spend money, he did not mean using explosives to do so, and he did not want the bulk of it go to profiteers safely contained within their inflationary "national security" bubble.

Michael N Moore , says: November 30, 2017 at 7:32 pm
"In 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that 52 of the biggest defense contractors employed 2,435 former generals, senior executives and acquisition officers. Of those, 422 were in a position to work on defense contracts directly related to their former agencies and at least nine may have been working on the same contracts they previously oversaw."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/12/12/trump-takes-aim-at-pentagons-revolving-door-and-lockheed-martins-400-billion-f-35-program/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_f35-1130a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

DGJ , says: December 3, 2017 at 10:52 am
Movement conservatism is dead, somebody should bury its' corpse because it is stinking up the room.
EliteCommInc. , says: December 7, 2017 at 3:45 pm
I finally broke down and started watching

"War Machine"

[Apr 28, 2019] Boeing Didn't Tell Southwest Or FAA That It Had Disabled Critical Safety Alerts On 737 MAX

Notable quotes:
"... The article also discusses how some frontline FAA safety inspectors wanted to ground the MAXes until the "AoA Disagree" indicators were re-enabled, but were overridden by higher-ups who insisted that it was not a primary safety feature. ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 28, 2019 3:58:25 PM | link

Here is a headline from a couple of days ago:

FAA could clear Boeing 737 MAX to fly again within weeks

Yes, the very last country to pull the 737-MAX out of use is going to be the first to put it back. There is some serious money being lost by Boeing and the Airlines, and they want to put a stop to it. This is all about millions and millions of Benjamins, for "they" are taking a shortct to save even more money.

A draft report by an FAA-appointed board of pilots, engineers and other experts concluded that pilots only need additional computer-based training to understand MCAS, rather than simulator time.

Simulators are EXPENSIVE, so the plan is to give the pilots a joystick and a computer, and maybe throw in some lectures and videos of other pilots using a real flight simulator. Are you ready to rush to reserve a flight?

This isn't a bad deal just for the flight crews and passengers, but the pure stench of it is contaminating other arenas. A Denier site I'm not going to link has managed to leverage the lack of regulator oversight by the FAA to lots of other places.

Planes, Automobiles, Bicycles, Homes, Hospitals, Schools, and Sidewalks Can All Be Made Unsafe by Mad Science, Rush to Market, and Corrupt Regulators

They don't include "vaccines" in that list because their readers understand perfectly well that if the FAA is a crap agency, why not the FDA as well? Much as I hate to admit it, the Deniers didn't have to break a sweat to score these perfectly valid points.

Does anyone imagine Volkswagen could have gotten away with all those years of cheating on their emissions if the regulators had been doing their jobs?

How did China get away with shipping that cancer-causing blood pressure medicine to the US for so many years? It's safe to assume some bored "regulator" was just waving the stuff on past without doing a single test.

This is going to cost us. I'm out of links, but here is a headline to consider.

Russia's Irkut aircraft manufacturer has posted the first video of a direct flight by its MS-21-300 airliner from Irkutsk to Ulyanovsk-Vostochny Airfield.

The brand-new Russian passenger craft is designed to transport up to 211 people over a distance of 6,400 kilometres.

There are competitors out there, and they can't be fended off by "sanctions" forever. Allowing unwatched & unregulated companies to run amok is going to hurt us all in the long term.

S , Apr 28, 2019 5:21:07 PM | link

There is a brand new Boeing piece at Naked Capitalism.

Ralph Nader Calls Out Boeing for 737 MAX Lack of Airworthiness, Stock Buybacks, and Demands Muilenburg Resign

Boeing management's behavior must be seen in the context of Boeing's use of its earned capital. Did you use the $30 billion surplus from 2009 to 2017 to reinvest in R&D, in new narrow-body passenger aircraft? Or did you, instead, essentially burn this surplus with self-serving stock buybacks of $30 billion in that period? Boeing is one of the companies that MarketWatch labelled as "Five companies that spent lavishly on stock buybacks while pension funding lagged. "

Feathering the Corporate Nest while stiffing the workers. Just what Wall Street loves. "Ugly" at Boeing isn't a 'skin deep' issue - it's that way clear to the bone!

Zachary Smith | Apr 28, 2019 4:28:00 PM

Boeing Didn't Tell Southwest Or FAA That It Had Disabled Critical Safety Alerts On 737 MAX

The article also discusses how some frontline FAA safety inspectors wanted to ground the MAXes until the "AoA Disagree" indicators were re-enabled, but were overridden by higher-ups who insisted that it was not a primary safety feature.

[Apr 27, 2019] A surprisingly crude expression by Huntsman is in fact typical for Trump administration rhetoric with its "Might makes right" mentality of old imperialists

Looks like some people in Trump administration are completely unhinged and try to imitate the most clueless members of the US Congress.
But what you can expect from the State Department which is led by Pompeo ?
Huntsman should be awarded b the special medal "For the promotion of anti-Americanism in Russia"
Apr 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Ishmael Zechariah , 27 April 2019 at 11:00 AM

Colonel,
I would appreciate your comments about John Huntsman and his remarks " each of the carriers operating in the Mediterranean as this time represent 100,000 tons of international diplomacy", "Diplomatic communication and dialogue, coupled with the strong defenses these ships provide, demonstrate to Russia that if it truly seeks better relations with the United states, it must cease its destabilizing activities around the world." Strange words coming from a "diplomat". It might be informative to see the kind of a reception he will get when he returns to Russia as "ambassador".
Ishmael Zechariah
turcopolier , 27 April 2019 at 11:00 AM
IZ A surprisingly crude expression by Huntsman but, in fact, reality in this administration.

[Apr 25, 2019] Mish Boeing 737 Max Unsafe To Fly, New Scathing Report By Pilot, Software Designer

Apr 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

A pilot with 30 years of flying experience and 40 years of design experience rips decisions made by Boeing and the FAA.

Gregory Travis, a software developer and pilot for 30 years wrote a scathing report on the limitations of the 737, and the arrogance of software developers unfit to write airplane code.

Travis provides easy to understand explanations including a test you can do by sticking your hand out the window of a car to demonstrate stall speed.

Design shortcuts meant to make a new plane seem like an old, familiar one are to blame.

This was all about saving money. Boeing and the FAA pretend the 737-Max is the same aircraft as the original 737 that flew in 1967, over 50 years ago.

Travis was 3 years old at the time. Back then, the 737 was a smallish aircraft with smallish engines and relatively simple systems. The new 737 is large and complicated.

Boeing cut corners to save money. Cutting corners works until it fails spectacularly.

Aerodynamic and Software Malpractice

Please consider How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer . Emphasis is mine.

The original 737 had (by today's standards) tiny little engines, which easily cleared the ground beneath the wings. As the 737 grew and was fitted with bigger engines, the clearance between the engines and the ground started to get a little um, tight.

With the 737 Max, the situation became critical. The engines on the original 737 had a fan diameter (that of the intake blades on the engine) of just 100 centimeters (40 inches); those planned for the 737 Max have 176 cm. That's a centerline difference of well over 30 cm (a foot), and you couldn't "ovalize" the intake enough to hang the new engines beneath the wing without scraping the ground.

The solution was to extend the engine up and well in front of the wing. However, doing so also meant that the centerline of the engine's thrust changed. Now, when the pilots applied power to the engine, the aircraft would have a significant propensity to "pitch up," or raise its nose. This propensity to pitch up with power application thereby increased the risk that the airplane could stall when the pilots "punched it"

Worse still, because the engine nacelles were so far in front of the wing and so large, a power increase will cause them to actually produce lift, particularly at high angles of attack. So the nacelles make a bad problem worse.

I'll say it again: In the 737 Max, the engine nacelles themselves can, at high angles of attack, work as a wing and produce lift. And the lift they produce is well ahead of the wing's center of lift, meaning the nacelles will cause the 737 Max at a high angle of attack to go to a higher angle of attack. This is aerodynamic malpractice of the worst kind.

It violated that most ancient of aviation canons and probably violated the certification criteria of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. But instead of going back to the drawing board and getting the airframe hardware right, Boeing relied on something called the "Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System," or MCAS.

It all comes down to money , and in this case, MCAS was the way for both Boeing and its customers to keep the money flowing in the right direction. The necessity to insist that the 737 Max was no different in flying characteristics, no different in systems, from any other 737 was the key to the 737 Max's fleet fungibility. That's probably also the reason why the documentation about the MCAS system was kept on the down-low.

Put in a change with too much visibility, particularly a change to the aircraft's operating handbook or to pilot training, and someone -- probably a pilot -- would have piped up and said, "Hey. This doesn't look like a 737 anymore." And then the money would flow the wrong way.

When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks it's about to stall, a set of motors and jacks push the pilot's control columns forward. It turns out that the Elevator Feel Computer can put a lot of force into that column -- indeed, so much force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening .

MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is turned off, when the pilots think they are flying the plane. I n a fight between the flight management computer and human pilots over who is in charge, the computer will bite humans until they give up and (literally) die . Finally, there's the need to keep the very existence of the MCAS system on the hush-hush lest someone say, "Hey, this isn't your father's 737," and bank accounts start to suffer.

Those lines of code were no doubt created by people at the direction of managers.

In a pinch, a human pilot could just look out the windshield to confirm visually and directly that, no, the aircraft is not pitched up dangerously. That's the ultimate check and should go directly to the pilot's ultimate sovereignty. Unfortunately, the current implementation of MCAS denies that sovereignty. It denies the pilots the ability to respond to what's before their own eyes.

In the MCAS system, the flight management computer is blind to any other evidence that it is wrong, including what the pilot sees with his own eyes and what he does when he desperately tries to pull back on the robotic control columns that are biting him, and his passengers, to death.

The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far out of their league and did not know it. How can they can implement a software fix, much less give us any comfort that the rest of the flight management software is reliable?

So Boeing produced a dynamically unstable airframe, the 737 Max. That is big strike No. 1. Boeing then tried to mask the 737's dynamic instability with a software system. Big strike No. 2. Finally, the software relied on systems known for their propensity to fail (angle-of-attack indicators) and did not appear to include even rudimentary provisions to cross-check the outputs of the angle-of-attack sensor against other sensors, or even the other angle-of-attack sensor. Big strike No. 3.

None of the above should have passed muster. It is likely that MCAS, originally added in the spirit of increasing safety, has now killed more people than it could have ever saved. It doesn't need to be "fixed" with more complexity, more software. It needs to be removed altogether .

Numerous Bad Decisions at Every Stage

Ultimately 346 people are dead because of really bad decisions, software engineer arrogance, and Boeing's pretense that the 737 Max is the same aircraft as 50 years ago.

It is incredible that the plane has two sensors but the system only uses one. A look out the window was enough to confirm the sensor was wrong.

Boeing also offered "cheap" versions of the aircraft without some controls. The two crashed flights were with the cheaper aircraft.

An experienced pilot with adequate training could have disengaged MACS but in one of the crashed flights, the pilot was desperately reading a manual trying to figure out how to do that.

Flight Stall Test

If you stick you hand out the window of a car and your hand is level to the ground. You have a low angle of attack. There is no lift. Tilt your hand a bit and you have lift. Your arm will rise.

When the angle of attack on the wing of an aircraft is too great the aircraft enters aerodynamic stall. The same thing happens with your hand out a car window.

At a steep enough angle your arm wants to flop down on the car door.

The MACS software overrides what a pilot can see by looking out the window.

Useless Manuals

If you need a manual to stop a plane from crashing mid-flight, the manual is useless. It's already too late. The pilot had seconds in which to react. Yet, instead of requiring additional training, and alerting pilots of the dangers, Boeing put this stuff in a manual.

This was necessary as part of the pretense that a 737 is a 737 is a 737.


Swamidon , 2 minutes ago link

In my day Pilot's were repeatedly cautioned not to fly the aircraft to the scene of an accident since nobody survives a high speed crash or a stall. Non-pilots can vote me down but the proper action at the second the pilot lost control of his aircraft that close to the ground should have been to pull power, drop flaps, and make a soft field landing that some passengers would have survived.

wide angle tree , 2 minutes ago link

Sure it's a flying turd, but it will be back in the air soon. The CEO can spew buzzwords at the speed of sound. The FAA will approve any fix Boeing pukes forth cause nobody has the moral courage to stand in the way of making the big money.

I Write Code , 8 minutes ago link

I saw that article in Spectrum and while it makes some points about software development he mixes it up with generic claims way beyond his expertise. Editors at Spectrum should be fired.

Hope Copy , 10 minutes ago link

Cirrus Jet got grounded due to this MACS problem.. This CODE is all over the place and probably in AIRBUS also [(.. I'm betting that it was stolen from AIRBUS] Computer controlled fly by wire is death-in-a-box as it can always be hacked.

arby63 , 17 minutes ago link

Scary stuff there.

paul20854 , 18 minutes ago link

Boeing thinks it will fix the problem with its "MCAS" software. While it may do so on paper, there remains the problem of the weight distribution of engines, cargo and fuel which is placing the center of gravity behind the center of pressure for this modified aircraft during flight near the stall point. That problem is faulty aerodynamics. Any aircraft that is inherently aerodynamically unstable should never be flown in a commercial setting. Ground them all. Fire the stupid fools who allowed this beast to fly, including those at the FAA. And finally, sell your Boeing stock.

N3M3S1S , 12 minutes ago link

Sell your Boeing Stock FIRST

Born2Bwired , 19 minutes ago link

Recommend reading entire missive which was sent to me by a retired Aircraft Captain this morning.

ZH link didn't work for me.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer.amp.html

The guy is a very clear writer and explains things quite well.

edit: looks like there is now a sign in wall that wasn't there from my tablet.

Scaliger , 20 minutes ago link

Wing fences (see: wikipedia, for photos) are the only solution to the Leading Edge Extension,

that the upwards and wider jet engine cowling imposes.

This extension causes the wing stall problem.

Wing fences improve the longitudinal flow, on the expense of lateral flow,

thus delay border layer separation, thus curb wing stall.

robertocarlos , 38 minutes ago link

There's a picture of a man who jet skied over Niagara Falls. He wore a parachute but it failed to open in time. I think he needed more height.

jewish_master , 42 minutes ago link

Glorified Tesla.

oobilly , 43 minutes ago link

Single point failure designed into the plane isnt much of a business plan.

piavpn , 46 minutes ago link

Just remember to fart well.

Have a nice farty day.

robertocarlos , 49 minutes ago link

It's a POS and they are going to ram it down our throats in July. If you have to fly then you have to take this plane.

Ohanzee , 40 minutes ago link

Not really. Don't fly with Boeing.

Aubiekong , 52 minutes ago link

Hiring engineers for diversity and not for ability has consequences...

bluskyes , 39 minutes ago link

.gov gravy requires diversity

arby63 , 10 minutes ago link

Can you say EEO. That's causing all sorts of issues throughout the economy--especially in manufacturing.

[Apr 24, 2019] Which is the Greater Threat - Russia or the United States

Apr 24, 2019 | viableopposition.blogspot.com

I found it particularly interesting that nations like Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea which have traditionally been viewed as pro-American overwhelmingly found that the United States was a greater threat to their nation than Russia. Not surprisingly, only a very small 15 percent of Israelis felt that the United States was a greater threat compared to 28 percent who felt that Russia was a greater threat, however the percentage of Israelis that are concerned about American power is up from only 9 percent in 2013.

Looking back in time, more people now believe that the United States is a greater threat to their nation than in 2013 and 2017; in 2018, a median of 45 percent of all respondents believed that the United States was a major threat to their nation, up from 38 percent in 2017 and 25 percent in 2013.

... ... ...

Once again, it is interesting to observe that nations like France and Germany that have traditionally been viewed as pro-American have seen the highest increase in their assessment of the threat posed by American power.

The growing power and influence wielded by the United States is now rather widely viewed by the world as a far greater threat than the power and influence wielded by Russia, particularly when one looks back to 2013. Respondents in just over 70 percent of the 26 nations in the study feel that America forms a greater threat to their home nation than the much-vilified Russia, a result that is not terribly surprising given the events of the past two years in Washington.

[Apr 22, 2019] Boeing s 737 Max Debacle The Result of a Dangerously Pro-Automation Design Philosophy

Notable quotes:
"... "One of the problems we have with the system is, why put a system like that on an airplane in the first place?" said Slack, who doesn't represent any survivors of either the Lion Air or Ethiopia Airlines crashes. "I think what we're going to find is that because of changes from the (Boeing 737) 800 series to the MAX series, there are dramatic changes in which they put in controls without native pitch stability. It goes to the basic DNA of the airplane. It may not be fixable." ..."
"... But it's also important that the pilots get physical feedback about what is going on. In the old days, when cables connected the pilot's controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. There is only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesn't feel so great. ..."
"... An airplane approaching an aerodynamic stall cannot, under any circumstances, have a tendency to go further into the stall. This is called "dynamic instability," and the only airplanes that exhibit that characteristic -- fighter jets -- are also fitted with ejection seats. ..."
"... The airframe, the hardware, should get it right the first time and not need a lot of added bells and whistles to fly predictably. This has been an aviation canon from the day the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk. ..."
"... When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks it's about to stall, a set of motors and jacks push the pilot's control columns forward. It turns out that the flight management computer can put a lot of force into that column -- indeed, so much force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening. ..."
"... MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is turned off, when the pilots think they are flying the plane. In a fight between the flight management computer and human pilots over who is in charge, the computer will bite humans until they give up and (literally) die ..."
"... Like someone with narcissistic personality disorder, MCAS gaslights the pilots. And it turns out badly for everyone. "Raise the nose, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." ..."
"... Travis also describes the bad business incentives that led Boeing to conceptualize and present the 737 Max as just a tweak of an existing design, as opposed to being so areodynamically different as to be a new plane .and require time-consuming and costly recertification. To succeed in that obfuscation, Boeing had to underplay the existence and role of the MCAS system: ..."
"... Travis also explains why the FAA allows for what amounts to self-certification. This practice didn't result from the usual deregulation pressures, but from the FAA being unable to keep technical experts from being bid away by private sector players. Moreover, the industry has such a strong safety culture (airplanes falling out of the sky are bad for business) that the accommodation didn't seem risky. ..."
"... The 737 Max saga teaches us not only about the limits of technology and the risks of complexity, it teaches us about our real priorities. Today, safety doesn't come first -- money comes first, and safety's only utility in that regard is in helping to keep the money coming. The problem is getting worse because our devices are increasingly dominated by something that's all too easy to manipulate: software ..."
Apr 22, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Even though Boeing is scrambling to fix the software meant to counter the 737 Max's increased propensity to stall as a result of the placement of larger, more fuel=efficient engines in a way that reduced the stability of the plane in flight, it's not clear that this will be adequate in terms of flight safety or the public perception of the plane. And even though the FAA is almost certain to sign off on Boeing's patch, foreign regulators may not be so forgiving. The divergence we've seen between the FAA and other national authorities is likely to intensify. Recall that China grounded the 737 Max before the FAA. In another vote of no confidence, even as Boeing was touting that its changes to its now infamous MCAS software, designed to compensate for safety risks introduced by the placement of the engines on the 737 Max, the Canadian air regulator said he wanted 737 Max pilots to have flight simulator training, contrary to the manufacturer's assertion that it isn't necessary. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Airlines is developing 737 Max flight simulator training .

But a fundamental question remains: can improved software compensate for hardware shortcomings? Some experts harbor doubts. For instance, from the Spokane Spokesman-Review :

"One of the problems we have with the system is, why put a system like that on an airplane in the first place?" said Slack, who doesn't represent any survivors of either the Lion Air or Ethiopia Airlines crashes. "I think what we're going to find is that because of changes from the (Boeing 737) 800 series to the MAX series, there are dramatic changes in which they put in controls without native pitch stability. It goes to the basic DNA of the airplane. It may not be fixable."

"It is within the realm of possibility that, if much of the basic pitch stability performance of the plane cannot be addressed by a software fix, a redesign may be required and the MAX might not ever fly," [aviation attorney and former NASA aerospace engineer Mike] Slack said.

An even more damming take comes in How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer in IEEE Spectrum (hat tip Marshall Auerback). Author Greg Travis has been a software developer for 40 years and a pilot. He does a terrific job of explaining the engineering and business considerations that drove the 737 Max design. He describes why the plane's design is unsound and why the software patch in the form of MCAS was inadequate, and an improved version is unlikely to be able to compensate for the plane's deficiencies.

Even for those who have been following the 737 Max story, this article has background that is likely to be new. For instance, to a large degree, pilots do not fly commercial aircraft. Pilots send instructions to computer systems that fly these planes. Travis explains early on that the As Travis explains:

In the 737 Max, like most modern airliners and most modern cars, everything is monitored by computer, if not directly controlled by computer. In many cases, there are no actual mechanical connections (cables, push tubes, hydraulic lines) between the pilot's controls and the things on the wings, rudder, and so forth that actually make the plane move ..

But it's also important that the pilots get physical feedback about what is going on. In the old days, when cables connected the pilot's controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. There is only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesn't feel so great.

Travis also explains why the 737 Max's engine location made the plane dangerously unstable:

Pitch changes with power changes are common in aircraft. Even my little Cessna pitches up a bit when power is applied. Pilots train for this problem and are used to it. Nevertheless, there are limits to what safety regulators will allow and to what pilots will put up with.

Pitch changes with increasing angle of attack, however, are quite another thing. An airplane approaching an aerodynamic stall cannot, under any circumstances, have a tendency to go further into the stall. This is called "dynamic instability," and the only airplanes that exhibit that characteristic -- fighter jets -- are also fitted with ejection seats.

Everyone in the aviation community wants an airplane that flies as simply and as naturally as possible. That means that conditions should not change markedly, there should be no significant roll, no significant pitch change, no nothing when the pilot is adding power, lowering the flaps, or extending the landing gear.

The airframe, the hardware, should get it right the first time and not need a lot of added bells and whistles to fly predictably. This has been an aviation canon from the day the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk.

Travis explains in detail why the MCAS approach to monitoring the angle of attack was greatly inferior to older methods .including having the pilots look out the window. And here's what happens when MCAS goes wrong:

When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks it's about to stall, a set of motors and jacks push the pilot's control columns forward. It turns out that the flight management computer can put a lot of force into that column -- indeed, so much force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening.

Indeed, not letting the pilot regain control by pulling back on the column was an explicit design decision. Because if the pilots could pull up the nose when MCAS said it should go down, why have MCAS at all?

MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, even at times when the autopilot is turned off, when the pilots think they are flying the plane. In a fight between the flight management computer and human pilots over who is in charge, the computer will bite humans until they give up and (literally) die

Like someone with narcissistic personality disorder, MCAS gaslights the pilots. And it turns out badly for everyone. "Raise the nose, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Travis also describes the bad business incentives that led Boeing to conceptualize and present the 737 Max as just a tweak of an existing design, as opposed to being so areodynamically different as to be a new plane .and require time-consuming and costly recertification. To succeed in that obfuscation, Boeing had to underplay the existence and role of the MCAS system:

The necessity to insist that the 737 Max was no different in flying characteristics, no different in systems, from any other 737 was the key to the 737 Max's fleet fungibility. That's probably also the reason why the documentation about the MCAS system was kept on the down-low.

Put in a change with too much visibility, particularly a change to the aircraft's operating handbook or to pilot training, and someone -- probably a pilot -- would have piped up and said, "Hey. This doesn't look like a 737 anymore."

To drive the point home, Travis contrasts the documentation related to MCAS with documentation Cessna provided with an upgrade to its digital autopilot, particularly warnings. The difference is dramatic and it shouldn't be. He concludes:

In my Cessna, humans still win a battle of the wills every time. That used to be a design philosophy of every Boeing aircraft, as well, and one they used against their archrival Airbus, which had a different philosophy. But it seems that with the 737 Max, Boeing has changed philosophies about human/machine interaction as quietly as they've changed their aircraft operating manuals.

Travis also explains why the FAA allows for what amounts to self-certification. This practice didn't result from the usual deregulation pressures, but from the FAA being unable to keep technical experts from being bid away by private sector players. Moreover, the industry has such a strong safety culture (airplanes falling out of the sky are bad for business) that the accommodation didn't seem risky. But it is now:

So Boeing produced a dynamically unstable airframe, the 737 Max. That is big strike No. 1. Boeing then tried to mask the 737's dynamic instability with a software system. Big strike No. 2. Finally, the software relied on systems known for their propensity to fail (angle-of-attack indicators) and did not appear to include even rudimentary provisions to cross-check the outputs of the angle-of-attack sensor against other sensors, or even the other angle-of-attack sensor. Big strike No. 3.

None of the above should have passed muster. None of the above should have passed the "OK" pencil of the most junior engineering staff, much less a DER [FAA Designated Engineering Representative].

That's not a big strike. That's a political, social, economic, and technical sin .

The 737 Max saga teaches us not only about the limits of technology and the risks of complexity, it teaches us about our real priorities. Today, safety doesn't come first -- money comes first, and safety's only utility in that regard is in helping to keep the money coming. The problem is getting worse because our devices are increasingly dominated by something that's all too easy to manipulate: software

I believe the relative ease -- not to mention the lack of tangible cost -- of software updates has created a cultural laziness within the software engineering community. Moreover, because more and more of the hardware that we create is monitored and controlled by software, that cultural laziness is now creeping into hardware engineering -- like building airliners. Less thought is now given to getting a design correct and simple up front because it's so easy to fix what you didn't get right later .

It is likely that MCAS, originally added in the spirit of increasing safety, has now killed more people than it could have ever saved. It doesn't need to be "fixed" with more complexity, more software. It needs to be removed altogether.

There's a lot more in this meaty piece . Be sure to read it in full.

And if crapification by software has undermined the once-vanuted airline safety culture, why should we hold out hope for any better with self-driving cars?


Fazal Majid , April 22, 2019 at 2:11 am

Automation is not the issue. Boeing cutting corners and putting only one or two angle of attack sensors is. Just like a man with two clocks can't tell the time, if one of the sensors malfunctions, the computer has no way of knowing which one is wrong. That's why Airbus puts three sensors in its aircraft, and why Boeing's Dreamliner has three computers with CPUs from three different manufacturers to get the necessary triple redundancy.

Thus this is really about Boeing's shocking negligence in putting profits above safety, and the FAA's total capture to the point Boeing employees did most of the certification work. I would add the corrosion of Boeing's ethical standards was completely predictable once it acquired McDonnell-Douglas and became a major defense contractor.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 8:08 am

I beg to differ since it looks like you didn't read the article in full, as a strongly recommended. The article has a section on the cost of fixing hardware problems versus software problems. Hardware problems are enormously costly to fix.

The plane has a hardware problem resulting from Boeing not being willing to risk having to recertify a fuel efficient 737. So rather than making the plane higher off the ground (new landing gear, which other articles indicate was a non-starter since it would lead to enough other changes so as to necessitate recertification) and trying to fix a hardware problem with software. That has two knock-on problems: it's not clear this will ever be adequate (not just Travis' opinion) and second, it's risky given the software industry's propensity to ship and patch later. Boeing created an additional problem, as Travis stresses, by greatly underplaying the existence of MCAS (it was mentioned after page 700 in the documentation!) and maintaining the fiction that pilots didn't need simulator training, which some regulators expect will be the case even after the patch.

You also miss the point the article makes: the author argues (unlike in banking), the FAA coming to rely on the airlines for certification wasn't a decision they made, but an adaptation to the fact that they could no longer hire and retain the engineers they needed to do the work at the FAA on government pay scales. By contrast, at (say) the SEC, you see a revolving door of lawyers from plenty fancy firms. You have plenty of "talent" willing to work at the SEC, but with bad incentives.

Susan the other` , April 22, 2019 at 10:57 am

Thank you for reviewing this. 700+ pages! I thought it was paywalled bec. so slow to download. The resistance to achieving fuel efficiency is front and center these days. One thing I relate it to is the Macron attitude of punishing the fuel consumer to change the market. Cart before horse. When the FAA sent down fuel efficiency requirements it might have been similarly preemptive, now in hindsight. There should have been legislation and regulation which adjusted the profitability of the airline industry via better tax breaks or regulations against aggressive competition. The safety of airlines would have been upheld if the viability of the company were protected. So even domestic protectionism when it comes to safety. And in so doing, the FAA/congress could also have controlled and limited airline use which tries to make up in volume for all the new costs it incurs. It's a serious problem when you are so carefree as a legislator that you let the free market do it. What a mess. Quality is the first thing to go.

foppe , April 22, 2019 at 11:41 am

reminds me of what was said about risk departments inside banks -- deliberately lowly paid, so that anyone with skills would move on or easily be hired away. Was it you? Bill Black? Luyendijk? I don't remember. Either way..

Marley's dad , April 22, 2019 at 11:45 am

I did read the article completely and I was an aircraft commander of a C-141A during the Viet Nam war and I am a degreed electrical engineer.

Having flown the C-141A for several thousand hours I am very familiar with the aircraft pitching up almost uncontrollably. A favorite trick that C -141 flight instructors pulled on pilots new to aircraft was to tell the student pilot to "go around" (for the first time during his training) on an approach. The student pilot followed the flight manual procedure and started to raise the nose while advancing the throttles to full power. However, what wasn't covered in the flight manual was the fact that a HUGE trim change occurred when the engines went from near idle to full power. To regain control, it took both hands (arms) to move the yoke away from your chest while running nose down trim. While you were doing this the airplane was trying to stand on its tail. On the other hand none of us ever forgot the lesson.

The C-141 was not fly by wire; however all control surfaces were equipped with hydraulic assist and "feel springs" to mimic control feel without the hydraulics. The feel springs for the elevators must have been selected using a human subject like Arnold Schwarzenegger because (in my opinion) they were much stronger than necessary. The intent was to prevent the pilots from getting into excessive angles of pitch, which absolutely would occur if you weren't prepared for it on a "go around".

What Fazal & V have said is basically correct. The max has four angle of attack vanes. The MAIN problem was that Boeing decided to go cheap and only connect one of the vanes to the MCAS. If they had connected two, the MCAS would be able to determine that one of them was wrong and disconnect itself. That would have eliminated the pitch down problem that caused the two crashes.

Connecting that second AOA vane would not have created any certification issues and would have made Boeing's claim about the "Max" being the "same" as previous versions much closer to the truth. Had they done that we wouldn't be talking about this.

Another solution would have been to disable the MCAS if there was significant counter force on the yoke applied by the pilot. This has been used on autopilot systems since the 1960's. But not consistently. The proper programming protocol for the MCAS exists and should have been used.

I agree that using only one AOA vane and the programming weren't the only really stupid things that Boeing did in this matter. Insufficient information and training given to the pilots was another.

flora , April 22, 2019 at 12:05 pm

Yes.
second, it's risky given the software industry's propensity to ship and patch later.
-this is one of the main themes in the Dilbert cartoon strip.

the author argues (unlike in banking), the FAA coming to rely on the airlines for certification wasn't a decision they made, but an adaptation to the fact that they could no longer hire and retain the engineers they needed to do the work at the FAA on government pay scales.

-That's what happens when you make 'government small enough to drown in a bathtub' , i.e. starve of the funds necessary to do a good job.

My 2¢ . Boeing's decision to cut manufacturing corners AND give the autopilot MCAS system absolute control might have been done (just a guess here, based on the all current the 'self-driving' fantasies in technology ) to push more AI 'self-drivingness' into the airplane. (The 'We don't need expensive pilots, we can use inexpensive pilots, and one day we won't need pilots at all' fantasy.) Imo, this makes the MCAS system, along with the auto AI self-driving systems now on the road no better than beta test platforms And early beta test platforms, at that.

It's one thing when MS or Apple push out a not quite ready for prime time OS "upgrade", then wait for all the user feedback to know where it the OS needs more patches. No one dies in those situations (hopefully). But putting not-ready for prime time airplanes and cars on the road in beta test condition to get feedback? yikes . my opinion.

Anarcissie , April 22, 2019 at 3:31 pm

It is interesting that a software bug that appears in the field costs very roughly ten times as much as one caught in QA before being released, yet most managements continue to slight QA in favor of glitzy features. I suppose that preference follows supposed customer demand.

WestcoastDeplorable , April 22, 2019 at 2:14 pm

It's not only the 737 Max that endangers Boeing's survival; it's this:

https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/boeing787/

15 workers at their N. Charleston SC assembly plant were asked if they would fly on the plane they build there; 10 said NO WAY!

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 3:23 am

Boeing, the FAA, and the airlines seriously screwed up the introduction of this aircraft so badly it cost lives. The article by Travis is however written by someone out of his depth, even though he has more familiarity with aircraft and software than the average person. There are numerous factual errors and misrepresentations, which many commenters (with more detailed knowledge of the subjects) on the article point out. One of the principles of aviation safety is to identify and fix failures without finger pointing, in order to encourage a culture of openness and cooperation. The tone of the article takes the opposite approach while trying to argue from (undeserved) authority. I agree with his critique that these incidents are a result capitalism run amok – that should, in my opinion, be separate from a discussion of the technical problems and how to fix them.

Thuto , April 22, 2019 at 4:51 am

If Boeing had adhered to that cardinal principle of openness, there might be no failure to fix via "a culture of openness and cooperation". These catastrophic failures were a result of Boeing not being open with its customers about the safety implications of its redesign of the 737 Max and instead choosing the path of obfuscation to sell the idea of seamless fleet fungibility to airlines.

Knifecatcher , April 22, 2019 at 5:00 am

Looking through the comments the complaints about the article seemed to be in one of three areas-

– Questioning the author's credentials (you're just a Cessna pilot!)
– Parroting the Boeing line that this was all really pilot error
– Focusing on some narrow technical element to discredit the article

The majority of comments were in agreement with the general tenor of the piece, and the author engaged politely and constructively with some of the points that were brought up. I thought the article was very insightful, and sometimes it does take an outsider to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

I'd like to see a reference for your assertion that the "principles of aviation safety" preclude finger pointing. Unless I'm very much mistaken the whole purpose of an FAA accident investigation is to determine the root cause, identify the responsible party, and, yes, point fingers if necessary.

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 5:57 am

This is one example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management

The general point I was trying to make, perhaps poorly worded, is that the only goal is to identify the problem and fix it, and not to focus primarily on assigning blame as vigorously as possible. Mistakes occur for many reasons – some of them nefarious, some not. Excessive finger pointing, especially before a full picture of what went wrong has been developed, fosters a tendency to coverups and fear, in my opinion.

Regarding your other points, the technical details are vital to understand clearly in almost any aviation incident, as there is never one cause, and the chain of events is always incredibly complex. Travis' analysis makes the answers too easy.

skippy , April 22, 2019 at 6:23 am

From what I understand the light touch approach was more about getting people to honestly divulge information during the investigation period, of which, assisted in determining cause.

I think you overstate your case.

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 6:58 am

This "light touch" approach is used throughout the aviation industry, all the way from initial design to aircraft maintenance, as the purpose is to make sure that anyone, no matter the rank or experience, can bring up safety concerns before incidents occur without fear of repercussions for challenging authority. It's likely that this cornerstone of aviation culture was ignored at too many points along the way here.

I am not defending Boeing, the FAA, or the airlines. Serious, likely criminal, mistakes were made by all.

I however take issue with Travis' approach of assigning blame this early and vigorously while making errors in explaining what happened. He especially attacks the the development process at Boeing, since software is his speciality, although he makes no claims as to having worked with real time or avionics software, aside from using products incorporating it. These are quite different types of software from normal code running a website or a bank. He does not, and can not, know what occurred when the code was written, yet makes significant declarations as to the incompetence of the engineers and coders involved.

If he were leading the investigation, I believe the most likely outcome would be pushback and coverup by those involved.

flora , April 22, 2019 at 12:19 pm

It's likely that this cornerstone of aviation culture was ignored at too many points along the way here.

I am not defending Boeing, the FAA, or the airlines. Serious, likely criminal, mistakes were made by all.

I however take issue with Travis' approach of assigning blame this early

I don't disagree with your description of how it used to be. However, since the FAA has reduced its regulatory role, and by extension given aircraft manufactures more leash to run with ideas that shouldn't be followed, we're left with the situation that large, potentially crippling tort lawsuits are one of the only checks left on manufacturer stupidity or malfeasance. Think of the Ford Pinto bolt-too-long-causing-gas-tank-explosions case. If the FCC won't make manufacturers think twice when internal engineers say 'this isn't a good idea, isn't a good design', maybe the potential of a massive lawsuit will make them think twice.

And this is where we get into pointing the finger, assigning blame, etc. I'm assuming there are good engineers at Boeing who warned against these multiple design failure and were ignored, the FCC was see-no-evil here-no-evil, and the MCAS went forward. Now come the law suits. It's the only thing left to 'get Boeing's attention'. I don't know if Travis' is too early. It's likely there's been plenty of chatter among the Boeing and industry engineers already. imo.

charles 2 , April 22, 2019 at 3:35 am

Training a pilot is building a very complicated automation system : what kind of thought process do you expect within the short timeframe (few minutes) of a crisis in a cockpit ? Kant's critique of pure reason ?Somehow people seem more comfortable from death coming from human error (I.e. a bad human automation system) that death coming from a design fault, but a death is a death

The problem is not automation vs no automation, it is bad corner-cutting automation vs good systematic and expensive automation. It is also bad integration between pilot brain based automation and system automation, which also boils out to corner cutting, because sharing too much information about the real behaviour of the system (if only it is known accurately ) increases the complexity and the cost of pilot training.

Real safety comes from proven design (as in mathematical proof). It is only achievable on simple systems because proofing is conceptually very hard. A human is inevitably a very complex system that is impossible to proof, therefore, beyond a certain standard of reliability, getting the human factor out of the equation is the only way to improve things further. we are probably close to that threshold with civil aviation.

Also, I don't see anywhere in aircraft safety statistics any suggestion of "crapification" of safety see https://aviation-safety.net/graphics/infographics/Fatal-Accidents-Per-Mln-Flights-1977-2017.jpg Saying that the improvement is due only the better pilot training and not to more intrinsically reliable airplanes is a stretch IMHO.

Similarly, regarding cars, the considerable improvement in death per km travelled in the last 30 years cannot be attributed only to better drivers, a large part comes from ESP and ABS becoming standard (see https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182 ). If this is not automation, what is ?

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 7:57 am

It looks as if you didn't read the piece. The problem, which the author makes explicit, is the "ship now, patch later" philosophy that is endemic in software design.

And it would be better to look at flight safety stats within markets. You have great swathes of the emerging world starting to fly on airplanes during this period. I'm not saying the general trend isn't correct, but I would anticipate it's to a significant degree attributable to the maturation of emerging economy air systems. For instance, I flew on Indonesia's Garuda in the early 1990s and was told I was taking a safety risk; I'm now informed that it's a good airline. Similarly, in the early 1980s I was doing business in Mexico, and the McKinsey partner I was traveling with (who as a hobby read black box transcripts from plane crashes) was very edgy on the legs of our travels when we had to use AeroMexico (as in he'd natter on in a way that was very out of character for a typical older WASP-y guy, he was close to white knuckle nervous).

Marley's dad , April 22, 2019 at 10:28 am

Garuda's transition from "safety risk" to "good airline" was an actual occurrence. At one point Garuda and all other Indonesian air lines were prohibited from flying in the EU because of numerous crashes that were the result of management issues, that forced the airline(s) to change their ways.

Darius , April 22, 2019 at 10:11 am

ABS is an enhancement. MCAS is a kludge to patch up massive weaknesses introduced into the hardware by a chain of bad decisions going back almost 20 years.

Boeing should have started designing a new narrow-body when they cancelled the 757 in 2004. Instead, they chose to keep relying on the 737. The end result is MCAS and 300+ deaths.

Harrold , April 22, 2019 at 11:16 am

I'm not sure Boeing can design a fresh aircraft any more.

Olga , April 22, 2019 at 4:17 am

"There are numerous factual errors and misrepresentations, which many commenters (with more detailed knowledge of the subjects) on the article point out."
Not sure why anyone would mis-characterise comments. The first comment points out a deficiency, and explains it. There was only one other commenter, who alleged errors – but without explaining what those could be. He was later identified by another person as a troll. Almost all other comments were complimentary of the article. So why make the above assertion?

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 7:43 am

We have a noteworthy number of newbie comments making poorly-substantiated digs at the Spectrum IEEE piece. We've also seen this sort of non-organic-looking response when we've put up pro-union pieces when political fights were in play, like Wisconsin's Scott Walker going after unions.

AEL , April 22, 2019 at 9:29 am

Travis does indeed play fast and loose with a number of things. For example, his 0-360 engine does *not* have pistons the size of dinner plates (at a 130mm bore it isn't even the diameter of a particularly large saucer). MCAS is a stability augmentation system not stall prevention system and the 737 MAX wasn't "unstable" it was insufficiently stable. The 737 trim system acts on the stabilizer not the elevator (which is a completely different control surface). etc.

For the most part, it doesn't affect the thrust of his arguments which are at a higher level. However it does get distracting.

Harrold , April 22, 2019 at 11:19 am

"the 737 MAX wasn't "unstable" it was insufficiently stable"

The passengers are not "dead", they are insufficiently alive.

Olga , April 22, 2019 at 12:00 pm

Thank you – I was beginning to wonder what the difference was between unstable and insufficiently stable. Not that this is a subject to make jokes about.

JBird4049 , April 22, 2019 at 1:50 pm

Not that this is a subject to make jokes about.

Yeah, but sometimes the choice is to laugh or cry, and after constantly going WTF!?! every time I read about this horror, even mordantly grim humor is nice.

Walt , April 22, 2019 at 2:30 pm

Yes, stabilizer trim on the 737 acts on the horizontal stabilizer, not the elevator or "pilots' control columns."

As a former "73" pilot, I too find the author's imprecision distracting.

ChristopherJ , April 22, 2019 at 5:21 am

Investigators pipe up, but my understanding of a proper investigation is: a. find out what happened; b. find out why the incident occurred; c. what can be done to prevent.

The public opinion has already sailed I think, against the company. If negligent, adverse-safety decisions were made, the head people should be prosecuted accordingly.

Yet, I feel this isn't going to happen despite the reality that billions of humans never want to fly a boeing jet again. Why would you risk it? Toast and deservedly imho

Ape , April 22, 2019 at 5:35 am

"Agile" "use-case driven" software development: very dangerous, takes the disruptive, crappification approach (under some hands) of trying to identify the minimum investment to hit the minimal requirements, particularly focusing on an 80/20 Pareto rule distribution of efforts.

Which may be good enough for video delivery or cell-phone function, but not for life-critical or scientifically-critical equipment

JeffC , April 22, 2019 at 12:59 pm

Many people here are assuming Boeing uses modern software-development methodology in spite of flaws that make such an approach iffy in this field. Why assume that?

When I worked, many years ago now, as a Boeing software engineer, their software-development practices were 15 years behind the rest of the world. Part of that was sheer caution and conservatism re new things, precisely because of the safety culture, and part of it was because they did not have many of the best software people. They could rarely hire the best in part because cautious, super-conservative code is boring. Their management approach was optimized to get solid systems out of ordinary engineers with a near incomprehensible number of review and testing steps.

Anyone in this audience worked there in software recently? If not, fewer words about how they develop code might be called for. Yes, the MCAS system was seriously flawed. But we do not have the information to actually know why.

False Solace , April 22, 2019 at 1:40 pm

> Anyone in this audience worked there in software recently? If not, fewer words about how they develop code might be called for.

4/16 Links included a lengthy spiel from Reddit via Hacker News by a software engineer who worked at Boeing 10 years ago (far more recently than you) which detailed the horrors of Boeing's dysfunctional corporate culture at length. This is in addition to many other posts covering the story from multiple angles.

NC has covered this topic extensively. Maybe try familiarizing yourself with their content before telling others to shut up.

JeffC , April 22, 2019 at 2:32 pm

Excuse me? Are ad hominem attacks fine now? I didn't tell anyone to "shut up" or contradict the great amount of good reporting on Boeing's management dysfunction.

I just pointed out that at one time, yes way back there, there was a logic to it and that the current criticism here of its software-development culture in particular seems founded on a combination of speculation and general disgust with the software industry.

Whatever else I am or however wrong I may sometimes be, I am an engineer, and real engineers look for evidence.

NN , April 22, 2019 at 5:50 am

Moving the engines in itself didn't introduce safety risks, this tendency to nose up was always there. The primary problem is Boeing wanted to pretend MAX is the same plane as NG (the previous version) for certification and pilot training purposes. Which is why the MCAS is black box deeply hardwired into the control systems and they didn't tell pilots about it. It was supposed to be invisible, just sort of translating layer between the new airframe and pilots commanding it as the old one.

And this yearning for pre-automation age, for directly controlling the surfaces by cables and all, is misguided. People didn't evolve for flying, it's all learned the hard way, there is no natural way to feel the plane. In fact in school they will drill into you to trust the instruments and not your pedestrian instincts. Instruments and computers may fail, but your instincts will fail far more often.

After all 737 actually is old design, not fly by wire. And one theory of what happened in the Ethiopian case is that when they disengaged the automatic thing, they were not able to physically overcome the aerodynamic forces pushing on the plane. So there you have your cables & strings operated machine.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 7:40 am

I don't see basis for your assertion about safety risks given the counter-evidence in the form of the very existence of the MCAS software. Every article written on it points out it was to prevent the possibility of the plane stalling out when "punching up". And as the article describes, there were two design factors, the placement of the engines and the nacelles, which led to it generating too much lift in certain scenarios.

And your argument regarding what happened when the pilot turned off the autopilot is yet another indictment of Boeing's design. This is not "Oh bad pilots," this is "OMG, evidence of another Boeing fuckup." This is what occurred when the pilots disabled MCAS per instructions.

Have you not heard of purely mechanical systems that allow for the multiplication of force? It's another Boeing design defect that the pilots couldn't operate the flight stabilizer when the plane was under takeoff stresses. That's a typical use case! And it was what Boeing told pilots to do and it didn't work! From Reuters (apparently written before the black box detail revealed that the pilots could not control the stabilizers):

Boeing pointed to long-established procedures that pilots could have used to handle a malfunction of the anti-stall system, regardless of whether the pilots knew MCAS existed.

That checklist tells pilots to switch off the two stabilizer trim cutout switches on the central console, and then to adjust the aircraft's stabilizers manually using trim wheels.

And that's one of they should worry about most, since that's one of highest risk times for flight, and the plane should have been engineered with that scenario in mind. This raises the possibility that the inability of the pilots to handle the plane manually in takeoff also somehow resulted from the changes to the aerodynamics resulting from the placement of the bigger engines.

This is his argument about how the reliance on software has led to undue relaxation of good hardware design principles:

The original FAA Eisenhower-era certification requirement was a testament to simplicity: Planes should not exhibit significant pitch changes with changes in engine power. That requirement was written when there was a direct connection between the controls in the pilot's hands and the flying surfaces on the airplane. Because of that, the requirement -- when written -- rightly imposed a discipline of simplicity on the design of the airframe itself. Now software stands between man and machine, and no one seems to know exactly what is going on. Things have become too complex to understand.

NN , April 22, 2019 at 9:08 am

I'll cite the original article:

Pitch changes with power changes are common in aircraft. Even my little Cessna pitches up a bit when power is applied. Pilots train for this problem and are used to it.

Again, the plane already had the habit of picthing up and the changes didn't add that. The question isn't if, but how much and what to do about it. Nowhere did I read MAX exceeds some safety limits in this regard. If Boeing made the plane to physically break regulations and tried to fix it with software then indeed that would be bad. However, I'm not aware of that.

As for the Ethiopian scenario, I was talking about this article . It says when they tried manual, it very well could be beyond their physical ability to turn the wheels and so they were forced to switch electrical motors back on, but that also turned up MCAS again. In fact it also says this seizing up thing was present in the old 737 design and pilots were trained to deal with it, but somehow the plane become more reliable and training for this failure mode was dropped. This to me doesn't look like good old days of aviation design ruined by computers.

JerryDenim , April 22, 2019 at 5:57 pm

You should read the Ethiopian Government's crash preliminary crash report. Very short and easy to read. Contains a wealth of information. Regarding the pilot's attempt to use the manual trim wheel, according to the crash report, the aircraft was already traveling at 340 knots indicated airspeed, well past Vmo or the aircraft's certified airspeed when they first attempted to manually trim the nose up. It didn't work because of the excessive control forces generated by high airspeeds well beyond the aircraft's certification. I'm not excusing Boeing, the automated MCAS nose down trim system was an engineering abomination, but the pilots could have made their lives much easier by setting a more normal thrust setting for straight and level flight, slowing their aircraft to a speed within the normal operating envelope, then working their runaway nose-down pitch emergency.

none , April 22, 2019 at 6:21 am

I didn't like the IEEE Spectrum piece very much since the author seemed to miss or exaggerate some issues, and also seemed to confuse flying a Cessna with being expert about large airliners or aerospace engineering. The title says "software engineer" but at the end he says "software executive". Executive doesn't always mean non-engineer but it does mean someone who is full of themselves, and that shows through the whole article. The stuff I'm seeing from actual engineers (mostly on Hacker News) is a little more careful. I'm still getting the sense that the 737 MAX is fundamentally a reasonable plane though Boeing fucked up badly presenting it as a no-retraining-needed tweak to the older 737's.

There's some conventional wisdom that Boeing's crapification stems from the McDonnell merger in 1997. Boeing, then successful, took over the failing and badly managed McDonnell. The crappy McDonnell managers then spent the next years pushing out the Boeing managers, and subsequently have been running Boeing into the ground. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's a narrative that rings true.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 7:20 am

You are misrepresenting the Hacker News criticisms, and IMHO they misrepresent the piece. They don't question his software chops. And if you really knew the software biz, "software executive" often = developer who built a company (and that includes smallish ones). The guy OWNS a Cessna, which means he's spent as much on a plane as a lot of people spend on a house. If he was a senior manager as you posit, that means at large company, and no large company would let an employee write something like this. He's either between gigs or one of the top guys in a smallish private company where mouthing off like this won't hurt the business. Notice also his contempt for managers in the article).

He's also done flight simulator time on a 757, and one commentor pointed out that depending on the simulator, it could be tantamount to serious training, as in count towards qualifying hours to be certified to fly a 757.

They do argue, straw manning his piece, that he claims the big failure is with the software. That in fact is not what the article says. It says that the design changes in the 737 Max made it dynamically unstable, which is an unacceptable characteristic in any plane, no matter what size. He also describes at length the problem of relying on only one sensor as an input to the MCAS and how that undermined having the pilots be able to act as a backup .by looking at each other's instrumentation results.

The idea that he's generalizing from a Cessna is absurd. He describes how Cessnas have the pilot having greater mechanical control than jets like the 737. He describes how the pilots read the instrument results from each side of the plane, something which cannot occur in a Cessna, a single pilot plane. He refers to the Cessna documentation to make the point that the norm is to over-inform pilots as to how changes in the software affect how they operate the plane, not radically under-inform them as Boeing did with the 737 Max.

As to the reasonableness of Travis' concerns, did you miss that a former NASA engineer has the same reservations? Are you trying to say he doesn't understand how aircraft hardware works?

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 8:02 am

A few points:

He owns a 1978 Cessna 172 , goes for about $70K, so not quite house prices, more like a nice Tesla, whose drive by wire systems he seems to trust far more for some reason.

In regard to "dynamic instability" being unacceptable, this is a red herring. Most modern airliners rely on flight characteristic augmentation systems in normal operation, trim systems being the most common. Additionally, there are aircraft designed to be unstable (fighters) but rely on computers to fly them stably, to greatly increase manoeuvrability.

In regard to Cessnas being single pilot planes, the presence of flight controls on both sides of the cockpit would somewhat bring into question this assertion .? Most 172s do however have only one set of instrumentation. When operating with two pilots (as with let's say a student pilot and instructor) you would still have the issue of two pilots trying to agree on possibly faulty readings from one set of non-redundant instruments.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 8:27 am

No, it's a 1979 Cessna, and you don't know when he bought it and how much use it had, since price is significantly dependent on flight hours. The listings I show it costs over $100K. A quick Google search says a plane with a new feel is closer to $300K. Even $100K in equity is more than most people put down when buying a house

He also glides, and gliders often own or co-own their gliders.

The author acknowledges your point re fighters. Did you miss that he also says they are the only planes where pilots can eject themselves from the aircraft? Arguing from what is acceptable for a fighter, where you compromise a lot on other factors to get maneuverability, to a commercial jet is dodgy.

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 9:39 am

According to the registration it became airworthy in 1978, so perhaps that is the model year.

https://uk.flightaware.com/resources/registration/N5457E

Regarding fighters and instability, I'm not the one that stated it's "an unacceptable characteristic in any plane, no matter the size".

I am completely on Travis' side when it comes to the issues with culture and business that brought on these incidents. Seeing however that these affected and overrode good engineering, I believe it's vitally important that the engineering is discussed as accurately as possible. Hence my criticism of the piece.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 1:08 pm

Had you looked at prices as you claimed to, Cessnsa 172s specify the year in the headline description. 1977 v. 1978 v 1979 on a page I got Googling for 1979.

You are now well into the terrain of continuing to argue for argument sake.

PlutoniumKun , April 22, 2019 at 8:34 am

I agree with you that the article is good and the criticisms I've read seem largely unmerited (quite a few of those btl on that article are clearly bad faith arguments), but just to clarify:

That in fact is not what the article says. It says that the design changes in the 737 Max made it dynamically unstable, which is an unacceptable characteristic in any plane, no matter what size.

My understanding (non-engineer, but long time aviation nerd) is that many aircraft, including all Airbus's are dynamically unstable and use software to maintain stability. The key point I think that the article makes is that there is a fundamental difference between designing hardware and software in synchronicity to make a safe aircraft (i.e Airbus), and using software as a fudge to avoid making hard decisions when the hardware engineers find they can't overcome a problem without spending a fortune in redesigns.

Hard engineering 'fudges' are actually really common in aircraft design – little bumps or features added to address stability problems encountered during testing – an example being the little fore planes on the Tupolev 144 supersonic airliner. But it seems Boeing took a short cut with its approach and a lot of people paid for this with their lives. Only time will tell if it was a deep institutional failure within Boeing or just a flaw caused by a rushed roll-out.

I've personal experience of a catastrophic design flaw (not one that could kill people, just one that could cost hundreds of millions to fix) which was entirely down to the personal hang-ups of one particular project manager who was in a position to silence internal misgivings. Of course, in aircraft design this is not supposed to happen.

Thuto , April 22, 2019 at 6:21 am

I'm reminded of the famous "software is eating the world" quote by uber VC Marc Andreessen. He posits that in an era where Silicon valley style, software led disruption stalks every established industry, even companies that "make things" (hardware) need a radical rethink in terms of how they see themselves. A company like Boeing, under this worldview, needs to think of itself as a software company with a hardware arm attached, otherwise it might have its lunch eaten by a plucky upstart (to say nothing of Apple or Google) punching above its weight.

It's not farfetched to imagine an army of consultants selling this "inoculate yourself from disruption" thinking to companies like Boeing and being taken seriously. With Silicon valley's obsession with taking humans out of the loop (think driverless cars/trucks, operator-less forklifts etc) one wonders whether these accidents will highlight the limitations of technology and halt the seemingly inexorable march towards complex automation reducing pilots to cockpit observers coming along for the ride.

jonst , April 22, 2019 at 6:41 am

so perhaps Trump lurched blindly into the truth?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/12/trump-says-planes-too-complex-after-crash-of-boeing-jet-in-ethiopia.html

WobblyTelomeres , April 22, 2019 at 7:30 am

"native pitch stability"

Let me guess. The author prolly flies a Cessna 172. [checks article]. Yep.

The 172 is one of the most docile and forgiving private planes ever. Ignore that my Mom flew hers into a stand of trees.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 8:32 am

Ad homimem and therefore logically invalid. Plus reading comprehension problem. The "native pitch stability" comment was from Mike Slack, a former NASA engineer, and not Travis, the Cessna owner.

Mel , April 22, 2019 at 9:39 am

I think that the point is that there are aircraft that don't take over the controls and dive into the ground. It's possible to have these kinds of aircraft. These kinds of aircraft are good to have. It's like an existence proof.

Octopii , April 22, 2019 at 8:28 am

No, not dangerously pro-automation. More like dangerously stuck in the past, putting bandaids on a dinosaur to keep false profits rolling in. AF447 could be argued against excessive automation, but not the Max.

tegnost , April 22, 2019 at 9:13 am

i think they are real profits. And the automation that crashed two planes over a short time span and it wasn't excessive? Band aids on what was one of the safest planes ever made (how many 737's crashed pre 737 max? the hardware problem was higher landing gear along with engines that were larger and added lift to the plane. MCAS was intended to fix that. It made it worse. I won't be flying on a MAX.

Carolinian , April 22, 2019 at 8:29 am

Thanks for the article but re the above comments–perhaps that 737 pilot commenter should weigh in because some expert commentary on this article is badly needed. My impression from the Seattle Times coverage is that the MCAS was not implemented to keep the plane from falling out of the sky but rather to finesse the retraining issue. In other words a competent pilot could handle the pitch up tendency with no MCAS assist at all if trained or even informed that such a tendency existed. And if that's the case then the notion that the plane will be grounded forever is dubious indeed.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 8:44 am

This isn't quite correct, and I suggest you read the article in full.

The issue isn't MCAS. It is that MCAS was to compensate for changes in the planes aerodynamics that were so significant that it should arguably have been recerttified as being a different plane. That was what Boeing was trying to avoid above all Former NASA engineer Mike Slack makes that point as well. Travis argues that burying the existence of MCAS in the documentation was to keep pilots from questioning whether this was a different plane:

It all comes down to money, and in this case, MCAS was the way for both Boeing and its customers to keep the money flowing in the right direction. The necessity to insist that the 737 Max was no different in flying characteristics, no different in systems, from any other 737 was the key to the 737 Max's fleet fungibility. That's probably also the reason why the documentation about the MCAS system was kept on the down-low.

Put in a change with too much visibility, particularly a change to the aircraft's operating handbook or to pilot training, and someone -- probably a pilot -- would have piped up and said, "Hey. This doesn't look like a 737 anymore." And then the money would flow the wrong way.

Carolinian , April 22, 2019 at 9:30 am

I think you just said what I said. My contention is that the only reason the plane could ever be withdrawn is that the design is so inherently unstable that this extra gizmo–the MCAS–was necessary for it to fly. Whereas it appears the MCAS was for marketing purposes and if it had never been added to the plane the two accidents quite likely may never have happened–even if Boeing didn't tell pilots about the pitch up tendency.

But I'm no expert obviously. This is just my understanding of the issue.

Darius , April 22, 2019 at 11:48 am

From what I've read at related links in the last week, a significant element is common type rating. Manufacturers don't have to go through expensive recertification if their modifications are minor enough, earning a common type rating. Thus, the successive incarnations of the 737 over the decades.

I'm only a layman, but a citizen who tries to stay informed and devours material on this topic. The common type rating merry go round needs to stop. It seems at least that a new engine with a different position that alters the basic physics of the plane shouldn't qualify for common type rating, which should be reserved only for the most minor of modifications.

barrisj , April 22, 2019 at 12:30 pm

As one who has followed the entirety of the MAX stories as detailed by the Seattle Times aviation reporters, it all comes back to "first principles": a substantive change in aerodynamics by introduction of an entirely new pair of engines should have required complete re-engineering of the airframe. We know that Boeing eschewed that approach, largely for competitive and cost considerations, and subsequently tried to mate the LEAP engines to the existing 737 airframe by installing the MCAS, amongst other design "tweaks", i.e., "kludging" a fix. Boeing management recognized that this wouldn't be the "perfect" aircraft, but with the help of a compliant FAA and a huge amount of "self-assessment", got the beast certified and airborne -- -- until the two crashes, that is. Whether the airlines and/or the flying public will ever accept the redo of MCAS and other ancillary fixes is highly problematic, as the entire concept was flawed from the kick-off.
Also, it should be mentioned in passing that even the LEAP engines are having some material-wear issues:
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/cfm-reviews-fleet-after-finding-leap-1a-durability-i-442669/

b , April 22, 2019 at 8:46 am

Th IEEE Spectrum piece is somewhat reasonable but the author obvious lacks technical knowledge of the 737. He also does not understand why MCAS was installed in the first place.

For example:
– "However, doing so also meant that the centerline of the engine's thrust changed. Now, when the pilots applied power to the engine, the aircraft would have a significant propensity to "pitch up," or raise its nose.
– The MAX nose up tendency is a purely aerodynamic effect. The centerline of the thrust did not change much.

– "MCAS is implemented in the flight management computer, "
– No. It is implemented in the Flight Control Computer of which there are two. (There is only on FMC unit.)

-" It turns out that the Elevator Feel Computer can put a lot of force into that column -- "
– The Elevator Feel unit is not a computer but a deterministic hydraulic-mechanical system.

– "Neither such [software] coders nor their managers are as in touch with the particular culture and mores of the aviation world as much as the people who are down on the factory floor, "
– The coders who make the Boeing and Airbus systems work are specialized in such coding. Software development for aircrafts It is a rigid formularized process which requires a deep understanding of the aviation world. The coders appropriately implement what the design engineers require after the design review confirmed it. Nothing less, nothing more.

and more than a dozen other technical misunderstandings and mistakes.

If the author would have read some of the PPRUNE threads on the issue or asked an 737 pilot he would have known all this.

Senator-Elect , April 22, 2019 at 10:35 am

This.

Harrold , April 22, 2019 at 11:28 am

And yet the fact remains that the 737MAX is grounded world wide and costing Boeing and airlines millions every day.

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 1:11 pm

Given what has happened with Boeing manufacture (787s being delivered with tools and bottles rattling around in them), you have no basis for asserting how Boeing does software in practice these days.

And you have incontrovertible evidence of a coding fail: relying on only one sensor input when the plane had more than one sensor. I'm sorry, I don't see how you can blather on about safety and coders supposedly understanding airplanes with that coded in.

JeffC who actually worked at Boeing years ago and said the coding was conservative (lots of people checked it) because they were safety oriented but also didn't get very good software engineers, since writing software at Boeing was boring.

johnf , April 22, 2019 at 9:05 am

I still have some trouble blaming the 737 losses, ipso facto, on using automation to extend an old design. There are considerably more complex aircraft systems than MCAS that have been reliably automated, and building on a thoroughly proven framework usually causes less trouble than suffering the teething problems of an all new design.

At the risk of repeating the obvious, a basic principle of critical systems, systems which must be reliable, is that they can not suffer from single point failures. You want to require at least two independent failures to disturb a system, whose combined probability is so low that other, unavoidable failure sources predominate, for example, weather or overwhelming, human error.

This principle extends to the system's development. The design and programming of a (reliable) critical system can not suffer from single point failures. This requires a good many, skilled people, paying careful attention to different, specific stages of the process. Consider a little thing I once worked on: the indicator that confirms a cargo door is closed, or arguably, that is neither open nor unlatched. I count at least five levels of engineers and programmers, between Boeing and the FAA, that used to validate, implement and verify the work of their colleagues, one or more levels above and/or below: to insure the result was safe.

I bet what will ultimately come out is that multiple levels of the validation and verification chain have been grievously degraded ("crapified") to cut costs and increase profits. The first and last levels for a start. I am curious and will ask around.

Darius , April 22, 2019 at 11:58 am

The MAX isn't a proven framework. Boeing fundamentally altered the 737 design by shifting the position of the engines. The MCAS fudge doesn't fix that.

The Rev Kev , April 22, 2019 at 9:10 am

My own impression is that there seems to be a clash between three separate philosophies at work here. The first is the business culture of Boeing which had supplanted Boeing's historical aviation-centric ways of doing things in aircraft design. The bean-counters & marketing droids took over, outsourced aircraft construction to such places as non-union workshops & other countries, and thought that cutting corners in aircraft manufacture would have no long-term ill effects. The second philosophy is that of software design that failed to understand that the software had to be good to go as it was shipped and had little understanding of what happens when you ship beta-standard software to an operational aircraft in service. This was to have fatal consequences. The third culture is that of the pilots themselves which seek to keep their skills going in an aviation world that wants to turn them into airplane-drivers. If there is any move afoot to have self flying aircraft introduced down the track, I hope that this helps kill it.
Boeing is going to take a massive financial hit and so it should. Heads should literally roll over this debacle and it did not help their case when they went to Trump to keep this plane flying in the US without thought as to what could have happened if a US or Canadian 737 MAX had augured in. The biggest loser I believe is going to be the US's reputation with aviation. The rest of the aviation world will no longer trust what the FAA says or advise without checking it themselves. The trust of decades of work has just been thrown out the door needlessly. Even in the critical field of aircraft crash investigation, the US took a hit as Ethiopia refused the demands that the black boxes be sent to the US but sent them instead to France. That is something that has flown under the radar. This is going to have knock-on effects for decades to come.

Susan the other` , April 22, 2019 at 11:56 am

Beginning to look like a trade war with the EU. airbus, boeing, vw, US cars; but haven't seen Japan drawn into this yet. Mercedes Benz is saying EV cars are nonsense, they actually create more pollution than diesel engines and they are recommending methane gasoline (that sounds totally suicidal), and hydrogen power. Hydrogen has always sounded like a good choice, so why no acclaim? It can only be the resistance of vested interests. The auto industry, like the airline industry, is frantically trying to externalize its costs. Maybe we should all just settle down and do a big financial mutual insurance company that covers catastrophic loss by paying the cost of switching over to responsible manufacturing and fuel efficiency. Those corporations cooperate with shared subsidiaries that manufacture software to patch their bad engineering – why not a truce while they look for solutions?

voislav , April 22, 2019 at 9:34 am

The whole 737 development reminds me of a story a GM engineer told me. Similarly to the aviation industry, when GM makes modifications to an existing part on a vehicle, if the change is small enough the part does not need to be recertified for mechanical strength, etc. One of the vehicles he was working on had a part failure in testing, so they looked at the design history of the part. It turns out that, similarly to 737, this was a legacy part carried over numerous generations of the vehicle.

Each redesign of the vehicle introduced some changes, they needed to reroute some cabling, so they would punch a new hole through the part. But because the change was small enough the engineering team had the option of just signing off on the change without additional testing. So this went on for years, where additional holes or slits were made in the original part and each change was deemed to be small enough that no recertification was necessary. The cumulative change from the original certification was that this was now a completely different part and, not surprisingly, eventually it failed.

The interesting part of the story was the institutional inertia. As all these incremental changes were applied to the part, nobody bothered to check when was the last time part was actually tested and what was the part design as that time. Every step of the way everybody assumed their change is small enough not to cause any issue and did not do any diligence until a failure occured.

Which brings me back to the 737, if I am not mistaken, 737 MAX is, for certification purposes, considered an iteration of the original 737. The aircraft though is very different than the original, increased wingspan (117′ vs 93′), length (140′ vs. 100′). 737 NG is similarly different.

So for me the big issue with the MAX is the institutional question that allowed a plane so different from the original 737 certification to be allowed as a variant of the original, without additional pilot training or plane certification. Upcoming 777X has the same issue, it's a materially different aircraft (larger wingspan, etc.) that has a kludge (folding wingtips) to allow it to pass as a variant of the original 777. It will be interesting to see, in the wake of the MAX fiasco, what treatment does the 777X get when it comes to certification.

Susan the other` , April 22, 2019 at 12:35 pm

The FAA needs to be able to follow these tweaks. Maybe we citizens need a literal social contract that itemizes what we expect our government to actually do.

Matthew G. Saroff , April 22, 2019 at 9:35 am

There are also allegations of shoddy manufacturing on the 787 at Boeing's South Carolina (union busting) facility .

BTW, I do not believe that the problems are insoluble, or as a result of a design philosophy, but rather it is a result of placing sales over engineering.

There are a number of aerodynamic tweaks that could have dealt with this issue (larger horizontal tail comes to mind, but my background is manufacturing not aerodynamics), but this would require that pilots requalify for a transition between the NG and the MAX, which would likely mean that many airlines would take a second look at Airbus.

Carolinian , April 22, 2019 at 10:37 am

Your link was fully discussed in yesterday's Links.

cm , April 22, 2019 at 10:41 am

Yeah, that was a fascinating (and scary) article. Worth reading!

vomkammer , April 22, 2019 at 9:41 am

We should avoid blaming "software" or "automation" for this accident. The B737 MAX seems to be a case of "Money first, safety second" culture, combined with insufficent regulatory control.

The root of the B737 MAX accidents was an erroneous safety hazard assessment: The safety asessment (and the FAA) believed the MCAS had a 0.6 authority limit. This 0.6 limit meant that an erroneous MCAS function would only have limited consequences. In the safety jargon, its severity was classifed as "Major", instead of "Catastrophic".

After the "Major" classification was assigned, the subsequente design decions (like using a single sensor, or perhaps insufficient testing) are acceptable and in line with the civil aviation standards.

The problem is that the safety engineer(s) failed to understand that the 0.6 limit was self-imposed by the MCAS software, not enforced by any external aircraft element. Therefore, the MCAS software could fail in such a way that it ignored the limit. In consequence, MCAS should have been classifed "Catastrophic".

Everybody can make mistakes. We know this. That is why these safety assessments should be reviewed and challenged inside the company and by the FAA. The need to launch the MAX fast and the lack of FAA oversight resources surely played a greater role than the usage of software and automation.

oaf , April 22, 2019 at 9:46 am

Yves: Thanks for this post; it has (IMO) a level-headed perspective. It is not about assigning *blame*, it is about *What, Why, and How to Prevent* what happened from re-occurring. Blame is for courts and juries. Good luck finding jurors who are not predisposed; due to relentless bombardment with parroted misinformation and factoids.

YY , April 22, 2019 at 10:13 am

I wonder how often MCAS kicked in on a typical 737MAX flight, in situation where the weather vane advising of angle attack was working as per normal. Since we are excluding the time when auto-pilot is working and also the time when the flaps are down, there is only a very small time window immediately after take off. I would venture to guess that the MCAS would almost always adjust the plane at least once. This is once too many, if one is to believe that the notion of design improvement includes improvement in aerodynamic behavior. The fact that MCAS could only be overridden by disabling the entire motor control of the trim suggests that the MCAS feature is absolutely necessary for the thing to fly without surprise stalls. There is no excuse in a series of a product for handling associated with basic safety becoming worse with a new model. Fuel efficiency is laudable and a marketable thing, but not when packaged together with the bad compromise of bad flight behavior. If the fix is only by lines of code, they really have not fixed it completely. We know they are not going to be able to move the engines or the thrust line or increase the ground clearance of the plane so the software fix will be sold as the solution. While it probably does not mean that there will be more planes being trimmed to crash into the ground, it does make for some anxiety for future passengers. Loss of sales would not be a surprise but more of a surprise will be the deliveries that will be completed regardless.

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 10:34 am

MCAS was intended to rarely if ever activate. It is supposed to nudge the aircraft to a lower angle of attack if AoA is getting high to cause instability in certain parts of the flight envelope. An overly aggressive takeoff climb would be an example. Part of the problem is that a faulty AoA sensor resulted in the system thinking it was at this extreme case, repeatedly, and in a way that was difficult for the pilots to identify since they had not been properly trained and the UX was badly implemented.

YY , April 22, 2019 at 10:52 am

Yes I've heard that. But do not believe it, given how it is implemented. So I really would like to know how it behaves in non-catastrophic situations. If so benign, why not allow it to turn off without turning off trim controls? Did not the earlier 737's not need this feature?

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 2:19 pm

In a non-catastrophic situation, and if functioning correctly, it's my understanding it would felt by the flight crew as mild lowering of the nose by the system. This is is to keep the plane from increasing angle of attack, which could lead to a stall or other instability.

It's my understanding MCAS should be treated as a separate system from the trim controls, although they both control the pitch of the stabilator. Trim controls are generally not "highly dynamic", in that the system (or pilot) sets the trim value only occasionally based primarily on things like the aircraft weight distribution (this could however change during a flight as fuel is burned, for example). MCAS on the other hand, while monitoring AoA continuously in flight modes where it is activated only kicks in to correct excessive inputs from the pilots, or as a result of atmospheric disturbances (wind shear would be one possible cause of excessive AoA readings).

Neither trim nor MCAS are required to manually fly the plane safely if under direct pilot control and the the pilot is fully situationally aware.

Earlier 737s did not need this feature due to different aerodynamic properties of the plane. They however still have assistive features such as stick shakers to help prevent leaving the normal flight envelope.

Some technical details here:

http://www.b737.org.uk/mcas.htm

Alex V , April 22, 2019 at 2:47 pm

I've read a bit more in regard to allowing MCAS to turn off without turning off trim, I have no idea why it was implemented as it was, since previous 737s allow separate control of trim and MCAS. More here:

https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/overview-of-many-failures-by-boeing-in-designing-the-boeing-737-max/

This however still doesn't change the fact that neither is required to fly the plane, given proper training and communication, both of which were criminally lacking.

John , April 22, 2019 at 10:13 am

IBG, YBG corporate decisions by people who will probably never fly in these planes, complete regulatory capture and distract with the little people squabbling over technical details. In China there would probably already have been a short trial, a trip to the river bank, a bullet through the head, organ harvesting for the corporate jocks responsible. Team Amrika on the way down.

Synoia , April 22, 2019 at 10:27 am

On the subject of software, the underlying issue of ship and patch later is because the process of software is full of bad practice.

Two examples, "if" and "new".

If is a poor use of a stronger mechanism, FSMs, or Finite State Machines.
'new' is a mechanism that leads to memory leaks, and crashes.

I developed some middleware to bridge data between maineframs and Unix systems that ran 7×24 for 7 years continuously without a failure, because of FSMs and static memory use.

Anarcissie , April 22, 2019 at 5:14 pm

The problem of poor quality in software, like poor quality in almost anything else, is not technological.

BillC , April 22, 2019 at 10:50 am

In an email to me (and presumably to all AAdvantage program members) transmitted at 03:00 April 17 UTC ( i.e. , 11 PM April 16 US EDT), American Airlines states that it is canceling 737 MAX flights through August 19 (instead of June 5 as stated by the earlier newspaper story cited in this post).

Eliminating introductory and concluding paragraphs that are marketing eyewash (re. passenger safety and convenience), the two payload paragraphs state in their entirety:

To avoid last-minute changes and to accommodate customers on other flights with as much notice as possible before their travel date, we have made the decision to extend our cancellations for the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft through August 19, 2019, while we await recertification of the MAX.

While these changes impact only a small portion of our more than 7,000 departures each day this summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season by adjusting our schedule now. Customers whose upcoming travel has been impacted as a result of the schedule change are being contacted by our teams.

I'm surprised this has not already appeared in earlier comments. Anybody else get this?

Yves Smith Post author , April 22, 2019 at 1:13 pm

Will update, thanks!

Peak BS , April 22, 2019 at 11:24 am

Now do Tesla & their bs Tesla Autonomy Investor Day please.

It appears to have it all from beta testing several ton vehicles on public roads, (like BA's beta testing of the MAX) to regulatory capture( of NTSB, & NTHSA as examples) and a currently powerful PR team.

Apparently they're going to show off their "plan" how one will be able to use their Tesla in full autonomous mode while every other OEM sez it can't be done by the end of this year let alone within a couple decades as the average person perceives autonomous driving.

Watch it live here at 11am PCT: https://livestream.tesla.com

737 Pilot , April 22, 2019 at 2:05 pm

First of all, I didn't read the article, so I'm not going to critique it. There were some comments in the excerpt that Yves provided that I think require some clarification and/or correction.

The 737 is not a fly-by-wire (FBW) aircraft. There are multiple twisted steel control cables that connect the flight control in the cockpit to the various control surfaces. The flight controls are hydraulically assisted, but in case of hydraulic (or electric) failure, the cable system is sufficient to control the aircraft.

In both the 737NG and the MAX, there are automation functions that can put in control inputs under various conditions. Every one of these inputs can be overridden by the pilot.

In the case of the recent MAX accidents, the MCAS system put in an unexpected and large input by moving the stabilizer. The crews attempted to oppose this input, but they did so mostly by using elevator input (pulling back on the control column). This required a great deal of arm strength which they eventually could not overcome. However, if either pilot had merely used the strength of their thumb to depress the stabilizer trim switch on the yoke, they could have easily opposed and cancelled out whatever input MCAS was trying to put in. Why neither pilot took this fairly basic measure should be one of the key areas of investigation.

These comments are not intended in any way to exonerate Boeing, the FAA, and the compromises that went into the MAX design. There is a lot there to be concerned about. However, we are not dealing with a case of an automation system that was so powerful and autonomous that pilots could not override what it was trying to do.

marku52 , April 22, 2019 at 5:13 pm

Bjorn over at Leeham had this analysis:
"the Flight Crew followed the procedures prescribed by FAA and Boeing in AD 2018-23-51. And as predicted the Flight Crew could not trim manually, the trim wheel can't be moved at the speeds ET302 flew."

In other words, the pilots followed the Boeing recommended procedure to turn off the automatic trim, but at the speeds they were flying and the large angle that MCAS has moved the stabilizer to, the trim wheels were bound up and could not be moved by human effort.

https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner-et302-crash-report-the-first-analysis/

They then turned electric trim on to try to help their effort, and MCAS put the nose down again.

Also: Did no one ever test the humans factors of this in a simulator? At HP, when we put out a new printer, we had human factors bring in average users to see if using our documentation, they could install the printer.

It is mind-blowing to me that Boeing and the FAA can release an Air Worthiness Directive (The fix after the Lion crash) that was apparently never simulator tested to see if actual humans could do it.

stevelaudig , April 22, 2019 at 2:50 pm

The bureaucratic decision-making model is the same as that which gifted us with the Challenger 'accident' which was no accident.

ChrisPacific , April 22, 2019 at 4:13 pm

None of the above should have passed muster. None of the above should have passed the "OK" pencil of the most junior engineering staff, much less a DER [FAA Designated Engineering Representative].

That's not a big strike. That's a political, social, economic, and technical sin .

This is the thing that has been nagging me all along about this story. The "most junior engineering staff" thing is not an exaggeration – engineers get this drilled into them until it's part of their DNA. I read this and immediately thought that it points to a problem of culture and values (a point I was pleased to see the author make in the next paragraph). Bluntly, it tells us that the engineers are not the ones running the show at Boeing, and that extends even to safety critical situations where their assessment should trump everything.

One of two things needs to happen as a result of this. Either Boeing needs to return to the old safety first culture, or it needs to go out of business. If neither happens, we are going to see a lot more planes falling out of the sky.

VietnamVet , April 22, 2019 at 7:15 pm

I want to reemphasize that all airplane crashes are a chain of events; if one event does not occur there are no causalities. Lion Air flight should never have flow with a faulty sensor. But afterwards when the elevator jackscrew was found in the full nose down position that forced the plane to dive into the Java Sea, Boeing and FAA should have grounded the fleet until a fix was found. The deaths in Ethiopia are on them. The November 2018 737-8 and -9 Airworthiness Directive was criminally negligent. Without adequate training the Ethiopian Airline pilots were overwhelmed and not could trim the elevator after turning off the jackscrew electric motor with the manual trim control due to going too fast with takeoff thrust from start to finish. With deregulation and the end of government oversight, the terrible design of the 737 Max is solely on Boeing and politicians who deregulated certification. Profit clearly drove corporate decisions with no consideration of the consequences. This is popping up consistently now from VW to Quantitative Easing, or the restart of the Cold War. Unless the FAA requires pilot and copilot simulator training on how to manually trim the 737 Max with all hell breaking loose in the cockpit, the only recourse for customers is to boycott flying Boeing. Ultimately the current economic system that puts profit above all else must end if humans are to survive.

[Apr 22, 2019] Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

Apr 22, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , April 21, 2019 at 01:21 AM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html

April 20, 2019

Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet
By Natalie Kitroeff and David Gelles

Workers at a 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina have complained of safety lapses, echoing broader concerns about the company.

Boeing is facing questions about rushed production on another jet, the 737 Max, which was involved in two deadly crashes.

ilsm -> anne... , April 21, 2019 at 04:02 AM
The Air Force has delayed delivery of new KC 46's, a B767 rigged to refuel other airplanes for "quality" issues.

[Apr 21, 2019] Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond

Highly recommended!
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression against Iraq long before 9/11.
Apr 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Desolation Row , Apr 20, 2019 10:21:11 PM | link

Desolation Row | Apr 20, 2019 10:09:06 PM | 41

Psywar

Source: https://vimeo.com/14772678 @ 48:15

[Apr 21, 2019] Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Oct 28, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when he was elected will help clarifying these theses.

Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of time.

From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism, a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production, initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson and Madison, among others.

As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.

The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.

Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance.

Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.

Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.

Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to honor their funding commitments.

From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently, they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones used in the past.

Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning, much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority of China's economic model, but this is a different matter.

As Trump becomes more aware about his limitations, he has naturally reversed to the basic imprints of America's traditional foreign policy, particularly concerning defense. His emphasis on a further increase in defense spending is not done for prestigious or national security reasons, but as an attempt to preserve a job generating infrastructure without considering the catastrophic consequences that it may cause.

On Iran, Obama's initiative to seek normalization was an attempt to walk a fine line (and to find a less conflictive path) between supporting the US traditional Middle East allies (mainly the odd combination of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and recognizing Iran's growing aspirations. Deep down, Obama was trying to acknowledge Iran's historical viability as a country and a society that will not disappear from the map, while Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, may not be around in a few years. Trump's Iran policy until now only represents a different weighing of priorities, although it is having far reaching consequences on America's credibility as a reliable contractual party in international affairs.

In the case of Afghanistan, Trump's decision to increase boots on the ground does not break the inertia of US past administrations. Aside from temporary containment, an increasing military presence or a change in tactics will not alter fundamentally this reality.

Concerning Russia, and regardless of what Trump has said, actions speak more than words. A continuous deterioration of relations seems inevitable.

Trump will also learn, if he has not done so already, about the growth of multipolar forces in world's events. Russia has mastered this reality for several years and is quite skillful at using it as a basic tool of its own foreign goals. Our multipolar world will expand, and Trump may even inadvertently exacerbate it through its actions (for instance in connection with the different stands taken by the US and its European allies concerning Iran).

While fulfilling the aspirations of the American people seems more difficult within the existing capitalist framework, there are also growing apprehensions coming from America's power elite as it becomes more frustrated due to its incapacity of being more effective at the world level. America's relative adolescence in world's history will become more and more apparent in the coming years.

A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions. The US has never suffered the consequences of an international conflict in its own backyard. The American Civil War, despite all the suffering that it caused, was primarily a domestic event with no foreign intervention (contrary to the wishes of the Confederation). The deep social and psychological damage caused by war is not part of America's consciousness as it is, for instance in Germany, Russia or Japan. America is insensitive to the lessons of history because it has a very short history itself.

Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination.

Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker that has lived and worked in North and Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines and Western Africa. He currently chairs Davos International Advisory, an advisory firm focused on strategic consulting across emerging markets.


Related

[Apr 20, 2019] Here is an interesting interpretation of Trumps selection of cabinet and advisor positions

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments. ..."
"... I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. ..."
"... A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies). ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Patient Observer , November 19, 2016 at 8:41 am

Here is an interesting interpretation of Trump's selection of cabinet and advisor positions:

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201611191047623363-trump-administration-analysis/

It is not about politics, but Trump's peculiar management style, Timofey Bordachev, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Russia's High School of Economics, told RIA Novosti.

"Those who have been studying the business biography of the newly elected president have noted that he has always played off his high-ranking employees against each other. While doing so he remained above the fight," he said.

And

Gevorg Mirzayan, an assistant professor of the Political Science department at the Financial University in Moscow pointed out two purposes for the nominations.

"Trump needs to consolidate the Republican Party, hence he should nominate representatives of different party groups to key positions in his administration to win the support of the whole party," he told RIA Novosti. Surveillance © Photo: Pixabay Trump National Security Team Reportedly Wants to Dismantle Top US Spy Agency The second purpose is to form an administration that doesn't look too "dovish" or too "hawkish" to be able to avoid further accusations of excessive loyalty towards Moscow, he suggested. Thus without an image of a 'dove" who neglects the national interests, he will be able to normalize Russian-American relations, the expert said.

The above brings rationality to the diverse selections made by Trump.

However, the black swan event will be an economic collapse (fast or protracted over several years). That will be the defining event in the Trump presidency. I have no inkling how he or those who may replace him would respond.

Jen , November 19, 2016 at 12:18 pm
I had guessed myself that Trump was going to run the government as a business corporation. Surrounding himself with people of competing viewpoints, and hiring on the basis of experience and skills (and not on the basis of loyalty, as Hillary Clinton might have done) would be two ways Trump can change the government and its culture. Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments.

If running the US government as a large mock business enterprise brings a change in its culture so it becomes more open and accountable to the public, less directed by ideology and identity politics, and gets rid of people engaged in building up their own little empires within the different departments, then Trump might just be the President the US needs at this moment in time.

Interesting that Russian academics have noted the outlines of Trump's likely cabinet and what they suggest he plans to do, and no-one else has. Does this imply that Americans and others in the West have lost sight of how large business corporations could be run, or should be run, and everyone is fixated on fake "entrepreneurship" or "self-entrepreneur" (whatever that means) models of running a business where it's every man, woman, child and dog for itself?

Patient Observer , November 19, 2016 at 5:21 pm Patient Observer , November 19, 2016 at 5:21 pm
I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. Trump may have noted how Putin did an incredible turnaround of Russia and it all started with three objectives: restore the integrity of the borders, rebuild the industrial base and run off the globalists/liberals/kreakles. I am certainly not the first one to say this and I think that there is a lot of basis for that analysis. However, Trump will have a far more difficult challenge and frankly I don't think he has enough allies or smarts to pull it off.

A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies).

[Apr 20, 2019] The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us.

Apr 20, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Originally from: Behind the Omar Outrage Suppressed History of 9-11 – Consortiumnews

Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24

The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase "leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.

Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12

I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century, when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire, would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies, economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the other.

After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.

But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well.

[Apr 19, 2019] A child could see through the fake "chemical attack" supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:29 pm GMT

Justin Raimondo has just done a U turn on 'president' Dump

' doesn't this prove I was wrong about Trump and his movement all along?

I was very wrong to discount the role of character, personality, and intelligence: Trump is simply not fit to be President '

Raimondo's reaction to Dump's incredible imbecility re the Syria 'chemical attacks '

' A child could see through the fake "chemical attack" supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria '

Yes anyone watching that white helmets footage is immediately cringing for those poor kids being abused as props in a macabre stage play

How stupid is Dump anyway ? That's the question

[Apr 19, 2019] Raimondo: So Trump is not just stupid, and crazy he is also a coward.

Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

densa , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:45 pm GMT

Raimondo:

So he's not just stupid, and crazy – he's also a coward. He refuses to confront the War Party head on, despite his campaign trail rhetoric. Just the other day he was telling crowds in Ohio how we were on the way out of Syria because "we have to take care of our own country." The crowd cheered. Would he go back to that same audience and tell them we need to intervene in a country that's been wracked by warfare for years, with no real hope of a peaceful settlement? Of course not.

Coulter:

He is a shallow, lazy ignoramus who just wants Goldman Sachs to like him.

We get words; the neocon banker NY scum, running and ruining this world on the fast track since 9-11, get action. They also own the congressional swamp with its amazingly high approval rating of 15%. They own the former liberal left, now the Resistance, that can turn out half a million bleeding hearts in pussy hats but the same oddly can't be bothered to protest war.

Although I believe the timing of the raid on Trump's lawyer's office to be convenient to help persuade him to ignore his base and appease his owners, at this point I won't be troubled when they throw him away.

[Apr 19, 2019] Jimmy Carter: US 'Most Warlike Nation in History of the World' by Brett Wilkins

Apr 19, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

The only US president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has called the United States "the most warlike nation in the history of the world."

During his regular Sunday school lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter revealed that he had recently spoken with President Donald Trump about China. Carter, 94, said Trump was worried about China's growing economy and expressed concern that "China is getting ahead of us."

Carter, who normalized diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979, said he told Trump that much of China's success was due to its peaceful foreign policy.

"Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody?" Carter asked.
"None, and we have stayed at war." While it is true that China's last major war -- an invasion of Vietnam -- occurred in 1979, its People's Liberation Army pounded border regions of Vietnam with artillery and its navy battled its Vietnamese counterpart in the 1980s. Since then, however, China has been at peace with its neighbors and the world.

Carter then said the US has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation. Counting wars, military attacks and military occupations, there have actually only been five years of peace in US history -- 1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford administration and 1977-80, the entirety of Carter's presidency. Carter then referred to the US as "the most warlike nation in the history of the world," a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to "adopt our American principles."

China's peace dividend has allowed and enhanced its economic growth, Carter said. "How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?" he asked. China has around 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of high speed rail lines while the US has "wasted, I think, $3 trillion" on military spending. According to a November 2018 study by Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the US has spent $5.9 trillion waging war in Iraq,

Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations since 2001.

"It's more than you can imagine," Carter said of US war spending. "China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way."

"And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure you'd probably have $2 trillion leftover," Carter told his congregation. "We'd have high-speed railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing, we'd have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong."

While there is a prevalent belief in the United States that the country almost always wages war for noble purposes and in defense of freedom, global public opinion and facts paint a very different picture. Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll identified the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a 2017 Pew Research poll found that a record number of people in 30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence as a "major threat."

The US has also invaded or bombed dozens of countries and supported nearly every single right wing dictatorship in the world since the end of World War II. It has overthrown or attempted to overthrow dozens of foreign governments since 1949 and has actively sought to crush nearly every single people's liberation movement over that same period. It has also meddled in scores of elections, in countries that are allies and adversaries alike. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Brett Wilkins

Brett Wilkins is editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace.

[Apr 19, 2019] Why Russiagate Will Never Go Away by Rob Urie

With 240,000 people employed by DHS to find terrorists, terrorists will be found
Apr 19, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

Given that Russia's economy today is smaller than Italy's and its military budget wouldn't buy a toilet seat or hammer in the U.S. military procurement system, the question of why Russia would seem a great mystery outside of history. And left unstated is that the U.S. defense industry needs enemies to survive. 'Radical Islam,' an invention of oil and gas industry flacks that turned out to be serviceable for marketing Tomahawk missiles and stealth fighter jets as well, lost some of its luster when ISIS and Al Qaeda came over to 'our side.' And humanitarian intervention ain't what it used to be with Libya reduced to rubble and open-air slave markets now dotting the landscape.

From 1948 through the early 1990s Russia was Pennywise the evil clown, helping to sell bananas, nuclear weapons and cut-rate underwear around the globe wherever American empire alighted. Costumed 'communists,' locals paid a day-rate to dress up and shout whatever slogans conveyed evil most effectively, were a staple of CIA interventions from Iran to Guatemala to the streets of New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Never mind that the slayer of monsters is more monstrous than an army of evil clowns, as the Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Chileans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Yemenis and on and on, were to learn.

The big why (?) here would suggest an eternal mystery were it not for the arithmetic we learned as tykes. The U.S. has an annual military budget that is larger than the next seven evil empires combined. Killing people and blowing shit up is what America does. Stated reverse-wise, what is the point of being able to end all human life on earth more than once? Yet the U.S. can do it 3X -- 5X or 30X -- 50X, depending on which analysis is chosen. And while it would be anti-historical to remove mal-intent as motive, an alternative explanation of the militarization of the police is 'overstock,' that there is nothing else to do with the stuff that the Pentagon produces.

This would seem a tremendous waste of resources under any reasonable theory of their efficient use (e.g. capitalism). The explanation of 'national defense' reads as legitimate until history is brought back in. For a few thousand years, the argument against maintaining a standing army was that standing armies tend to get used. Preparations for armed conflict facilitate armed conflict. The mobilizations for WWI and WWII were mobilizations, not drawdowns from existing military inventory. There is something to be said for wars requiring large expenditures of time, effort and resources from everyone for whom they are undertaken. Otherwise, they are likely to be started lightly.

The U.S. has long been the most militaristic nation in the world. This probably doesn't read right to most Americans. 'We' are a peace-loving nation that only sends in the military as a last resort, goes the myth. And 'we' changed the name from the Department of War to the Department of Defense. It was early in the twentieth century that U.S. General Smedley Butler proclaimed that 'war is a racket' (racket = organized crime) as he described his military career as a ' gangster for capitalism .' The business of war in support of capitalism had long been a business in its own right, just ask Wall Street.

When the George W. Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security following 9/11, the obvious question from people who thought about such things was: what are these people going to do all day? With daily briefings presented to Mr. Bush entitled ' Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S. 'before 9/11, the only intelligence failure, if that is what it was, occurred in the White House. Mr. Bush's entourage had been rumbling about going back to Iraq to 'finish the job' since the end of his father's war. How much of a leap was it then to assume that Mr. Bush's WMD scam was a pretext for re-invading Iraq?

But the question isn't rhetorical. With 240,000 people employed by DHS to find terrorists, terrorists will be found. The basic insight is that justifying one's employment is crucial to keeping it. In this light, the FBI counter-terrorism unit spent its time since 2001 enticing poor and desperate people to claim each other as terrorists. The first person to point out that there are no terrorists would be the first to receive a pink slip. And the same is true of government contracting. Brave entrepreneurs who feed at the trough of military largesse need to justify their existences. If they don't, some other proud patriot will step forward and do so. A logic of necessity becomes a legitimating belief system More broadly, one could argue that manufacturing terrorists has been the strategic goal of U.S. military operations for much of the last century. If you bomb enough villages and wedding parties, people will fight back. Wasn't this the implied storyline of anti-communist agitprop like Red Dawn and anti-Muslim agitprop like Zero Dark Thirty -- if you invade 'our' country and / or bomb 'our' villages and wedding parties, we will fight back. As a business proposition, the more people that are killed, the more legitimate the operation is made to appear. Make the weapons, then employ hundreds of thousands of people to explain why 'we' need to bomb villages. Then make more weapons. page1image256

Graphic: Time Magazine was the voice of post-War liberalism in the 1970s -- it reflected the opinions emanating from American officialdom through a faux-critical lens. This cover featuring Muammar Gaddafi presaged the Obama administration's destruction of Libya by 35 years. The main difference then was relative honesty about U.S. motives -- 'Oil' was the lede in 1973, where 'humanitarian' concerns drove the American propaganda effort in 2011. Note: 'Arab' was replaced by 'Muslim extremist' following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Source: Time, Inc.

Propaganda theory is relevant here because of the ease with which the Russiagate story was sold -- all evidence, no matter how contradictory, was claimed to point in only one direction. Contrariwise, Russia isn't the Soviet Union. America's political leaders have long supported strongmen and dictators. The biggest threat to free and fair elections in the U.S. is American oligarchs followed by Israel. The Democrat running in the 2016 presidential election openly manipulated the 1996 Russian presidential election. Russia today is a neoliberal petrostate. Vladimir Putin is admired in Russia because he booted out corrupt American 'advisors' who were looting the country. In other words, Russia today isn't Russia!

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and ostensible end of the first Cold War, a ' peace dividend ' of reduced military spending was expected to fund increased domestic spending, the classic 'guns versus butter' formulation shifted in favor of butter. A drop to pre-WWII levels of military spending would have meant 95%+ of the military-industrial complex went away. Following a very brief drop in the rate of growth of military spending in the early 1990s, a recession caused by the looting of Savings & Loans and its aftermath led to the argument that 'the economy' couldn't withstand a reduced military. September 11 th , 2001 was the best day ever for U.S. military contractors. America was back in the business of industrial-scale slaughter.

Early on, the American defense industry tried a few new enemies on for size. The George W. Bush administration's WMD scam targeted an audience that had been primed by several decades of anti-Muslim propaganda (see Time cover above) tied to oil geopolitics. The only WMDs found in Iraq had come from the Reagan administration in its effort to keep Iraq warring with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Current American amnesia over the genesis of Islamophobia is quaint. The New York Times has been demonizing Muslims since the 1970s . It was hardly incidental that 'reporting' on the Iraq war contained breathless descriptions of newly created instruments of mass slaughter.

However, there were two tacks that propelled the Iraq War forward. Humanitarian intervention had been the liberal formulation for selling the carpet bombing of civilian populations as in the interest of those being bombed. The term was used for the aerial bombardment of civilian populations in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-1990s. And it was the back-up explanation for the American war against Iraq -- to remove an evil dictator in order to liberate the people of Iraq. It was also used to justify the U.S. / NATO bombing of Libya in 2011. To the certain dismay of the defense industry, none of those interventions retained the patina of good intentions once it became known that the target nations had been functionally destroyed.

Russiagate has been a godsend for those who profit from destruction. As the story goes, the wily Russian bear, led by an evil dictator and newly trained in the technologies of modernity, set loose a witch's brew of inter-continental ballistic internet messages to sow dissent amongst the brothers and sisters of die Vaterland united by their common bond of loving America. For younger readers, the claim that foreign 'agitation' motivated the Civil Rights and anti-War movements, and more broadly, the American Left, has been a mainstay of CIA and FBI propaganda since these agencies were created. Old playbooks are good playbooks?

Those with a sense of humor, if humor includes installing a drunken buffoon to head a nuclear armed foreign power, might offer that 'Trump' is the English translation of 'Yeltsin.' In 1996 the American President colluded with people inside the Russian government to overturn the democratic will of the Russian people to install Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia. Yuk, yuk -- an unstable jackass was installed to head a foreign government. The 'payback' narrative no-doubt motivated true belief amongst some American officials after 2016. But alas, as with bombed villages and wedding parties, unless you just will not stop fucking with other people, they generally have other things to do than plot revenge.

None of the propagators of the phony WMD stories suffered from passing off state propaganda as news. The New York Times and Washington Post found themselves on the winning side of the 'fake news' scam to shut down the opposition press. Even Judith Miller, brief heroine of the free press for being 'stove-piped' by Dick Cheney, went on to a well-paid gig at Fox News, wrote an autobiography that more than just her immediate family read and now lives as a 'celebrity.' Heroes of the #Resistance like David Corn, Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff have the proceeds from book sales and television appearances to sustain them until their services are needed to sell the next scam-with-a-purpose.

The economic role of American defense spending will lead to endless iterations of WMD and Russiagate scams until the Pentagon is shut down. And that's the good part. The wars that these scams support are the bane of humanity. Their true costs, in terms of lives destroyed, appear to be meaningless to people living in twenty-room houses who want to live in thirty room houses. Winding down the warfare state would be less politically fraught if people had non-murderous ways of paying their bills. But how was this not understood as the warfare state was being built?

Finally, apologists for Russiagate claim that it has been nowhere near as dangerous as WMD lies. Let's see: a cadre of national security officials spent two-and-one-half years claiming that it has secret evidence that the President of the U.S. colluded with the leader of a foreign government to assume power and then use his office for the benefit of that foreign leader. Following, the domestic press claimed that the U.S. 'was under attack' and 'was at war' with this foreign power. Meanwhile, the U.S. went about arming anti-Russian militias on Russia's border while unilaterally abrogating a short-and-intermediate range nuclear weapons treaty after publicly announcing that it was 'modernizing' its stockpile of short-and-intermediate-range nuclear weapons.

Respectfully, this has all been a tad less than constructive.

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Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book Zen Economics is published by CounterPunch Books. More articles by: Rob Urie

[Apr 19, 2019] The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us.

Apr 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Originally from: Behind the Omar Outrage Suppressed History of 9-11 – Consortiumnews

Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24

The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase "leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.

[Apr 16, 2019] Boeing has called its 737 Max 8 'not suitable' for certain airports

Apr 16, 2019 | www.latimes.com

Before last month's crash of a flight that began in Ethiopia, Boeing Co. said in a legal document that large, upgraded 737s "cannot be used at what are referred to as 'high/hot' airports."

At an elevation of 7,657 feet -- or more than a mile high -- Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport falls into that category. High elevations require longer runways and faster speeds for takeoff.

[Apr 15, 2019] I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military

Highly recommended!
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Adam E, says: April 14, 2019 at 8:50 am

Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.

It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from previous engagements.

I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated, and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.

Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars spent, period.

And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.

WJ , says: April 14, 2019 at 9:13 am
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people, time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard

[Apr 15, 2019] The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf

Notable quotes:
"... In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of the US military. ..."
"... And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons belong to them. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paul Damascene , Apr 14, 2019 10:19:30 AM | link

You ask a question about European political class's perception and defence of European interests that is as perplexing here as it is in regard to Libya and Syria, to name just these. There was at least some coherent defence of international law and principle during Bush II's lead up to the Iraq war, but Europe's defence of law and Europe's common interests seem to have ceased at some point since then.

pretzelattack , Apr 14, 2019 10:31:57 AM | link

so many poodles, but there can only be one alpha poodle and that's the uk so far.
Babyl-on , Apr 14, 2019 10:43:53 AM | link
"Why are they playing this game?"

Because, like the US European government is a tool of the Global Power Elite, it is nothing more than pantomime. The West is fully owned and operated by the global elite.

In books going back to C Wright Mills' The Power Elite in 1956 to SUPERCLASS by David Rothkopf, and GIANTS: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips clearly outline just how powerful the Global Elites really are.

In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of the US military.

There is one and only one Western empire - that of the Global Elites.

85% of the valuable assets in the world are controlled by the Global Elites.

There is no offsetting force against them, there simply does not exist today a force capable of challenging their ownership of the world.

And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons belong to them.

[Apr 15, 2019] Trump Says You cannot break the laws of physics and then fix them with software.

Apr 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

remove Share link Copy Trump would have been better off Tweeting something like...

"The safety of the flying public worldwide is of the utmost importance to all of us. I have been in constant contact with Boeings CEO and have complete confidence that the improvements they are making will make the 737MAX one of the safest planes ever built. No 737 MAX will take to the skies that I would not put my own family member on".

Not everything is about BRANDING

play_arrow 4 play_arrow 3 Reply Report

DrBrown314 , 22 minutes ago link

See the problem with the max is it will never be safe. What boeing did was try and put a square peg in a round hole. To save costs both in certification and pilot training boeing decided to just take the 737 airframe and put bigger more fuel efficient engines on it so they wouldn't loose market share to airbus. That was a stupid mistake. The bigger engines hung so low they had to mount them higher and more forward thus creating aerodynamic issues. The new engine mounting causes air flow disruption over the inner wing during climb out. That is why they messed with the mcas. You cannot break the laws of physics and then fix them with software. Sorry that will never work.

Cobra Commander , 40 minutes ago link

Boeing is still delivering the 73NG and should make an offer to the airlines to replace each MAX order 1 for 1 with a 737-800 or -900 at cost. The traveling public will have immediate confidence, the airlines can fill schedules, and Boeing can clean house on the MAX "leadership" team.

Cobra!

[Apr 14, 2019] If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH

Jul 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

Greg Bacon , Website July 3, 2018 at 7:13 pm GMT

It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez-if elected–sticks to her principles or succumbs to the shekel storm headed her way.

Radical Jews of the Hasidic type are also acting thuggish on American streets, like in Brooklyn where they committed assault, battery and kidnapping on a bicyclist.

These kind of fanatics are growing in numbers all over the USA.

If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH.

[Apr 14, 2019] On support of Trump administration of Isreal expansionism and colonization of captured from Arabs territories: From the point of view of UN law the state of Israel is an outlaw

The term "Jews" probably should be strictly avoided. Zionists or Likudniks is a better term for Jewish Supremacists.
Aug 14, 2018 | www.unz.com

skrik , August 14, 2018 at 1:51 pm GMT

@Anonymouse

let the US give itself back to the Indians, and then ask Israel to act the same way

Give the US back to the amerindians! Give Aus back to the abos! This does not work; it's called 'moral relativism' and/or the 'tu quoque' [appeal to hypocrisy] fallacy.

Then ask Israel to act err, hello? Israel has been 'asked,' over 100 times by some counts, to 'get legal' under UN resolutions. Israel is an outlaw.

Kindly consider the I/J/Z-plex's 10 steps to utter, criminal ignominy:

  1. Herzl; coveting, expropriation (1897+)
  2. Balfour; aid Zs, no consult Ps
  3. Jabotinsky; colonise by force
  4. Ben-Gurion: "we are the attackers and the Arabs own the land" [points 1 - 4 all pre-WW2]
  5. UNGA181: "an area shall be evacuated" (invalid + no UNSC action = not law)
  6. Meir; $US50mio for arms + Plan Dalet&Co = premeditated, murdering to steal aggression
  7. When immigrants (=aliens) attack natives, it's *not* civil war but Nuremberg-class crime
  8. Z-terrorism; down to today; alien invaders' highest-tech vs. besieged & blockaded, basically unarmed natives
  9. US-support incl. UNSC vetoes; also down to 'current moment'
  10. Z-hasbarah = mostly lies, designed and deployed to deceive

More: Post-WW2, Nuremberg trials, hanging perpetrators for murdering invasions for Lebensraum predate King David Hotel bombing, Plan Dalet with outrages like the Deir Yassin massacre, etc.. Similar outrages continue to be perpetrated by the illegitimate entity, into 'the current moment.'

Lemma: At any crime-scene, there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories, apologists and/or 'idle' bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a) restrain malefactors and where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in active resistance to the crime attract proportional guilt.

Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes him/herself an accessory, like all residents in the 'illegitimate entity,' say.

Also post WW2, we got the post-colonial era; the illegitimate entity fulfils the 'premeditated supreme international crime' criteria. RoR+R*3 NOW! QED

PS Showing 'support' for criminals adopts part guilt for those criminals' crimes via the accessory process; why would anyone in their 'right' = correct mind do that?

anarchyst , August 14, 2018 at 1:59 pm GMT
If a nuclear device is "lit off" in an American or European city, it will have Israel's fingerprints all over it. Israel is desperate to keep the American money spigot running, as well as sabotaging the Palestinian "peace process" that the world wants it to take seriously.

In fact, if a nuclear device is "lit off" anywhere in the world, it will have come from Israel's secret nuclear "stockpile".

The "power outage" in Atlanta was a convenient excuse for Israel to perform a logistical "sleight of hand", as an Israeli plane was allowed to land and take off during the "power outage" without receiving customs clearance or inspection. This is one of many Israeli companies that possesses a "special exemption" granted by the U S government that frees it from customs inspections. Just maybe another one of Israel's nukes was just being pre-positioned or nuclear triggers (tritium) were being renewed, getting ready for "the big one". As most Americans are tired of all of the foreign wars being fought for Israel's benefit, another "incident" on American soil would be enough to galvanize the American public, once again, (just like WTC 9-11) to support another war for Israel's benefit. Israel's "samson option" is a real threat to "light one off" in a European or American city, if Israel's interests are not taken seriously.

Israel refuses to abide by IAEA guidelines concerning its nukes as they are already distributed around the world. Israel would not be able to produce all of them as most of them are not in Israel, proper. No delivery systems are needed as Israel's nukes are already "in place". Look for another "false flag" operation with the blame being put on Iran or Syria. You can bet that some Iranian or Syrian passports will be found in the rubble.

Israel also threatens to detonate nuclear devices in several US cities. Talk about total INSANITY; the so-called "Samson Option" is it.

As an aside, American "foreign aid" is prohibited from being given to any country that has not signed the "Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty" or refuses to abide by "International Atomic Energy Agency" (IAEA) guidelines regarding its nuclear devices. Guess what?? Israel does not abide by EITHER and still gets the majority of American "foreign aid". This prohibition also applies to countries that do not register their "agents of a foreign government" with the U S State Department. Guess what?? Israel (again) with its "American Israel Political Action Committee" (AIPAC) still gets "foreign aid" in contravention of American law..

There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy "wonks" infecting the U S government who hold "dual citizenship" with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity.

When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel just who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the interests of the American people and the United States they should renounce their United States citizenship and be deported to Israel

Bardon Kaldian , August 14, 2018 at 2:17 pm GMT
Giraldi is here-unlike in most of his regularly anti-Semitic texts- right about one crucial thing: American Gentile cow-towing to (real or imagined) Jewish power in the US, as illustrated by absurd Baron Cohen's episode.

However, I don't blame most of US Jews for that. Jewish ethnocentrists are to be suspect, sure, but the main question for US gentile politicians & public figures remains: why are you such suckers, anyway?

Sam Shama , August 14, 2018 at 2:35 pm GMT
Between Jessica at #23, and Anon at #45 lay two paramount pieces of instruction which Phil Giraldi ought to heed.

Ordinary Jews are no more required to register their objections over AIPAC's actions than are Christians over the actions of their top leaders including the POTUS, domestic MIC lobbies, the Gun Lobby and the Oil lobby; no more that is, beyond what each citizen expresses through her vote. Individuals may choose; to go beyond, into political activism; yet choice is the operative notion.

And no, Geokat, Power isn't listening to Phil over the sound of crickets for the simple reason that Power does not read the UR, couldn't care less if they did, as the Review quite rapidly degenerates to the station of an unrelenting hate rag frequented by dubious IQ cultists, antisemites and White Nationalism apologists.

Felicity , August 14, 2018 at 3:14 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke

"Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it (Israel) had considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with Washington."

And according to Jimmy Carter Israeli intelligence had advance information of the suicide attack on the US barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 243 US servicemen (one of whom was a member of my family). The Israelis decided to not inform US intelligence in the hope that a major attack on US personnel would precipitate a commitment of US troops and arms into the region. So much for our Israeli "ally".

JessicaR , August 14, 2018 at 4:10 pm GMT
@Anonymouse

You are, of course, correct that the US committed either genocide or near-genocide (depending on your definition of the term) against Native Americans. However, NOW, in the 21st century, any Native American who is a US citizen is free to buy property in any part of America and live where he chooses. Native Americans are no longer confined to reservations. While poverty is a fact of life for many Native Americans, some tribes have profited substantially from gambling. In Florida, Seminoles may receive upward of 40,000 a year (each man, woman, and child) as their share of the gambling revenues. They can certainly afford to buy property just about anywhere.

(Note that I am not denying that much discrimination and inequality still persist and that most reservations with gambling offer very little to tribal members.)

In Israel, however, Palestinians cannot return to their home towns and buy property. They are not free to live where they choose. Many are still confined to refugee camps. Housing discrimination continues to persist for Israeli Arabs. Yes, the High Court ruled it illegal, but few remedies are in place, which means the practice continues largely unabated.

If you want to use historical analogies, I believe you should use them in full.

utu , August 14, 2018 at 4:39 pm GMT

Cohen's performance is instructive. A man shows up in Israeli uniform, claims to be a terrorism expert or even a Mossad agent, and he gains access to powerful Americans who are willing to do anything he says.

It is very telling about the human material on the right in America. Complete morons. Now think about it. It was a prank, right? But I can imagine that real negotiations with Israelis are very similar and produce similar positive outcomes for Israelis. Israelis play Americans anyway they want on all levels of federal and local administrations. They have the same attitude towards Americans as Jack Abramoff had towards his counterparts at Indian reservations. Why shouldn't they? It works.

he called his Indian clients "troglodytes" and "morons" and "monkeys," "the stupidest idiots in the land." In one particularly damning e-mail he counseled Scanlon, "The key thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so quickly . So, we have to put up with this stuff."

At best American are annoying losers who part with their money quickly.

Mr. Giraldi, why do you bother with your articles? You still have illusions that you can educate the monkeys?

Anon [270] Disclaimer , Website August 14, 2018 at 4:44 pm GMT
"special relationship"

It smacks of supremacism, doesn't it? It means the US must favor Zionist occupiers in West Bank over Palestinians, the very people who are being occupied.

It means the US must favor Israel, a nation that stole uranium from US and has 300 nukes, over Iran, a nation that passed all inspections and has no nukes.

This special relationship is a form of worship. It is never discussed rationally WHY Israel is so crucial to us. Instead, politicians and pundits gush about it with fanatical devotion, as if it's a sacred truth. Anyone who questions it even slightly is marginalized or destroyed. Some might Giraldi has been too strident, but even mild criticism of Israel or Zionism can get you banned from media or politics.

I find it odd that Jews always remind us that Old America was 'racist' because it favored Europeans over non-whites, especially in immigration and foreign policy. After all, the US often sided with European imperialists over non-white subjects of colonialism.

In New America, there is supposed to no Special Treatment for any group, but Jews and Israel get it all the time. In asylum(Save Soviet Jews), in immigration, in college admission, in foreign policy -- not just in supporting Israel at every turn but in waging Wars for Israel and hating on any nation hated by Jews, esp Russia, Iran, and Syria.

[Apr 14, 2019] Feeding the Monster, by Philip Giraldi

While secular "cultural nationalism" is probably essential to the survival of the nation, far right nationalism is a cancer.
There is a vicious spiral: Israel actions, which are essentially American-style colonization of the territory, radicalize Palestinians, and their actions in turn radicalize Jews feeling far right nationalism.
The early Zionists were mostly atheist. Zionists quoting the Bible for legitimacy of their land claims I'd take with a pinch of salt regarding their sincerity.
Notable quotes:
"... "No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me." ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs ..."
"... As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West. ..."
Jul 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

One paragraph in particular in the article I read was highly suggestive, the claim that Ocasio-Cortez had been strongly opposed to the Israelis' routine slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, which has by now become of such little import that it is not even reported any more in the U.S. media. She is also allegedly a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS), which pressures Israel to end its theft and occupation of Palestinian land. The article expressed some surprise that anyone in New York City would dare to say anything unpleasant about Israel and still expect to get elected.

This is what Ocasio-Cortez, who called the shooting of more than 130 Gazans a "massacre," actually said and wrote :

"No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me."

Five hours later, when I arrived home in Virginia I went to pull up the article I had read in the morning to possibly use it in a piece of my own and was somewhat surprised to discover that the bit about Israel had been excised from the text. It was clearly yet another example of how the media self-censors when there is anything negative to say about Israel and it underlines the significance of the emergence of recent international media reporting in The Guardian and elsewhere regarding how Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson largely dictates U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. That means that the conspiracy of silence over Israel's manipulation of the United States government is beginning to break down and journalists have become bold enough to challenge what occurs when pro-Israel Jews obtain real power over the political process. Adelson, for what it's worth, wants war with Iran and has even suggested detonating a nuclear device on its soil to "send a message."

I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans.

The question of the relationship with Israel comes at a time when everyone in America, so it seems, is concerned about children being separated from their parents who have illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. The concern is legitimate given the coarse and sometimes violent justifications coming out of the White House, but it's a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium. When a Jewish fanatic/Israel settler kills Palestinian children and is protected by his government in so doing, where is the outrage in the U.S. media? Settlers and soldiers kill Palestinians, young and old, with impunity and are almost never punished. They destroy their orchards and livestock to eliminate their livelihoods to drive them out. They bulldoze their homes and villages. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency does none of that and is yet subject to nonstop abuse in the mainstream media, so what about Israel?

A recent story illustrates just how horrible the Israelis can be without any pushback whatsoever coming from Washington objecting to their behavior. As the United States is the only force that can in any way compel Israel to come to its senses and chooses not to do so, that makes U.S. policymakers and by extension the American people complicit in Israel's crimes.

The particularly horrible recent account that I am referring to describes how fanatical Jewish settlers burned alive a Palestinian family on the West Bank, including a baby, and then celebrated the deaths while taunting the victims' surviving family when they subsequently appeared in court. The story was covered in Israel and Europe but insofar as I could determine did not appear in any detail in the U.S. mainstream media.

Israeli Jewish settlers carried out their shameful deed outside a court in the city of Lod, chanting "'Ali was burned, where is Ali? There is no Ali. Ali is burned. On the fire. Ali is on the grill!" referring to the 18-month old baby Ali Dawabsheh, who was burnt alive in 2015 by Jewish settlers hurling Molotov cocktails into a house in the West Bank town of Duma. Ali's mother Riham and father Saad also died of their burns and were included in the chanting "Where is Ali? Where is Riham? Where is Saad? It's too bad Ahmed didn't burn as well." Five year-old Ahmed, who alone survived the attack with severe burns, will have scars for the rest of his life.

The settlers were taunting Ali's grandfather Hussein Dawabsheh, who accompanied Ahmed, at a preliminary hearing where the court indicted a man who confessed to the murders and a minor who acted as an accomplice. A video of the chanting shows Israeli policemen standing by and doing nothing. The court appearance also revealed that there have been another Molotov cocktail attack by settlers on another Dawabsheh family house in May that may have been an attempt to silence testimony relating to the first attack. Fortunately, the family managed to escape.

And by all accounts this outrage was not the first incident in which the burning of the Palestinian baby was celebrated. A December 15 th wedding video showed settlers engaged in an uproarious party that featured dances with Molotov cocktails and waving knives and guns. A photo of baby Ali was on display and was repeatedly stabbed. A year later, 13 people from what became known as the "murder wedding" were indicted for incitement to terrorism, but as of today no one has actually been punished. Israelis who kill Arabs are rarely indicted or tried. If it is a soldier or policeman that is involved, which occurs all too often, the penalty is frequently either nothing at all a slap on the wrist. Indeed, the snipers who fired on Gazans recently were actually ordered to shoot the unarmed civilians and directed to take out anyone who appeared to be a "leader," which included medical personnel.

The Trump Administration could, of course, stop the Israeli brutality if it chooses to do so, but it does not think Benjamin Netanyahu's crimes against humanity are on the agenda. Nor did Clinton, Bush and Obama dare to confront the power of Israel's lobby, though Obama tried a little pushback in a feeble way.

Someone in Washington should be asking why the United States should be fighting unnecessary wars and becoming an international pariah defending a country and people that believe they are "chosen" by God? One can only hope that the shift in perceptions on the Middle East by liberal Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez has some legs and will lead to some real change in U.S. foreign policy. To succeed the liberal Democrats will need to push against some formidable obstacles within their own party, most notably the Clinton wing and people like Senator Chuck Schumer, Minority leader in the Senate, who describes himself as Israel's "shomer" or defender in the Upper House. Perhaps someone on the New York Times editorial board should publicly suggest to Schumer that he go and run for office in Israel since he seems to prefer it to the country that has made him rich and powerful. But of course, the Times and all the other mainstream media, which is responsible for what we are not allowed to know about Israel and its American mouthpieces, will never entertain that suggestion or anything like it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].


Someone , July 3, 2018 at 5:12 am GMT

No one should know this better than the Jews- that negativity never ends well.
Tyrion 2 , Website July 3, 2018 at 6:20 am GMT

I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs

Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.

The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately extremely high given the much higher rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world.

As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't that seem like the most humane way to deal with it? What does Giraldi suggest they do?

I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with this type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them. I prefer that America follow the example of Matteo Salvini. Giraldi prefers 'abolish borders' Cortez. Indeed, he'd like her to "go a lot farther".

Mishra , July 3, 2018 at 6:30 am GMT

Washington's spinelessness enables Israeli brutality

Why is "Washington" spineless? Why don't the people demand more principled leaders?

Well, where do the people get their ideas anyway? The mass media.

Who owns the mass media? Why can't it even be discussed?

All we get on this topic is lies, some right here on UNZ.

Yet some here now and then dare to speak the truth.

And as a result this site is under assault.

EOLAWKI , July 3, 2018 at 8:22 am GMT
Washington is not spineless. Washington is bought and paid for. In America, the general rule is that money rules, and the people (and their political representatives!) follow.
The Alarmist , July 3, 2018 at 8:35 am GMT

" I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes."

Only 60? We really have become a nation of p ***** s. If we're going to be an empire that pushes the rest of the world around, we need to act like one. The Byzantine General Belisaurius, under Justinian I, put down the Nika riots by killing as many as 30,000 people, and the Byzantine empire went on for another 900 years. If we dither over 60 people, we won't last another 50 years.

As for the Israelis, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction, but given the number of nukes they are reputed to have and the global reach they seem to have, they are going to take the rest of us with them if the US simply walks away from them and leaves them on their own.

LondonBob , July 3, 2018 at 9:52 am GMT
@Tyrion 2

As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West.

Z-man , July 3, 2018 at 10:16 am GMT
That crazed looking group of young fanatical Zionists taunting a Palestinian mother and child is a classic. ZOG has got to be defeated!
However , speaking of that 'Latina' who beat a political hack in Queens and the Bronx, she's already started to edit some of her internet posts. She knows who rules and will get in line with the 'mainstream' Zionist party line. She's also an 'open borders' radical which doesn't sit well with the likes of me and most Americans. She's also a 'Bronx girl' by way of suburban Westchester county, lol. As phony as phony gets.
Rogue , July 3, 2018 at 10:24 am GMT
@Echoes of History

The verse in question was specifically regarding the church in Jerusalem. In other words, financial help by gentile believers for Jewish followers of Jesus who were impoverished at that time.

It is not to be interpreted as a general charity for Jews, most of whom are hostile to Christianity both then and today. Bible verses have to be read within the context of the surrounding text.

Zionism is hardly a religious movement.

Tyrion 2 , Website July 3, 2018 at 10:26 am GMT
@LondonBob

Jews are probably the least ethnocentric, other than the 4% of global population that is Western European, in the world.

Echoes of History , July 3, 2018 at 10:32 am GMT
@Tyrion 2

Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country.

Better yet to be a Jewish minority in any place but Israel.

It's weird how the vast majority of Jews themselves can't be persuaded into moving to Israel, but would rather be a minority elsewhere. Why is that so? Not so great a place as you purport?

The total number of people who hold or are eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return is estimated at around 23 million, of which 6.6 million were living in Israel as of 2015. wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

UncommonGround , July 3, 2018 at 11:06 am GMT
@Mishra

Well, where do the people get their ideas anyway? The mass media.

In Germany there was recently a bad case of antisemitism which was reported widely in the media. A large newspaper had a long article telling how a Jewish pupil in an elite school in Berlin was harassed or bullyed for months and that the school didn't do enough to protect him. It's a school to which the sons of ambassators, of diplomatic personal and of the international high class community in Berlin go. The article brought many details about the case: how they told the pupil that Ausschwitz wasn't far away (or something similar) and so on. The case even came in the television news of the main German channel (I only watched the late news, but I think that the case also came in the absolutely main news of German television at 8 o'clock P.M.). The media spoke of "antisemitism in Berlin." A pupil was harassed and told a few unpleasant things in a school in Berlin and this came in the main tv news of the country! The most important weekly magazine had also an article about "antisemitism in Berlin". At the end of the long article they told something that the other midia hadn't told. The pupil had been harassed because he favoured the Palestinians! The colleagues who bullyed him were probably American Jews.

WorkingClass , July 3, 2018 at 11:07 am GMT

but it's a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium.

Also the intentional starving of children in Yemen. And the huge pile of dead babies in Iraq, Libya and Syria. All of them murdered by Imperial Washington.

I much prefer President Trump to any of the candidates he defeated in the primaries and general election. But I regret that he is a Jew.

geokat62 , July 3, 2018 at 11:18 am GMT
Here's an interesting tidbit about AOC:

Newly popular Democratic politician hero and nominee for a seat in the U.S. Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used to have these words on her website:

A Peace Economy

"Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has entangled itself in war and occupation throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As of 2018, we are currently involved in military action in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. According to the Constitution, the right to declare war belongs to the Legislative body, not the President. Yet, most of these acts of aggression have never once been voted on by Congress. Alex believes that we must end the forever war by bringing our troops home and ending the air strikes and bombings that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism and occupation throughout the world."

Now they're gone. Asked about it on Twitter, she replied:

"Hey! Looking into this. Nothing malicious! Site is supporter-run so things happen -we'll get to the bottom of it."

https://alethonews.com/2018/06/30/why-it-matters-that-peace-is-gone-from-ocasio-cortez-website/

It'll be interesting to see if these words ever reappear. I'll keep you posted if and when that happens.

ISmellBagels , July 3, 2018 at 11:23 am GMT
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez will/can maintain her position on Israeli crimes. Public figures have a long history of backpedaling after getting the riot act read to them from the hebrew masters.
ISmellBagels , July 3, 2018 at 11:24 am GMT
@WorkingClass

Trump is not a Jew, just Jewifiied.

utu , July 3, 2018 at 11:33 am GMT
@Tyrion 2

Jews are probably the least ethnocentric

Because Jews are cosmocentric. The center of the whole universe.

Incitatus , July 3, 2018 at 1:40 pm GMT
@Tyrion 2

"The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots."

Correction. They're unrepentant murderers, empowered by disgusting zealots tolerated (if not pampered) by Likud.

"But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on"

The 'they do it too' defense? So what? How many F-35s is the US giving Iraq, Syria, Iran?

Why should Likud conduct be excused by comparing it to those Israel routinely condemns?

"As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't that seem like the most humane way to deal with it?"

Does "sniping" mean shooting/killing/maiming unarmed people from a safe distance? Without risk to the sniper?

That's "more humane" than water-cannon, tear gas, and other non-lethal restraint? For the sniper, perhaps, but for the victim?

Sounds like the same rationalization murderers used at Babi-Yar.

"The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately extremely high given the much higher rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world."

American media is disproportionately silent in criticism of Likud compared with Israeli media. Why?

"I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with this type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them."

In other words, Trump should use snipers and live fire on illegal immigrants crossing borders? Wow!

Nelle , July 3, 2018 at 2:41 pm GMT
These people used to be called Judeonazis by Hebrew University chemistry professor Israel Shahak and by the noted "radio rabbi", Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Both predicted that the occupation would be Israel's downfall. Likely it is the downfall of the Palestinian people and possibly the rest of us. (Note that Israel has nuclear weapons and its policy of "nishtagea" – pulling down the temple around Sampson-type threat – is meant to guarantee its hegemony in the region. That suits the US down to the ground, where the oil is.
Mulegino1 , July 3, 2018 at 4:00 pm GMT
What are we to expect from a criminal state, founded by international terrorists like Ben Gurion, Begin, Yitzakh Shamir, etc.?

If it had been Palestinian terrorists who had blown up the King David Hotel, murdered Lord Moyne and Count Folke Bernadotte, and Jewish women and children in Deir Yassin, you would see monuments to these victims all over the western world, Hollywood films by the score, and the kvetching from the usual suspects would only have been amplified over time. If it had been Palestinian terrorists who concocted the Lavon Affair false flag plan, or Palestinian naval and air forces which attacked an American naval vessel in broad daylight, flying a large American flag and attempted to murder the entire crew, likewise. There would be memorials in Arlington, and all over the U.S., to the brave crew members and their captain, whose actions saved the vessel. Instead all we get are crickets chirping.

For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.

How prescient and prophetic these words were, written decades before the founding of the criminal entity in Palestine! Israel does not serve as a Jewish homeland, it serves as a base of criminal operations, a weapons depot, and a sanctuary for international fugitives from justice

anti_republocrat , July 3, 2018 at 4:08 pm GMT
@Tyrion 2

Now that the Israeli-backed head choppers and liver eaters have been defeated, Syria has returned to the the multi-confessional, pluralistic paradise it always was when compared with the abomination West of the Jordan River. Before the establishment of the Zionist state, Jews as well as Christians were welcome in Arab states. Even after 1948, Sephardim did not immediately flock to Israel.

When Ashkenazi Zionists discovered they had created a labor shortage by ethnically cleansing Palestinians, they embarked on a propaganda and false flag campaign to get Sephardim to migrate to Israel, where many of those well-educated and formerly wealthy Jews were discriminated against and forced to take menial jobs. The false flags designed specifically to stampede Jews out of Iraq are well documented, so don't lie about it, Tyrion. Jews were among the wealthiest of Iraqis, and had little organic reason to emigrate. The propaganda of Arab governments expelling the Sephardim is largely false.

The racist, European (white) supremacist narrative (what Edward Said called "Orientalism") that Arabs and Muslims are always killing each other and Europe must intervene for humanitarian reasons is actively cultivated by Israel in order to justify its own ethno-supremacist society. That's why Israel encourages Wahhabi terrorism emanating from the Gulf.

Tyrion 2 , Website July 3, 2018 at 4:22 pm GMT
@anti_republocrat

Syria has returned to the the multi-confessional, pluralistic paradise it always was when compared with the abomination West of the Jordan River

The number of deaths in a single year of the Syrian conflict exceed the last 70 years of the Palestinian-Israeli one. Try again.

bjondo , July 3, 2018 at 4:41 pm GMT
@Tyrion 2

Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.

The minority groups in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, would laugh at you and the Jew of Iran prefer Iran to Israel. These sorts of lunatics, without Israeli, West interference, are rare in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.

Israel is dominated by disgusting zealots. Israel is a zealot state of zealots.

Does hasbarRat mean blatant liar?

Also,

another excellent article by Philip Giraldi.

[Apr 14, 2019] The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape from 1993

Jul 07, 2018 | www.unz.com

renfro , July 5, 2018 at 7:41 pm GMT

Why I am all for wire tapping and all other spying by the CIA and FBI ...get all the uber Jews and all the politicians and make it public. Would be delighted if all the news channels did nothing but play the tapes on the daily news.

The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape

https://www.wrmea.org/1992-december/january-1993/the-complete-unexpurgated-aipac-tape.html

Following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.

(sample)

HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in real trouble? He's been there forever. . .

DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I can't believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood, and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear . . .

HK: Right.

DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about .

HK: Such as?

DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going to give to Israel; $200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put them in the global warning protection system; so when if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced notification that the U.S., is notified, joint military exercises -- I've got a whole shopping list of things .

HK: So this is from Baker?

DS: From Baker and from the Pentagon.

[Apr 14, 2019] Can all post-WWII US presidents to be considered as war criminals by Nuremberg court standard ?

Apr 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Justsaying April 13, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMT

@ThreeCranes

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5BXtgq0Nhsc?feature=oembed

ThreeCranes , says: April 13, 2019 at 9:05 pm GMT

@Justsaying I'm not impressed.

By the "reasoning" of the likes of Noam Chomsky, for the countries in which U.S. presidents meddled, the default setting was a state of affairs that tended towards long-term stability, peace and prosperity.

... ... ...

[Apr 14, 2019] Edward Snowden: Surveillance Is About Power

Now a lot of unpleasant question arise for Trump administration. Assange case is rather difficult to handle without spilling the beans.
Apr 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: April 13, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT

"Edward Snowden: Surveillance Is About Power."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/RSc_IlFBWkw?feature=oembed
jim jones , says: April 13, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT
The Assange arrest has strengthened my resolve never to vote Conservative again
Agent76 , says: April 13, 2019 at 3:07 pm GMT
@wayfarer Good share wayfarer. January 10, 2014 *500* Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent *It's Never to Protect Us From Bad Guys*

No matter which government conducts mass surveillance, they also do it to crush dissent, and then give a false rationale for why they're doing it.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/500-years-of-history-shows-that-mass-spying-is-always-aimed-at-crushing-dissent/5364462

[Apr 13, 2019] Trump and Assange

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

neutral , says: April 11, 2019 at 11:37 am GMT

This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the world, invade the world. On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can anyone still be conned into supporting him.
John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan , says: April 11, 2019 at 12:45 pm GMT
@reiner Tor

This is why Anglo-Saxon propaganda is so very effective. They have freedom of speech, see? Though of course saying politically incorrect things might socially kill you, so it's understood you won't do that. You will say PC (including anti-Russian, etc.) platitudes always. So people will not even notice PC propaganda, like fish don't notice they're wet. And when trying to convince a normie, you have to break a very long, almost infinite chain of assumptions, which you won't know how to do.

Take a look at the career of Charles Austin Beard, for example.

He was one of the single most highly-regarded historians in America; his contributions to the field were well-known and massively important. But even he could not break through the pillars of propaganda when he published his book about the folly of Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policy. The "court historians" like Samuel Eliot Morison and Schlesinger, et al, blackballed his work and dismissed it with the most flippant arrogance and lack of care for detail. The major newspapers and periodicals followed suit. Overnight he became all but a pariah. Only a few regional newspapers were willing to treat his work with serious care. To his credit, Beard had anticipated this reaction, but published his works anyway.

After World War 1, revisionism became par for the course in America – the vast majority of historians, journalists, together with the public as a whole, came to agree that America's entry into that conflict had been a selfish mistake. But during and after World War Two, what you call "Anglo-Saxon propaganda" tightened up to a remarkably successful degree, and to this day the pro-interventionist myth of the "great crusade" is all but unimpeachable among the masses. In fact, the anti-revisionists, the "court historians," even managed to defeat the old inter-war consensus about World War One, so that even it is now regarded as an idealistic crusade for democracy! Very remarkable stuff, though sad!

Anonymous [151] Disclaimer , says: April 11, 2019 at 3:54 pm GMT
I would probably do the same thing in Putin's situation. At a very basic level you simply cannot trust people like Assange. Giving refuge to a spy is one thing; you're not going to let him near any state secrets so it's not like he could betray you even if he wanted to (and it's easy to keep an eye on him). For somebody like Assange there's the constant threat that he could turn against you: acquire damaging information and use it as leverage, or simply release it for the sake of his own ego or murky ideals. Too much potential for embarrassment. Snowden was closer in spirit to a spy imo; Assange is more like bin Laden or a mafia boss, the head of a shadowy international organization with significant reach and resources.

It's sort of like the French Foreign Legion: they take a dim view of British and American recruits and generally won't let them join unless they speak French or have prior military experience. The reason is psychological unsuitability: no sensible British or American person interested in a military career would volunteer to be a mercenary for a foreign country over serving in his own country's well-funded armed forces. Romantics and escapists are inherently flaky and unreliable people. That's also why Brazilians are regarded as the best Legion soldiers: they just do it to get EU citizenship

Dmitry , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

that country's national interest.

Ecuador rented a house opposite their main offices in Knightsbridge, and had three agents in the house to permanently monitor Assange on cameras (for a cost of $1 million a year).

So they might be more intelligent than we think?

At the same time, Ecuador's politicians had problems justifying the costs of this to their media.

Perhaps it seems more like this was perceived by Ecuador, as an intelligence operation, to monitor Assange, and get intelligence information they could would use as leverage with the Americans.

Today, the Ecuadorian interior minister is suddenly boasting about how they monitored and have knowledge about two hackers who worked with Assange.

The Alarmist , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:24 pm GMT
@reiner Tor But Trump did say "I love WikiLeaks" during the campaign.
The Alarmist , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@reiner Tor Scotland yard tried to play down their own costs of hanging outside the Ecuadorian embassy, which in 2015 was already estimated to be well over £10m over the prior three years, by saying that a lot of that cost was money they would have spent on policing anyway: Tell that to the rapidly increasing numbers of families of murder victims in the Capital. Oops, careful about saying that in the UK, as the police there will pick you up for a thought-crime.
Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
Trump is scum:
Endgame Napoleon , says: April 11, 2019 at 5:46 pm GMT
Elites around the globe protect each other more than they protect the interests of non-elites in their own nations and any who side with non-elites in any non-trivial way, so it makes sense that Latin American elites side with US elites who favor the mass immigration that has driven down wages for 40 years and the mass exportation of US jobs to Latin American since it 1) boosts the profits of American elites and 2) relieves pressure on Latin American elites.
Matra , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
Ecuador seemed to get fed up with Assange – cutting him off from the world, badmouthing him in MSM, etc – early 2018 when he was mostly tweeting about Catalonia. Spain is supposedly Ecuador's closest partner in Europe. The timing could've been coincidental but probably not.
neutral , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:18 pm GMT
@Cagey Beast Trump was always scum, I am endlessly amazed how it took so long for some people to see what he was.
Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:20 pm GMT
@neutral He was always scum but he was still the better choice than Hillary Clinton. He may still be better than his opponent in 2020. That's how bad things are at the centre of the American empire.

Trump had the potential to be better than he is now but Washington has pushed his back against the wall and his shitty character has thus shown itself in full. He could have been a better President under different circumstances; even with these same character flaws.

Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:45 pm GMT
@neutral Trump was and still is the chaos candidate. When a better option than sabotage presents itself, then Trump will become the second best choice.

Many, if not most, people knew he was the sabotage candidate when they supported him. Hillary was understood to be worse because she'd maintain and even strengthen a bad system while Trump would bugger it up.

reiner Tor , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:58 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson The Deep State might already be beyond repair. So perhaps, come the Revolution, new, revolutionary state organs will need to be set up in a clean break with the obscurantist blank slatist regime. The state secrets of these new, revolutionary organs should be protected by any means necessary. But then we'll have free countries for ourselves.

Until then, we don't need to protect the secrets of the oppressive obscurantist regime.

g2k , says: April 11, 2019 at 7:24 pm GMT
Re:Cagey Beast

Disagree here, he's energised the left to a degree that wouldn't have happened had he not been elected and his policies are now no different to what Clinton's would have been. In American politics, what you say appears to matter much more than what you do, so we've now got the perfect storm of someone who talks like a right wing populist, and the resulting backlash, but nothing to show for it. I remember ak mentioning that the only saving grace of his administration being that it had alienated allies, but even that hasnt materialised. The guy is a conman and a sellout, but he's very clearly noticed the fact that European governments will unquestionably obey the US, so it's pointless to treat them with any respect whatsoever: THATs the one and only positive thing I can say about him. Still not looking forward to his successor.

Dmitry , says: April 11, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT
@The Alarmist Trump said he liked Wikileaks at that time, because they released some embarrassing emails about Hilary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.

If they released embarrassing emails about Trump, he would have said the opposite.

Trump will not have any specific principles that would make him support asylum for leakers, or generalized protection for dissidents, unless it might specifically be explained that it would help him in some way (and unless there are emails to leak about his opponent in 2020, how will it help him?).

... ... ...

Anon [137] Disclaimer , says: April 11, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@reiner Tor But Trump would say anything that would get him elected, and he would do many of these things. But, as plutocrat surrounded by plutocrats, he'll never open the market for housing (allow easier re-zoning), or transportation (dismantle the dealership racket), or hospitals / doctors. Yeah, apparently he lacks the levers to reduce housing costs, but he can always fix, or promise to fix, something about Assange, or about Christian-Obamacare conflicts – despite them being equally remote from his mandate. Watch the idiotic boomers drooling all over unz.com about Trump's "efforts" to fix immigration.

These being the highest expenses of an American, I can see who is the idiot here.

Philip Owen , says: April 11, 2019 at 10:25 pm GMT
Hours after Assange was detained, the IMF approved a loan of $4.2 Bn for Ecuador.
Anatoly Karlin , says: Website April 11, 2019 at 10:36 pm GMT
@Philip Owen I seem to have LOL'd prematurely.

It seems to have happened exactly one month ago: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/03/11/ecuador-pr1972-imf-executive-board-approves-eff-for-ecuador

Cagey Beast , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:47 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Edit: She called Trump a coward but then deleted it:

Trump today: "I know nothing about Wikileaks." Trump three years ago: "Boy, I love reading these WikiLeaks." Liar, traitor, and coward.

Anatoly Karlin , says: Website April 12, 2019 at 12:57 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Lame. (Trump. And Alessandra deleting her Tweet).
Kratoklastes , says: April 12, 2019 at 3:12 am GMT
@simple_pseudonymic_handle The most obvious parallel was the UK's refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon to the US.

McKinnon gained access to 97 US military and NASA networks between early 2001 and 2002. he was also very very shit at covering his tracks.

The US sought extradition; McKinnon's lawyers challenged it on a bunch of grounds; McKinnon won.

Part of the range of stuff that got him off was the refusal of the US to make guarantees that he would not be housed in a SuperMax and that he would not be placed in solitary confinement, That, plus McKinnon's "Asperger's" (diagnosed after he was arrested), was enough for the system to tell the US government to pound sand.

Kratoklastes , says: April 12, 2019 at 3:36 am GMT
I as among the people who warned JA not to go to the UK when he was leaving Sweden. (I've known the guy as a nodding acquaintance since the 1980s and WANK; I'm in he & Suelette's book, under a different pseudonym).

He was warned against one of the classic blunders.

The first two classic blunders are known to all –
never start a land war in Asia , and
never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line .

The third is less well-known:

③ when you've been honeypotted, DO NOT SEEK REFUGE ON A FUCKING ISLAND .

When he ignored us, he was dropped from several DMSes.

For a very smart bloke, his judgement was always suspect: he allowed a fucking nappy like Dumb Shitberg (Domscheit-Berg) inside his circle of confidants.

Baxter , says: April 12, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT
This whole damn country is a pile of lies. I don't know how you guys keep your sanity.
I think America may crack in the next ten years.
I live in a "minority-majority" area. It is all bullshit.
Hey, let's take all the worlds nations, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, lifestyles, sexual orientations, etc and stick them in one place!
On top of this we have a government that doesn't listen, ruled by special interest group.
My god, how long America?
I can't stand this place anymore.
It's going to be very interesting to see the next 10 years. The country is cracking up.
For my part, I'm learning a foreign language right now, it will come in handy when I have enough money to bail.
Gentleman, there is nothing here worth left of preserving, only rot.
Realist , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:52 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Trump said he loved Wikileaks but Trumped is such a lying, corrupt asshole how can you believe him?
Quintus Sertorius , says: April 12, 2019 at 9:24 am GMT
@Grahamsno(G64) the USA is the new USSR.
Germanicus , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:03 am GMT
I miss a consideration, that wikileaks could be a Mossad/Unit8200 operation.
If I look at the wikileak's site, menu "partners", all is clear to me, "Der Spiegel" and truth are mutually exclusive.
Wikileaks "revealed" an EU plan to use military against the poor human traffickers and Israeli NGOs who bring in these Africans and "refugees". Fascinating, they have once in their evil life a good plan in Brussels, and wikileaks shoots against it.

I think the question for Russian asylum is the same question why Russia did not spell the beans on 911.

Realist , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:10 am GMT
Assange is a hero. He exposed the corrupt, lying government we have so this is another dark episode in American history.
Felix Keverich , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:21 am GMT
@neutral Only low-IQ people still support Trump at this point. Those wouldn't even know who Assange is.
annamaria , says: April 12, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
@Meimou The leader of progressives, the dual-loyalty opportunist and CIA stooge Schumer:

Chuck Schumer
@SenSchumer
Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.

Schumer is on for Amelec. Happy Pesach!

nsa , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
@Hyperborean Trumpstein and his sleazy family keep delivering for the vile jooies and the JudenPresse, JudenTV, and JudenNet will make sure he gets reelected especially if he attacks Iran. Where is Titus now that we need him?

[Apr 13, 2019] How about a paedophile UK Prime Minister never investigated ?

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Iris , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT

@The Alarmist

Not to mention more than a few paedo-grooming ring members who are still awaiting deportation

How convenient these immigrants are when a good smokescreen is needed.
And how about a paedophile UK Prime Minister never investigated ?

"Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes 'covered up by the Establishment'"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4238188/Sir-Edward-Heath-paedophile-says-police-chief.html

[Apr 13, 2019] Foreigners about Russia

Some comments look like from April 1 and are textbook demonstration of the American exceptionalism, but still some comments are very insightful and come from people with real experience of living in Russia at least for a short period of time.
Notable quotes:
"... "Any touch to an American is taken as a violation of his personal space, so in the U.S., as a rule, people do not take each other by the elbow and do not tap each other on the shoulder if they" do not want to be charged with harassment or domestic vio and end up in American gulag. ..."
"... But if "to a white guy from the West their politeness felt like fakeness and I was stressed out because of it" then this "is how many black people feel when hanging around white people. What we see as just common courtesy, comes off as" 'microaggression' and 'cultural appropriation' to them. To each his own. And not YOUR own. ..."
"... No wonder the "biggest breath of fresh air that comes to mind, is the absence of PC culture". ..."
"... One of the more endearing compliments I ever received was from an old Russian girlfriend, who told her friends, "He's one of the good ones he has a Russian soul." She and her friends were just as described above, generous to a fault despite what was an obvious wealth gap. ..."
"... Should have married that girl. Then again, I might have dodged the Babooshka bomb. Interestingly enough, she had no desire to ever go to the US, so that was not a part of the calculus. ..."
"... Have some sympathy for our poor consular officers abroad they spend far too much time face to face with the wretched refuse of the world trying to scam their way into the US. ..."
"... is seems that all our governments just end up being dictatorships sooner or later anyway; so that being the case, I would prefer a sane dictatorship (like Russia or Singapore) to an insane one, which is what we Americans have at the moment. ..."
"... I reckon you're young and mixing with a set a bit more affected by Western media propaganda than they or you realise. Some of what you write about your adopted home comes across as a bit churlish as well ..."
"... Given Aussie and Danish cultures are very similar in many respects, that suggests 2 years for a Westerner in either Japan or Russia is way too little. I'm taking what you say on specifics with a grain of salt but the overall message the gist of it is accurate all the same. ..."
"... I'd say six years is about the mean for getting the hang of a new culture if as you are living it. ..."
"... To understand Russia you have to see the other cities. You can't just go to Moscow and St Petes. It's a huge country, some parts of which are decaying due to migration and demographic collapse (e.g., Perm). Other parts are vibrant and fun. I've seen about 1/3rd of the larger cities, but never Siberia or the far East, nor Chechnya/Dagestan/Ingushetia/Adygea. Hard to travel to some of those places as a foreigner. ..."
"... If you think that Russian food is bad, you are either an idiot or don’t know what to order. If you go to Omsk and order sashimi, you are going to be disappointed. But native Russian dishes such as solyanka, borsch, kulebiaka, kholodets, etc etc are excellent. Not to mention the Georgian and Uzbek dishes that are as common in Russia as Mexican and Chinese are in ‘Murika. And you can eat well in a workers’ cafeteria, not just in an expensive restaurant. ..."
"... In all other respects, you can’t even begin to compare Russia and Ukraine with a straight face – be that infrastructure, law and order, average incomes ..."
"... Yep, I'm 25% Russian, more like 15% as I had some German Nordic Russian nobility on that side. This Slavic gene is always there to call BS on idiot Liberals or worse Libertarians that want to talk, talk, talk make excuses for the worst Paki sexual groomers. Nah, the Russian way is better. ..."
"... Just realistically looking at all the places I have lived, the US would be the last place I'd go to, it's an empire in decline. Morally, spiritually, economically, politically educationally and socially. (And I have lived in the US for 20 years) The only part of American life that seems appealing is the kind of homesteading movement that is occurring in some states. ..."
"... Whatever beefs one may have with Russia or Putin, corruption, noise, etc. The fact is Russia is holding it's own and improving its diplomatic relations and increasing it's allies and trade partners, has become militarily a force to be reckoned with and therefore more secure, it has become more self sufficient in many areas such as agriculture, is improving it's infrastructure, people are earning more, it has almost no external debt, huge reserves of gold, is beginning to attract tourism, is expanding in fields of science, and has the reputation of being a reliable partner. ..."
"... As the author mentions, people in Russia are very generous and family oriented. I think this gives more meaning of life and an overall feeling of well being than striving for more and more income to buy more and more stuff. Especially as particularly in the US and Europe, people are living so much on credit. ..."
"... Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country ..."
"... Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors ..."
"... While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. ..."
"... Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti" ..."
"... Americans in the US now total about 55% of the population: Wikipedia says: "197,285,202 (Non-Hispanic: 2017), 60.7% of the total U.S. population"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American , however this number is flawed as they count various non-whites like Berbers, or Turkic people like Albanians, Turks, Kurds, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis as whites. ..."
"... Then we have: "About 46 million Americans live in the nation's rural counties, 175 million in its suburbs and small metros"- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ . Which seems to confirm that Americans (Whites) live in either suburban or rural areas. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

swamped , says: March 11, 2019 at 5:06 am GMT

Most places you apply to online won't take your overseas application serious, just like I don't take my" pseudonymous fictional interview serious. The Kreutzer Sonata it ain't. All the same, if you have "a Russian husband, who has himself published some essays about some of the unexpected cultural differences a Russian encounters in America", make sure your Zlobin doesn't turn out to be a Pozdnyshev.

So maybe is true this "Russian concept is that you're safe when you're with the crowd."

At least in some situations. And yes,

"Any touch to an American is taken as a violation of his personal space, so in the U.S., as a rule, people do not take each other by the elbow and do not tap each other on the shoulder if they" do not want to be charged with harassment or domestic vio and end up in American gulag.

But if "to a white guy from the West their politeness felt like fakeness and I was stressed out because of it" then this "is how many black people feel when hanging around white people. What we see as just common courtesy, comes off as" 'microaggression' and 'cultural appropriation' to them. To each his own. And not YOUR own.

No wonder the "biggest breath of fresh air that comes to mind, is the absence of PC culture".

Not a bad deal for 99.9999% of the Earth's population who would do anything to escape it.

Or "if all else fails, just buy a bus ticket [from] Minnesota" to Washington P.C. & see what it's like to live in Tel Aviv for two years.

The Alarmist , says: March 11, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMT
One of the more endearing compliments I ever received was from an old Russian girlfriend, who told her friends, "He's one of the good ones he has a Russian soul." She and her friends were just as described above, generous to a fault despite what was an obvious wealth gap.

But the funniest thing she ever did was to use her bare hand to kill a cock-roach that had dared to cross our table at a restaurant.

Should have married that girl. Then again, I might have dodged the Babooshka bomb. Interestingly enough, she had no desire to ever go to the US, so that was not a part of the calculus.

Have some sympathy for our poor consular officers abroad they spend far too much time face to face with the wretched refuse of the world trying to scam their way into the US.

Digital Samizdat , says: March 11, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT

The thing is, I don't want a "benevolent dictatorship" like Singapore or Russia. I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.

Pick a number: everybody wants to "live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended," probably even the Founding Fathers themselves did. But is seems that all our governments just end up being dictatorships sooner or later anyway; so that being the case, I would prefer a sane dictatorship (like Russia or Singapore) to an insane one, which is what we Americans have at the moment.

The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead?

So true.

If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day.

LOL!!!

republic , says: March 11, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
@yurivku
The Alarmist , says: March 12, 2019 at 8:49 am GMT
@Digital Samizdat

I lived in the "benevolent dictatorship" of Singapore, and it was pretty nice: Clean, orderly, low-crime, prosperous. Since I worked and didn't engage in socially unacceptable behaviour, it was very accomodating and Big Brother Goh left me more in peace to go about my life there than my crazy jealous girlfriend, Uncle Sam. In some ways, it is much freer.

I went back a few years ago to visit, and while waiting for the light to cross the street, the guy next to me threw a piece of trash on the ground, so I looked at him and said, "You wouldn't do that if Lee Kuan Yew was still in charge." He sheepishly picked it up.

Rabbitnexus , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:35 pm GMT
I reckon you're young and mixing with a set a bit more affected by Western media propaganda than they or you realise. Some of what you write about your adopted home comes across as a bit churlish as well. Also a couple of years is no time at all to get to know any place let alone the culture.

I've spent 3 times as long on average getting to know my new homes and they were no more distant than Denmark on one occasion.

I'd say I barely reached a plateau of understanding and appreciation after a cycle of admiration, loathing, frustration and finally reappraisal after 6 years!

Given Aussie and Danish cultures are very similar in many respects, that suggests 2 years for a Westerner in either Japan or Russia is way too little. I'm taking what you say on specifics with a grain of salt but the overall message the gist of it is accurate all the same.

Still I'd like to see you cut those apron strings to yankee land before seeing too much more of your advice about other cultures. I mean that, I'd like it because your insight is interesting all the same, you are clearly smart and thoughtful so this is not an attack. In my experience you have not even begun to scratch the surface until you begin to dream in the language of your new home.

I'm currently trying to find communion between my Western and South Asian culture of my wife and after 7 years am far from getting it. This is due to living in my country not hers though.

I'd say six years is about the mean for getting the hang of a new culture if as you are living it.

Rabbitnexus , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
@CoffeeCommando

You should see the guy who works for me in marketing. More metal crap in his face and small scooter rubber tires in his ear lobes as best I can tell, than you'd want to know about. Absolute freak show brother. He is unfortunately also extremely intelligent and competent at what he does. I say unfortunately because if his performance matched his appearance it would be easy to say bye bye, but fact is he's brilliant and a nice bloke too. Beats me why this kid would do this to himself.

He's a very handsome young man with mixed Chinese/Aussie parents. Yet his face looks like a junkyard tossed across a picturesque park. It would make more sense if he was gay but he is even straight, just like this kid writing the article appears to be. They don't even look like men when they do this, so it beats me.

jbwilson24 , says: March 15, 2019 at 9:36 am GMT
@Linh Dinh

I've spent a lot of time in both, although last time I saw Ukraine was 3 years ago. The food in Ukraine is great, Russia well, horrendous. Peasant food, basically, and not particularly good peasant food either. There's a markedly different feeling in Ukraine these days, losing population like mad, poor economy, etc.

To understand Russia you have to see the other cities. You can't just go to Moscow and St Petes. It's a huge country, some parts of which are decaying due to migration and demographic collapse (e.g., Perm). Other parts are vibrant and fun. I've seen about 1/3rd of the larger cities, but never Siberia or the far East, nor Chechnya/Dagestan/Ingushetia/Adygea. Hard to travel to some of those places as a foreigner.

I like Ekaterinburg, but my wife refuses to move there.

Plato's Dream says: March 26, 2019 at 1:59 pm GMT • 100 Words

@jbwilson24


If you think that Russian food is bad, you are either an idiot or don’t know what to order. If you go to Omsk and order sashimi, you are going to be disappointed. But native Russian dishes such as solyanka, borsch, kulebiaka, kholodets, etc etc are excellent. Not to mention the Georgian and Uzbek dishes that are as common in Russia as Mexican and Chinese are in ‘Murika. And you can eat well in a workers’ cafeteria, not just in an expensive restaurant.

In all other respects, you can’t even begin to compare Russia and Ukraine with a straight face – be that infrastructure, law and order, average incomes etc. It’s like Barbados and Jamaica – both speak English, both are in the Caribbean; but that’s where the similarity ends.

Anatoly Karlin , says: Website March 15, 2019 at 11:20 am GMT

Mostly correct, though:

Maybe they are. After all, I can guarantee if something like Rotherham or Cologne happened in Russia, they wouldn't wait for the right paperwork and lawyers to get justice. They would beat the living shit out of everyone in a 5KM radius and not bother navigating red tape like we do.

Overly optimistic. Such episodes are very much the exception, not the rule.

E.g. http://www.unz.com/akarlin/chechens/

The authorities are trouble averse, so they tend to turn a blind eye to Caucasian malfeasance.

The sound waves are not uniform, but rather polarized sharp spikes. Blaring techno with bone rattling bass at 3AM. Screaming couples at 1AM. Hammering and drilling at 9AM. I finally figured out why. My girlfriend's brother told me that there's no word for "privacy" in Russian.

... ... ...

However, you should note that 11pm – 7am (I think, I might be off by an hour) are supposed to be "quiet hours" in Moscow and you have the right to complain to your neighbors about their noise, and, if they do not desist, to contact the police.

Jake , says: March 15, 2019 at 11:25 am GMT
"Maybe they are. After all, I can guarantee if something like Rotherham or Cologne happened in Russia, they wouldn't wait for the right paperwork and lawyers to get justice. They would beat the living shit out of everyone in a 5KM radius and not bother navigating red tape like we do."

America used to have people like that. Primarily they were southerners. Secondarily they were European Catholic immigrants and the children of European Catholic immigrants. And then the Yank WASP Elites and their Jewish BFFs spent decades and billions of dollars forcing those people to start thinking and acting like WASP peasants bowing to the Anglo-Zionist Empire.

anonymous [739] Disclaimer , says: March 15, 2019 at 8:34 pm GMT
That was F*$&#@ awesome!

Where can I personally meet this hip, tell it like it is Vietnamese guy and some of his subjects?

I love the way –Michael Kreutzer (28-years-old) just sums up the eternal Russian way of thinking about alien rapists, Islamic terrorists that sort of thing:

" I can guarantee if something like Rotherham or Cologne happened in Russia, they wouldn't wait for the right paperwork and lawyers to get justice. They would beat the living shit out of everyone in a 5KM radius and not bother navigating red tape like we do. The immigrants from the CIS countries know this and behave."

I respond:

Yep, I'm 25% Russian, more like 15% as I had some German Nordic Russian nobility on that side. This Slavic gene is always there to call BS on idiot Liberals or worse Libertarians that want to talk, talk, talk make excuses for the worst Paki sexual groomers. Nah, the Russian way is better.

Daisy , says: March 16, 2019 at 8:27 pm GMT

Just realistically looking at all the places I have lived, the US would be the last place I'd go to, it's an empire in decline. Morally, spiritually, economically, politically educationally and socially. (And I have lived in the US for 20 years) The only part of American life that seems appealing is the kind of homesteading movement that is occurring in some states.

Whatever beefs one may have with Russia or Putin, corruption, noise, etc. The fact is Russia is holding it's own and improving its diplomatic relations and increasing it's allies and trade partners, has become militarily a force to be reckoned with and therefore more secure, it has become more self sufficient in many areas such as agriculture, is improving it's infrastructure, people are earning more, it has almost no external debt, huge reserves of gold, is beginning to attract tourism, is expanding in fields of science, and has the reputation of being a reliable partner.

These things would make it a much better place to be/go then a declining country/empire, such as the US, Europe and possibly China.

As for being poorer or wealthier, I can truly and emphatically from experience state, that wealth does not create or provide happiness. As the author mentions, people in Russia are very generous and family oriented. I think this gives more meaning of life and an overall feeling of well being than striving for more and more income to buy more and more stuff. Especially as particularly in the US and Europe, people are living so much on credit.

polaco , says: March 17, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@jeff stryker

Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country

Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors, except for areas that are adjacent to urban, Hispanic, or Black neighbourhoods, which they have abandoned and given up on decades ago following the anti American Civil Rights movement. Show me a place in America where garbage trucks don't come every week.

While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated.

Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti"- http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/124947-russia_garbage/ or http://www.pravdareport.com/society/5701-recycling/ .

Americans in the US now total about 55% of the population: Wikipedia says: "197,285,202 (Non-Hispanic: 2017), 60.7% of the total U.S. population"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American , however this number is flawed as they count various non-whites like Berbers, or Turkic people like Albanians, Turks, Kurds, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis as whites.

Then we have: "About 46 million Americans live in the nation's rural counties, 175 million in its suburbs and small metros"- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ . Which seems to confirm that Americans (Whites) live in either suburban or rural areas.

[Apr 13, 2019] Seriously. In these past 8 years, I've met so many wealthy, well educated, amazing [Russian] people who have to jump through so many hoops and sacrifice so much for the mere chance of a USA tourist visa. If you only knew

Originally from: Escape from America Dedovsk, Russia, by Linh Dinh
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

I think most people, (especially Russians), can relate to this sentiment. The average Ruski is incredibly hard on their own country. But it's like how you can make fun of your siblings, but when someone else does you knock their teeth in. I'd like to say I always respected this, but it's not true. I was more brazen in my earlier days of travel, and hypocritically complained about Japan with the very Muslim I referred to earlier. It's not just me, though. Go on any expat forum, and it's full of gripes.

The first thing ESL teachers talk about when they meet is how much they miss peanut butter or how they hate the pollution or whatever. And yet, they don't go home. The same is true of Mexican immigrants in America and Africans in Europe, if you ever take the time to chat with them. (Which is part of what made me more rightwing and nationalist.) The vast majority who don't go home are economic migrants. Economic in terms of balancing the supply & demand of money, or balancing sexual market value.

... ... ...

What is some advice you have for Americans who also want to get out?

YOU ARE INCREDIBLY LUCKY!!!

It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship. You can be in tons of debt, have zero dollars in the bank, and several misdemeanors, and you'll still get an automatic 90 day visa on arrival. Even with a one way plane ticket. This is unheard of and will likely not be the case in the near future if current demographic trends continue. So seize the day!

Seriously. In these past 8 years, I've met so many wealthy, well educated, amazing [Russian] people who have to jump through so many hoops and sacrifice so much for the mere chance of a USA tourist visa. If you only knew

... ... ...

Or "life happens" and you'll need to pay for the broken water heater or flat tire. So just run away while you still can. The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead? In my experience, the most expensive part of travel is the plane ticket. So be smart and just get a one way ticket and find a job once you get there.


Biff , says: March 11, 2019 at 3:32 am GMT

have peace of mind knowing the American Embassy will take care of your spoiled ass.

Pfft. What an idiot! The State Dept employees at my local embassy wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire – mostly because they would spend half the day researching what the proper protocol is, and if wasn't in the book(which is most often the case) their un-thinking ass wouldn't know whether to shit or wind their watch.

If you needed a big headed egotistical asshole for whatever reason you'd be in the right place.

The Alarmist , says: March 11, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMT
One of the more endearing compliments I ever received was from an old Russian girlfriend, who told her friends, "He's one of the good ones he has a Russian soul." She and her friends were just as described above, generous to a fault despite what was an obvious wealth gap.

But the funniest thing she ever did was to use her bare hand to kill a cock-roach that had dared to cross our table at a restaurant.

Should have married that girl. Then again, I might have dodged the Babooshka bomb. Interestingly enough, she had no desire to ever go to the US, so that was not a part of the calculus.

Have some sympathy for our poor consular officers abroad they spend far too much time face to face with the wretched refuse of the world trying to scam their way into the US.

Digital Samizdat , says: March 11, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT

The thing is, I don't want a "benevolent dictatorship" like Singapore or Russia. I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.

Pick a number: everybody wants to "live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended," probably even the Founding Fathers themselves did. But is seems that all our governments just end up being dictatorships sooner or later anyway; so that being the case, I would prefer a sane dictatorship (like Russia or Singapore) to an insane one, which is what we Americans have at the moment.

The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead?

So true.

If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day.

LOL!!!

[Apr 13, 2019] The appearance of Israeli weapons in the hands of avowed neo-Nazis

Notable quotes:
"... The ziocon-occupied US Congress "is Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine" https://youtu.be/x5Uf7aooxvE ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: March 15, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT

@Agent76

On the topics of holo-biz and Russophobia: "the appearance of Israeli weapons in the hands of avowed neo-Nazis"

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727

The ziocon-occupied US Congress "is Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine" https://youtu.be/x5Uf7aooxvE

Agent76 , says: March 15, 2019 at 9:05 pm GMT
Mar 4, 2019

Excellent Short Film About the Separatist Fighters of Donbas by Russell 'Texas' Bentley (Video)

A monastery near the Donetsk airport was strategically important to hold for the fighter, so a bitter shooting battle erupted over it, taking many lives on both sides. The monastery was badly damaged in the process.

https://russia-insider.com/en/excellent-short-film-about-separatist-fighters-donbas-russell-texas-bentley-video/ri26262

Sep 9, 2016 US funded Ukrainian army is terrorizing civilians, 2016

Russell Bentley is a former US marine, that now fights for the Donbass, Eastern Ukraine, against the US-funded Ukrainian army.

[Apr 13, 2019] Something about foreign travel

From comments...
Notable quotes:
"... If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort.

Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year instead?

So true.

If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in Somalia for a day.

[Apr 13, 2019] The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a towering figure of our time

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 13, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT

"Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those books "

-- The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a towering figure of our time.

Even in distress, Assange has been fighting for truth and dignity; the ongoing show of lawlessness exposes the rot. The moral and creative midgets constituting the core of MSM and the satanic deciders are upset. Good!

The idiotic Senior District "Judge" Emma Arbuthnot (a wife and beneficiary of a mega-war profiteer Lord Arbuthnot -- Arbuthnot served as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee from 2005 to 2014) and the no less idiotic District "Judge" Michael Snow have entered the history books as well. As scoundrels: http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1555064882.html

Snow does his best to bring the Judiciary into disrepute by playing to the gallery. He comments on the extradition in the same vein in a totally unprofessional manner. He is of course in a long line of disreputable members of the judiciary Snow's place in history is now secured – he chose to abuse the defendant rather than perform his role which was really quite straightforward. He is the narcissist and guilty of self interest not Julian Assange.

Daniel Rich , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
@annamaria Once one realizes 'justice' is a monetized commodity, lawlessness becomes a viable [and justifiable] option.

[Apr 13, 2019] The danger of immersing in a foreign culture

Notable quotes:
"... A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and gangs. ..."
"... Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only 20 miles from the suburbs. ..."
"... Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites and hicks from the sticks. ..."
"... The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad. ..."
"... I have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home. ..."
"... I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years for selling a few grams of marijuana. ..."
"... I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness. ..."
"... Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology. ..."
"... If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai. ..."
"... The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks. ..."
"... Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery, harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality. It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take care of her kid, or the father. ..."
"... Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries, every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell drugs. They just remain users. ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 1:38 am GMT

EMBASSY WILL TAKE CARE OF YOUR SPOILED ASS

.WRONG>>>>

I've seen loads of American men who blew their wad on hookers and booze at the Manila Embassy trying this.

You'll be on the street for about a month waiting for the papers to clear. Don't expect to be staying with the US Ambassador at his house while you're waiting either, you'll be on the street and in SEA or Eastern Europe (Which is cold as hell) and this is no fun.

The Embassy will make you call relatives in the US and determine that nobody will pay for your return flight.

You'll have to repay the US government for the cost of the ticket and your passport will be cancelled for two years as a punishment you won't even be able to fly to Puerto Rico.

MILITARY SPACE AVAILABLE

One American I knew in the Philippines was named Clinton Macbeth and he was a hardcore drunk and pothead who'd been stationed in the Philippines and figured he would just take military space available on a DC 10 or whatever.

The US GOVERNMENT has now cancelled this program and you cannot take military space available back to your own country.

The US Embassy will, eventually, cover the cost of your ticket back. But they make this a lonnnggg unpleasant process to prevent everyone who wants to be repatriated from simply coming into the Embassy and saying "send me home Business class".

Try sleeping for a week outside a US Embassy. Invariably the US Consular director will tell you "it will take some time for these papers to clear".

Believe me, you won't be flown back in 24 hours.

And the Marine Embassy Guards will then make sure you don't hang around. You'll be giving an appointment at the Embassy about a week after you report in. In the interim. the Marine Embassy Guards etc. will behave like bouncers to make sure you don't come back inside the Embassy.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 2:46 am GMT
STRANDED EXPAT SEA MODEL

Ken was an older American from NYC who married a Filipino woman of 23. He was an architect and he spent most of his life savings building a hotel for his wife with the intent of renting rooms to Japanese tourists-which would have set him up for life.

In the Philippines, all property belongs to the wife of the expat under law. He was kicked out by security guard after their marriage collapsed-which May/September marriages in the Philippines usually do.

He was 60 and his wife and her family simply threw him on the road-no passport, money in his pocket, clothes on his back. Ken did not even have ID to prove he was an American. The first night on the road, he was mugged by Filipino street kids and did not have a peso.

Finally, he managed to get his passport. His wife had his bank card and withdrew all his savings by then. A sympathetic American paid his way to Manila where he got his brother to send him a ticket.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 3:16 am GMT
@polaco POLACO

We are invariably male, urban and lower middle class.

A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and gangs.

For lower class whites, it is not so much dangerous as sordid in poor white exurbs or rural areas. I knew one white scrap dealer named Clayton whose son was a hopeless meth addict who beat the shit out of him in his house and robbed him. Opoid addicts in the nearby trailer park burglarized his house. Whiggers spray painted his house. He lived in a gated community in the Philippines with mostly merchant Chinese-Filipino families and was pretty glad to be away from white trash.

I've observed the following about American white expats, myself included.

1) We are generally male. I've never MET a permanent white expat female in Southeast Asia.

2) I've never met a Mexican of either gender or any black woman in Asia. And few in Europe or Dubai. The only Native American I ever met overseas was a female married to an English guy. I've never met a white American woman who was living permanently overseas.

3) The real white trash or Cholos or Hood Rats cannot live overseas. If you are on parole, probation, on welfare or a junkie you cannot get on a plane for 14 hours.

4) On the other hand I've never met a bona fide upper middle class American in Southeast Asia either. Most of the Americans I met were tradespeople-plumbers, mechanics, factory foreman, postal workers, commercial fisherman.

5) Americans under 35 are fairly rare in Asia.

Philippines is not very attractive to backpackers. You meet them in other parts of Asia, of course, but not there.

Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only 20 miles from the suburbs.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 4:26 am GMT
HOMELESS OVERSEAS : A WARNING

INDIA BUGGERY

One Brit in Goa I heard of had gotten Indian credit cards and got WAYYY overextended. He also had a medical bill he could not pay. They would not let him out of the country even though he had a return ticket.

When he was sleeping rough one night, some thirsty Indian men who were drunk simply rolled him over and pinned him and 9 of them serially sodomized him.

The Indian Tourist Police called the British Embassy and demanded they do something. So he was repatriated. But he will be wearing adult diapers for the rest of his life.

If you are a foreigner sleeping rough in India or Dubai, you might be raped by prowling queers. Even if you're the toughest MMA fighter if you are malnourished and exhausted from being on the street for two weeks and 9 thirsty sodomites jump you you are going to end up buggered.

PHILIPPINES

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 4:51 am GMT
@AaronB AARON B

I lived in Dubai and the Philippines.

Hands down I was MUCH safer than I had been as a white post-college entry-level Graphic Artist in Phoenix living in Tempe on the border of the Guadalupe barrio.

Born in Ann Arbor and raised in Warren, I've seen black crime.

Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites and hicks from the sticks.

America is not a police state because of the Founding Fathers, but because of Mestizos and Hood Rats and redneck tweakers who can only be contained by a constant police presence. Perhaps Singapore would have slightly more crime if it was not a dictatorship, but not like the US.

I moved to Dubai directly from Phoenix and believe me, riding the public transport there and living in modest-income housing was MUCH SAFER than Phoenix or Warren.

I've been in an expat for 20 years and was never again menaced by Mestizos or witnessed black crack dealers chimping out at a bus stop or was followed by a desperate redneck tweaker.

The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad.

Finally, I've worked overseas my entire life and I never had to worry about a pink slip by some HR female who is 23 and was blowing every Frat guy two years earlier because I said the word "fag".

Overseas, you can say what you want (Except about them or their government) and nobody cares. You don't even have to PRETEND that you are PC.

Truth , says: March 18, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT
@jeff stryker I have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home.

I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years for selling a few grams of marijuana.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 10:24 am GMT
@Truth TRUTH

Kuwaitis will forgive a home brewer making some beer for himself and his expat friends. But if you get caught selling hashish, you are screwed. And to be honest anyone who is dumb enough to sell hashish or smoke it in Kuwait is not intelligent enough to be overseas.

I've known some potheads in U.A.E. who refuted the statement that cannabis is not addictive. In a country where penalties include spending years in jail for a couple of joints, they STILL went out and scored pot.

They don't screw around with debt under Muslim law. If you cannot pay a phone or medical bill, you're stuck. It goes out as a warrant and you won't be able to leave the country through the airport.

You know TRUTH, being an expat is a learning curve. Some people just don't make it and do something INCREDIBLY STUPID like the kid in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS.

I want to add something. The Americans who do these things are mostly white hicks from the sticks who have no idea how to act overseas.

jeff stryker , says: March 18, 2019 at 3:17 pm GMT
@Truth THINGS YOU LEARN IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Che Guava , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Many good points, although it may be evil (I don't think so) the total block every block of the writing, it is bullshit, sorry, I have no conscience re. Moslems, I have had enough threats to my life from them, have had personal attacks on myself and loved ones, Tarrant was perfectly logical.

How many Muslims kill and terrorize how many others?

Far more.

jeff stryker , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT
@Che Guava CHE

I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness.

Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology.

jeff stryker , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:40 pm GMT
@Che Guava DUBAI vs PHOENIX

In Dubai, I never was menaced by street criminals, which was a fairly common experience for me in both Phoenix and Warren, Michigan.

Mestizos in Phoenix had NO motive. They were not menacing or assaulting whites over drug deals or gang territory or even some vague religious reason. "Cholos" as these Mexicans were called, simply enjoyed assaulting or terrorizing middle-class whites for lack of anything better to do.

Whites will complain about the IQ of Mestizos or US ghetto blacks but it is a good thing they are not intelligent enough to be organized criminals like Russian or Italian mafias. If they were capable of building bombs like Muslim terrorists than they would be blowing up buildings over rival dealers selling crack on the street corner.

If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai.

Much is made of the drug laws in Arab countries and the film MIDNIGHT EXPRESS but try being followed around by redneck tweakers who are desperate to get more meth.

I'm not discounting terrorism. But America, and I cannot speak for other countries, will never face the threat of extinction from Muslims.

The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks.

Che Guava , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:55 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Asia always has nepotism, my experience, almost half life, it is less. Even the idea that 'Asia' is a term with any meaning, it does not.
Che Guava , says: March 19, 2019 at 6:19 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Asia always has nepotism, as has Europe, and Jews there, screw you if you don't want to

Even the idea that 'Asia' is a term is without any meaning, it does not have that automatically. The origin was Roman 'any east of us'.

In Japanese, there is a triple meaning.

Truly reflecting. But I am always to know, now, that most posters here now are Ziomorons, so, there is no point in saying anything,

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:43 am GMT
@polaco Albanians and Georgians are a 100% white.
BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:51 am GMT
@jeff stryker Hey Jeff, it's me again.

I also never got all the outrage coming from everyone in particular regarding the "draconian" laws regarding drug trafficking and drugs in general, in the Asian countries, particularly, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines,etc. People keep telling us that these are "victimless" crimes, and that these are non-violent crimes. We all know that is simply not the case.

Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery, harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality. It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take care of her kid, or the father.

It leads to domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and many other things. It makes me quite confused when they, the rabid liberals, try to downplay these things, and claim that these are "victimless" or "non-violent". Also, does the Italian Mafia still "exist"? Why would they, weren't they just the result of discrimination and the sorts and lack of opportunities? One would think that kind of stuff is all gone ..

Cheers

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:53 am GMT
@Che Guava

Tarrant was perfectly logical.

Would not say that at all

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:59 am GMT
@jeff stryker

The brotherhood of Islam does not apply to South Asians.

It certainly does not apply to the low level cleaners and all the deplorables at least. I would beg to disagree on this one. I am very close with many Arabs in that region and friends with others and as are other South Asians who are not working the menial jobs which I have mentioned. Class-ism is very much a thing, and it exists here.

If the Indian guy is a higher class guy, they'll treat you like a brother. This is coming from yours truly ;-) I feel like I would fit right in. I sneer at the peasants and all the deplorables, and we openly joke about them.

Pakistani workers guzzle perfume

This is certainly true, they bathe in that stuff. Ever visited Muscat?

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 4:40 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude BENGALI

Lets take Brampton. Italians used to completely run the prostitution, trucking, extortion, drugs etc. in Ontario in industrial towns like Brampton because Anglo Canadians were basically pleasant middle-class people.

Then came Sikhs, Tamils, Jamaicans. But especially Sikhs. Sikh separatists and Tamil Tigers were not afraid of some middle-aged portly Italian men like Tony Soprano scarfing down pizza at a strip joint.

By the end of the eighties, the Italians simply decided to move into white-collar fraud like "Pump and Dump" stock scams. It was not worth getting their asses shot off by crazy gun-toting Sikhs or Tamils who would tie someone to an anthill just to prove that nobody's life mattered to them but their own.

This is why Crips and Bloods and Mexican street gangs never got a foothold in Vancouver or Ontario. Sikhs and Tamils have a reputation for being bloodthirsty maniacs that even redoubted US gangs avoid.

The same occurred in the US, really.

As for drugs, anybody who has walked through East Vancouver once has seen the end-result of a decriminalization.

That is not to say that drugs will not be consumed in Muslim countries. I've known hashish smokers my entire time in Dubai and even chewed Khat once with a Yemeni taxi driver to see what it was about (It has the kick of three cans of Red Bull but lasts longer).

But pot smokers and Khat chewers in Dubai or U.A.E. won't get a gun and try to kill somebody to get more. For one thing, chronic hashish smokers have no energy and are spaced out. Crackheads in US cities or heroin addicts in Grandville will.

Meth addicts are not so much dangerous as horribly annoying. When I first moved to Phoenix I lived in low-income housing and one meth addict ex-convict simply followed me around pleading for money every time I walked out my front door. Like some kind of stray dog, he also tore through my garbage to get my returnables. When I moved out of the apartment to share a condo with some IT guys, he injured himself breaking into my apartment trying to sleep somewhere and my ex-landlord called me to tell me he had been injured by the window glass.

I was a hashish myself as a young man of course .Like all Goras who are employed in India, as soon as I had my paycheck I got the hell to Goa and got stoned. Every white employed in India will take their pay and go to Goa and buy hashish from some Kashmiri carpet shop.

Goan police know full well that 100% of the Westerners there are smoking pot. Goa is India's Amersterdam.

But in Dubai or other Muslim countries, the police simply don't allow crack houses or staggering half-mad meth addicts. You cannot "corner deal" in Dubai or Jakarta.

Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries, every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell drugs. They just remain users.

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 4:52 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude BENGALI

Like most demented cowards he was totally logical. He did not approach armed Muslim men and challenge them one-to-one.

He shot unarmed women and children.

This makes sense, because at the bottom of it, on average, white Christian men usually don't have the courage of most other fanatics to be willing to die trying to kill others who are capable of murdering them, like Tamil Tigers.

As a result, Anglo-Saxon terrorism has a sickeningly cowardly streak to it.

The Tamil extremist blows herself up to kill the Indian Prime Minister, for example.

But the white extremist like Tim McVeigh or Dylan the church bomber either sets a fire or like Brevik shoots unarmed civilians and then surrenders, lacking the courage to take his own life even though it is effectively over.

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 11:39 am GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude I worked in Muscat, Oman for several years and lived in Qurm.

The other 6 and half years of my life were spent in Dubai and I took frequent business trips to Kuwait.

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@jeff stryker You're not wrong about the Punjabis and Tamils. There many reports or claims years ago during the Sri Lankan Civil War of the Tamil Eelam separatists receiving funding from the Tamil gangs in the GTA( Greater Toronto Area).

The Khalistani movement in the Punjab has some modest support amongst the natives in India, however, it is well known that most of their support comes from the Punjabi(Sikh) diaspora. The NDP leader himself, a man by the name of Jagmeet Singh, is a proud Khalistani supporter, and he had not disavowed the terrorism espoused by these groups.

He is an open suppprter. And I want you to realize the same guy is the leader of the third largest, politically relevant part in Canada, which is the NDP. Guess his constituency it's Burnaby.

jeff stryker , says: March 20, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude BENGALI

The positive side of this is that US black and Mexican gangs have never been able to get a significant foothold in Canada. Even re-doubted LA Crips and Bloods think that Canadian Sikh gangs in Surrey or Brampton are bloodthirsty maniacs.

Sikh separatism was never possible in India because New Delhi is located in Punjab and the province is also a border state with Pakistan. I've been there.

In my opinion, East Vancouver is what happens when drugs are decriminalized. Anybody who would like to see drugs legalized can visit Grandville and Hastings.

Potheads really are not a threat to the public; they are too sluggish and spaced out.

BengaliCanadianDude , says: March 20, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Jeff

Thr idea of decriminalization is a bad one, as well as the idea ofbopen injection sites.

Toronto has a couple of these kind of areas if I am to remember correctly, and it's a mess. There have been needles everwhere, which increase the likelihood of infection, and people just don't care anymore. How does it look on the kids, who are shown adults openly injecting drugs? It's a mess. Quite literally as well on the ground.

It discourages businesses in the area, and it brings down the neighbourhoods surrounding it.

Has it solved our problems or Vancouver's? We both know the answer.

The areas that were clean and empty, around these spots have turned into literal drug hubs, and places where violence occurs frequently.

I do think Sikh seperatism was possible at one point, but the Sikh terrorists hiding in the Gurdwara was a turning point. That was put down brutally as I'm sure you remember, which lead to some destruction of that site. All hope was lost when the Sikh bodyguards killed her as well. But at one point, it was possible

Philip Owen , says: March 22, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMT
@BengaliCanadianDude I knew Burnaby in the '80's and early '90's. Decent working class area in transition I thought, although it looked like a place to find hashish even then. I am not really that good on Canada. Mostly Burnaby/Vancouver with a some time in the middle of Ottawa and by lake Erie; my cousin owned a small lakefront palace in Mississauga.
Che Guava , says: March 24, 2019 at 4:59 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Crap. if it was real, it was real. Moslems have a rape and violent assault party every day they can.

This N.Z. P.M? It is interesting how her face is that of a skull. If we knew her name, we may call her N.Z. P.M Skeletor.

Plato's Dream , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
@Anonymous "But by-in-large, if you look at 1958, and then look out your window today ..Jesus Christ, what the hell happened?"

Your generation came to power.

Plato's Dream , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Hell, East Vancouver was full of junkies even back in mid-90s, I assume before de-criminalization Drug deals done in broad light right on the corner of Hastings and Commercial But at the time Burnaby was almost exclusively white – that's where I lived for 2 years so I'd know Indians were all in surrey.
Plato's Dream , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:22 pm GMT
@Philip Owen I also lived in Burnaby in early 90s when I was enroled at sfu it was a decent if boring lower middle class suburb. The only seedy place was North Burnaby Inn on E. Hastings, the only place for miles to get a beer – where you could get an eyeful at the same time
jeff stryker , says: March 27, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT
@Plato's Dream PLATO

"Painville and Wastings"

Fiendish killers like Pickton and grotesque pimps like Paul Snider were committing crimes in the seventies and by the nineties the place had the highest AIDS rate in North America.

Most of the druggies are either Natives or from places back East like Ontario or Quebec.

The low-life drug dealers in Vancouver are usually internal migrants from California or Newfoundland who came to Vancouver to ply their trade because. When I lived in Ontario I knew a guy whose Dad had made a great deal of money operating a pawn shop; if you are a drug dealer or pawn shop owner you can get rich at the expense of the junkie populace even if you are a shaved monkey.

My experience in Canada as an American was that the Natives in Canada were worse off than they are in the States.

jeff stryker , says: March 27, 2019 at 5:45 am GMT
@Plato's Dream PLATO

I found Natives in Canada to be some of the most dangerous underclass people around. After living in Norther Ontario for two years I was shocked at how brazen their criminality was.

In regards to your gun laws, I had a female friend who accidentally offended some Natives and they brazenly walked over to her house to attack her on her property. She pulled a 22 repeater on them and saved her life (This was in Northern Ontario) but had to move from there afterwards.

Most Americans and perhaps even people from Southern Canada have no idea how dangerous Natives can be.

I don't know why Natives in the US are less of a threat on the street. Maybe because there are less of them.

Canadian aboriginals are also unintelligent. They might even be less intelligent than ahem, other underclasses.

Plato's Dream , says: April 1, 2019 at 9:25 am GMT
@jeff stryker I'm not actually Canadian, I was in Vancouver for 2 years while studying. Didn't have any dealings with the natives (no big loss based on what you say! )
Plato's Dream , says: April 1, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
@jeff stryker Well it says something about the place that the main spot to score some drugs was around the entrance to the main public library.
jeff stryker , says: April 1, 2019 at 1:16 pm GMT
@Plato's Dream I never went to a city with more open drug use or more aggressive homeless people than East Vancouver. Okay, its not Detroit and you won't be shot, but its a bad place.
Plato's Dream , says: April 3, 2019 at 8:17 am GMT
@Che Guava Well he probably did wonders for Campbell soup sales
Eric Novak , says: April 5, 2019 at 10:17 am GMT
@The Anti-Gnostic The entire American industrial workforce had to be retrained for new work from the 1970s onward, so really, a 28-year-old without a family should be able to train for a career well before he needs his first colonoscopy.

With personal anectodes for perspective, my wife went to med school at 35 and is now a radiologist at 52.

Perhaps you were a Ho Ho-eating degenerate at 28, but the rest of non-alcoholic, non-drug addicted, non-obese, non-mentally ill Homo sapiens seems to adjusts well to the demands of reality and to challenges unforeseen.

Too old for the trades? Really? Have you been to a gym lately-or ever?

[Apr 13, 2019] Due to americal excaptionalism the USA> is a deeply delusional society held together by a deeply delusional government

Notable quotes:
"... The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various "do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology. ..."
"... The slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England, but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges. ..."
"... I preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country. It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it. ..."
"... Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country ..."
"... Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors ..."
"... While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti" ..."
Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Baxter , says: March 13, 2019 at 3:30 am GMT

@songbird

"The idea of a nation where people from all over the world live is a political absurdity. If has no logical unifying basis "

Very well said. Indeed, the United States is not a country, rather it is a government.

And I despise that government.

Things are going to change swiftly after Trump is replaced. The 'coalition of the fringes' is real. It's game over for America. The people living in that country have been too distracted to notice.

America is a deeply delusion society held together by a deeply delusional government.

jacques sheete , says: March 15, 2019 at 10:50 am GMT

I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.

The dude has come a long way, but he's still a bit brainwashed. I should read, "as the f f supposedly intended."

The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various "do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology.

Jake , says: March 15, 2019 at 11:40 am GMT
"I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended."

That is not possible without the conditions that prevailed in the late 18th century, which featured rebellion against the British Empire and therefore against Elite WASP culture.

The slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England, but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges.

jacques sheete , says: March 15, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT

ps: "It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship" – well, yes it can.

It certainly can, and often is. The mantra is believed due to brainwashing, and Barrett has provided a fine primer on the subject.

Curmudgeon , says: March 15, 2019 at 10:43 pm GMT
@Baxter A nation is different than a country. A country is geographical area with boundaries. A nation is the people within a geographical area who have lived together for a long time and have shared experiences. Nation from the French naître – to be born.

The US, like most other European based populations, was a nation. It has become a country.

Low Voltage , says: March 16, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
@Baxter

I preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country. It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it.

polaco , says: March 17, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@jeff stryker

Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country

Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors, except for areas that are adjacent to urban, Hispanic, or Black neighbourhoods, which they have abandoned and given up on decades ago following the anti American Civil Rights movement. Show me a place in America where garbage trucks don't come every week.

While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti"- http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/124947-russia_garbage/ or http://www.pravdareport.com/society/5701-recycling/ .

Americans in the US now total about 55% of the population: Wikipedia says: "197,285,202 (Non-Hispanic: 2017), 60.7% of the total U.S. population"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American , however this number is flawed as they count various non-whites like Berbers, or Turkic people like Albanians, Turks, Kurds, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis as whites.

Then we have: "About 46 million Americans live in the nation's rural counties, 175 million in its suburbs and small metros"- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ . Which seems to confirm that Americans (Whites) live in either suburban or rural areas.

[Apr 13, 2019] Trump Puts America Last by Daniel Larison

Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:

President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.

U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential announcement this week.

No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.

Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.

After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.

Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.

There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.

Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international standing.

There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.

Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him.

Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:

Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal of troops from the battlefield.

Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly became a relevant issue about Iran."

Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.


SF Bay March 21, 2019 at 10:28 pm

Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his narcissistic personality at work.

My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"

It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.

Kouros , , March 21, 2019 at 11:39 pm
I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?!
Trump 2016 , , March 22, 2019 at 1:45 am
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
Grumpy Old Man , , March 22, 2019 at 3:29 am
He ought to recognize Russia's seizure of Crimea. Why not? Кто кого?
Tony , , March 22, 2019 at 8:50 am
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.

The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is. Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.

The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.

Some Perspective , , March 22, 2019 at 9:08 am
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.

I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.

We're losing our country. We're losing America.

Sid Finster , , March 22, 2019 at 10:22 am
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.

Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.

G-Pol , , March 22, 2019 at 11:15 am
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.

Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to begin with.

Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations, while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?

Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.

There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.

All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into.

[Apr 13, 2019] Russiagate in three minutes

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website April 12, 2019 at 2:40 am GMT

Totally Hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/embed/alt5kD7ei1I

[Apr 12, 2019] By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again

Notable quotes:
"... Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time. ..."
"... In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more. ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jus' Sayin'... , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT

@WorkingClass Alex Graham is right. I voted for Trump because he promised:

(1) to end the wars the US is fighting as a sock puppet of Israel and her domestic agents, the so-called neocons and the traitorous Zionist fifth column in this country, exemplified by Adelson, Saban, Kushner, et al.;

(2) to restore the rule of law regarding illegal aliens in this country by removing these criminals post haste;

(3) to restore order at the border and end the massive stream of illegals and contraband entering our country every day;

(4) to establish reasonable laws and policies regulating immigration and naturalization so that new immigrants and citizens improve rather than diminish the quality of life for current citizens; and

(5) to eliminate and/or restructure trade agreements so they are bilateral and not destructive of the USA's industrial and economic base.

Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time.

By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again. I don't intend to. But please don't consider voting for a Democrat. They will just more efficiently screw us than Trump is doing now.

Agent76 , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
Jul 23, 2016 Trump Exposes Trump

In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more.

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump Panders to His Base at the Republican Jewish Coalition

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT

@Agent76

"Trump Panders to His Base at the Republican Jewish Coalition"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvpQ2zzOD7g

[Apr 12, 2019] MAGA was always MIGA in disguise

Notable quotes:
"... Gradually I began to hate him. Trump is a liar, a con man, a sellout, a shabbos goy POS. He DOES have agency ..for israel. But not for us. ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

FreeWilly says:April 10, 2019 at 5:39 am GMT

@Thinker

"He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along."

What do you mean by "again"? When was it ever great?

Robert Dolan , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:41 am GMT

Gradually I began to hate him. Trump is a liar, a con man, a sellout, a shabbos goy POS. He DOES have agency ..for israel. But not for us.

[Apr 12, 2019] Tulsi might get a considerable part of nationalists voters who previously voted for Trump

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Grahamsno(G64) , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT

@Thomm That's so true that it's almost incredible, Andrew Anglin of the daily stormer has been campaigning for Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang for well over a month

He could be said to be instrumental in putting Yang on the democratic primaries and possibly Tulsi as well all the while using his weaponized memes against Trump!! I'm in disbelief.

[Apr 12, 2019] Gabbard on Assange arrest

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Art , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:52 am GMT

Good On Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard: Assange arrest is a threat to journalists

By Rachel Frazin – 04/11/19 06:10 PM EDT

Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) condemned the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, calling the arrest a threat to journalists.

"The arrest of #JulianAssange is meant to send a message to all Americans and journalists: be quiet, behave, toe the line. Or you will pay the price," Gabbard tweeted.

The Democrat's remark came hours after police in London arrested Assange, citing charges he is facing in the U.S.

Assange is accused of conspiring to hack into computers in connection with WikiLeaks's release of classified documents from former Army private and intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/438542-gabbard-assange-arrest-is-a-threat-to-journalists

Think Peace -- Art

[Apr 12, 2019] The "non-diplomatic" scandal characteristic for our times of lawless deciders

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 12, 2019 at 5:53 pm GMT

@Dmitry The "non-diplomatic" scandal characteristic for our times of lawless deciders, with the UK leading the charge: https://www.hannenabintuherland.com/news/update-on-the-sergei-skripal-poisoning-and-the-conspicuously-many-unanswered-questions-dr-tim-hayward-herland-report/
"The Sergej Skripal case never reached beyond allegations. The media now dead silent," Dr. Tim Hayward – Herland Report

[Apr 12, 2019] It appears Assange was able to trigger the kill switch. There's been a massive data dump at Wikileaks

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [417] Disclaimer , says: April 12, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT

Just for the record, it appears Assange was able to trigger the kill switch. There's been a massive data dump at Wikileaks:

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/

Sparkon , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:29 pm GMT
@Anon J ust for a more important record -- no surprise here -- my quick scan of the index of file names of that "massive data dump at Wikileaks" found quite a few files about Scientology, one about tuition increase at "uofa," another concerning Hawaii's announcement about Obama's birth certificate, and a "yes-we-can mp4," but nothing at all about the World Trade Center or 9/11 that I could find.

[Apr 12, 2019] A rare breed of individuals who surfaced during Russiagate: individuals with a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS.

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:22 pm GMT

@Prof. Woland

The Russians are not very worried about crossing the British but I cannot imagine what the fallout would be if one of their spies got caught got caught killing someone here.

Sir, you are a rare breed. I didn't believe who believe that nonsense about the Russians killing Litvinenko or Skripals actually existed. You have a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS.

[Apr 11, 2019] The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are often the most gullible and dim-witted

Apr 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

HallParvey , says: April 10, 2019 at 2:56 pm GMT

@Nicolás Palacios Navarro

Unfortunately, the near totality of this country's populace is effectively illiterate and poorly equipped to think critically and independently, preferring to accept the verdicts of their oleaginous talking heads at face value without ever troubling themselves to examine why.

(The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are often the most gullible and dim-witted.)

Someday, when we all have multiple degrees from prestigious institutions of exalted learning, our collective I.Q. will be substantially higher than it is today, and we will understand everything.

Except how to change a light bulb.

[Apr 11, 2019] A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.

Notable quotes:
"... He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague ..."
Apr 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Republic , says: April 10, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT

Cicero's quotation:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

[Apr 10, 2019] It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man transition into the MIGA man.

Apr 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

aandrews says: April 10, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT

If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.

I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is, and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.

Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?

Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on BookTV .

Johnny Walker Read says: April 10, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT

@aandrews

Thanks for sharing the links on the Kushner Crime Family. It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man "transition" into the MIGA man. What amazes me are the number of dumb f*ck Americans who still worship this ass hat, all the while he is driving the betrayal dagger deeper into their back.

[Apr 10, 2019] Boeing Sued For Defrauding Shareholders After Fatal Crashes

Notable quotes:
"... Boeing "effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty" by rushing the 737 MAX to market without "extra" or "optional" safety features - a practice that has outraged the company's critics - as it feared ceding market share to Airbus SE. Moreover, Boeing failed to disclose a conflict of interest surrounding its 'regulatory capture' of the FAA, which was revealed to have outsourced much of the approval process for the 737 MAX to Boeing itself. ..."
"... Of course, this shareholder lawsuit is only the tip of the legal iceberg for Boeing. The company will likely face a blizzard of lawsuits filed by family members of those killed during the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, the first of which has already been filed. ..."
Apr 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Boeing shareholders who lost money selling their stock after the Ethiopian Airlines crash are suing the company for concealing unflattering material information from the public, defrauding shareholders in the process, Reuters reports.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in Chicago, is seeking damages after the March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 wiped $34 billion off Boeing's market cap within two weeks. But if true, the crux of the lawsuit might have broader repercussions for the company as it tries to convince regulators to lift a grounding order that has kept the Boeing 737 MAX 8 grounded since mid-March.

In essence, the suit alleges that the company concealed safety concerns about the 737 MAX and its anti-stall software following the Lion Air crash in October that killed 189 people, but did nothing to alert the public or correct the issue.

Boeing "effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty" by rushing the 737 MAX to market without "extra" or "optional" safety features - a practice that has outraged the company's critics - as it feared ceding market share to Airbus SE. Moreover, Boeing failed to disclose a conflict of interest surrounding its 'regulatory capture' of the FAA, which was revealed to have outsourced much of the approval process for the 737 MAX to Boeing itself.

Lead plaintiff Richard Seeks bought 300 Boeing shares in early March and sold them at a loss after the shares dumped more than 12% in the weeks after the second crash, which would have left him with a loss between $15,000 and $20,000. The lawsuit seeks damages for Boeing investors who bought the company's shares from Jan. 8 to March 21. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and CFO Gregory Smith have also been named as defendants.

Of course, this shareholder lawsuit is only the tip of the legal iceberg for Boeing. The company will likely face a blizzard of lawsuits filed by family members of those killed during the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, the first of which has already been filed.

Though its shares have recovered from their post-grounding lows, they have hit another bout of turbulence this week after the company announced that it would slash production of the 737 MAX by 20%, before announcing that its aircraft orders in Q1 fell to 95 from 180 a year earlier.


Know thy enemy , 2 hours ago link

Having grown up in Seattle within 15 miles of Plant 2 on Boeing Field, I know a lot about The Boeing Company. I went to private high school with Bill Boeing III and during college had a great summer job at Troy Laundry delivering shop towels and uniforms to all of the Boeing plants in the region.

I used to laugh because, when I drove the laundries 20ft UPS style box van through those enormous sliding doors into Everett's 747 Plant to deliver fresh laundry and pickup soiled's, I would spend the next 4-hours driving around 'inside' the building. I got to know dozens of workers by name, who 'worked the line'.

After college, more than 20% of my graduating class went to work at 'the lazy B' as it was commonly known. Not me. I went into sales and started selling computers.....to Boeing and the FAA.

As the size my computer sales territory was increased to include the entire West Coast I began to fly Boeing aircraft almost everyday for 10-years. and on-board those aircraft I met and flew with many Boeing executives.

One day I happened to sit next the 'current' Boeing HR director, and after getting to know him confided that I frequently smoked marijuana after work. To which he replied, "I would gladly have the 15% of our work force that are alcoholics, or into hard drugs smoke pot because it's effects are short-term but when people come to work 'hung-over or jacked-up' that is when bad **** happens and mistakes are made".

Even though, I had been 'on the line' and met many Boeing employees I had not realized until that moment the seriousness of what he was saying. The HR guy went on to say, that they 'had to have redundancy at every step in the construction process to ensure bad workmanship didn't make it into the final product'.

Fast forward 20-years; and Boeing airplanes are falling from the sky......and it's not a surprise to me.

IronForge , 3 hours ago link

BA are better off ending the 737MAX; and replacing Orders with another Model Line.

Shockwave , 2 hours ago link

The legacy 737 "NG" is a solid aircraft, and its still being produced down the same build lines as the MAX. Just the previous generation. That plane drove the vast majority of Boeings sales. It woulndt be hard to scale down MAX production and just go back to producing the NG, but they wont do that.

They'll fix the MAX and move on, and as long as no more crashes occur, eventually the public will forget.

JustPastPeacefield , 56 minutes ago link

Thats a hard sell to airlines when the competing plane has a 15% lower operating cost.

silverer , 3 hours ago link

The FED can't let the stock price fall on a company of that size, so the FED trading desk will lend assistance. There is a certain evil in this, because the stock deserves to fall, and when it doesn't, it has the effect of vindicating the company for the events that occurred. This is why free markets should never be meddled with. It's actually immoral.

CatInTheHat , 3 hours ago link

This is utterly predictable and something I've already said repeatedly: Boeing did not tell pilots or its customers about the mechanism. Boeing is criminally liable for the MURDER of 300+ people. Families will sue and cancellations will follow.

Then this:

"In essence, the suit alleges that the company concealed safety concerns about the 737 MAX and its anti-stall software following the Lion Air crash in October that killed 189 people, but did nothing to alert the public or correct the issue.

Boeing "effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty"

Pilots complained about the problem and were IGNORED.

This is good to see. Boeing needs to be held accountable for MURDER. But instead Trump slaps tariffs on the competitor, AIRBUS, to pay for Boeing's criminality.

This will not stop companies choosing AIRBUS and its good safety record over a bunch of psychopathic murderers. If Boeing had put safety first, it's competitor would not be picking up business..ironic...

3-fingered_chemist , 3 hours ago link

I still don't understand the point of the MCAS. Clearly it causes the plane to do a face plant into the ground. However, like in that one situation where the jump seat pilot knew to turn it off, the plane flew fine. Boeing says the MCAS is to prevent the plane from stalling at steep angles of attack, but the plane seems to stay in the air better without it. So which is it? The fact is the Boeing neglected to put it in the manual suggests it was done on purpose. The fact that they sold a version with no redundancy to the AOC sensor seems to be have done on purpose. Since Boeing is basically an arm of the DOD, the question should be who was on the flights that crashed? That's the missing link in this debacle.

ArtOfIgnorance , 3 hours ago link

Check out " moonofalabama.org ", very good explanation, plus some further links to pilot forums.

From what I understand, the pilots get into some sort of "catch 22"....even if they switch of the MACS, they are doomed.

I'm not I anyway in the flying biz, but work in power generating control systems, and funny enough, use quite a lot of Rosemount sensors in ex areas. They are good sensors, but always use two in mission critical operations.

Why Boeing opted for just one, really blows my mind.

What would an extra sensor cost, 10.000USD?, altogether with new software..bla-bla.

Now look what this is costing them.

Well, this is what happens when MBA bean counters take over a former proud engineering company.

Tragic.

Urban Roman , 3 hours ago link

From what I understand, the pilots get into some sort of "catch 22"....even if they switch of the MACS, they are doomed.

Sort of like that. The flight surface is controlled by a big screw. Normally an electric motor spins the nut that drives the screw up and down. The switch cuts out the motor, and they have hand cranks to move the screw. But in this last crash, the too-clever-by-half software system had already run the screw all the way to the 'nose down' end, and it would have taken them several minutes of hand cranking to get it back to the center position. They didn't have several minutes, and the motor is capable of driving the screw the other way. Since the problem was intermittent (software kicks in on a time interval), they were hoping it would behave for a few seconds, and switched the motor back on. It didn't.

On a side note, the Airbus does not have these hand-crank controls. Everything is run by the computer -- so if anything goes wrong, the pilot must 'reason' with the computer to correct it. . . "Sorry Dave, I can't do that".

Well, this is what happens when MBA bean counters take over a former proud engineering company.

This reminds me of Feynman's analysis of what went wrong with the Space Shuttle Challenger. The engineers said the O-rings would be too stiff and brittle, and the launch should wait until it warmed up a bit. But a delay was costing the shuttle program a million dollars a minute, or whatever.

Feynman explained that the early space program was run by the pocket-protector guys with slide rules. And it worked. But over time the management had been replaced by people whose careers depended on influencing other people and not on matter, energy, and materials.

Shockwave , 2 hours ago link

Another thing, the pilots had commanded full throttle and never throttled back during the whole ordeal. So when they killed the trim motor, they couldn't overcome the aerodynamic force on the stab to move the trim screw back into position.

Apparently they could have got the trim corrected ENOUGH to make a difference if they could have moved it more easily, but at the speeds they were going, the airspeed over the stab was too high to manually move the screw fast enough to make a difference.

jerry-jeff , 1 hour ago link

another interesting point is that the system is deactivated when flaps are selected...only works when aircraft is in 'clean' config.

Shockwave , 1 hour ago link

Interesting. Did not know that.

Shockwave , 2 hours ago link

Sort of. When you kill the electric trim motor, you have to use a manual wheel to adjust trim. The issue came that their airspeed was so high that the load on the stab made it nearly impossible to move without the electric motor.

They had been at full throttle from rotation until they hit the dirt. The pilot had told the copilot to throttle back but it got lost in the chaos somewhere and never happened.

So when they killed the trim motor and tried to move it manually, they had to overcome all the aerodynamic force on the stab, and they just couldnt do it at those airspeeds without the electric motor to overcome the force.

MilwaukeeMark , 3 hours ago link

The bigger the fuselage the bigger the engines needed. The bigger the engines needed the more forward on the wing they go to keep from scraping on the ground. The more forward on the wing the more unbalanced then plane became. They've stretch a frame which was developed in the 60's beyond its original design.

MilwaukeeMark , 4 hours ago link

The executives who oversaw the fiasco that is now Boeing, long ago parachuted out with multi million dollar pensions and stock options while their Seattle workers had their pensions slashed. They're now assembling Dreamliners in NC with off the street non unionized labor, former TacoBell and Subway workers. They moved their Corp headquarters to Chicago away from where the actual work was being performed to pursue the "work" of stock buy backs and cozying up to the FAA. All the above a recipe for disaster. A perfect mirror of how the 1/10th of 1% operate in the Oligarchy we call America.

thunderchief , 4 hours ago link

Boeing is in full on crisis mode because of the 737 Max fiasco.

Anything else they say or do is pure show and fraud.

The are not to far from losing the entire narrowbody airline market, pretty much the meat and bones of Airline production.

Today Airbus still has the A-320 neo, and Russia and China are chomping at the bit with the MC21 and C919, all far more advanced and superior than a 1960's designed stretched pulled and too late 737 .

If Boeing loses market share and the narrow body airline market, shame on the USA.

This will become a text book expample of the fall of a nation and empire.

How can a Company like Boeing have technology like the B2 and everything the DOD gives them and lose the international market for narrowbody airliners..

To call this a national disgrace is a compliment to Boeing and the US aerospace industies complete disregard and hubris in such an important component of worldwide aviation.

This in not a sad chapter for Boeing, its sad for the USA

south40_dreams , 4 hours ago link

Boeing is headquartered in Shitcago, how fitting

wally_12 , 3 hours ago link

Don't forget K-Cars, Vega, Pinto, Aztec etc. Auto industry has the type of idiots as Boeing.

Government bailout on the horizon.

south40_dreams , 3 hours ago link

Not bailout, coverup and lots and lots of lipstick will be applied to this pig

IronForge , 2 hours ago link

BeanCounters, Parasitoids, and Bells-WhistlesMktg Types Running an Aerospace/Aviation Engineering and Defense Tech Conglomerate into the Ground - Literally.

Civil Aviation Div "Jumped the Shark" the moment they passed on a redesigned Successor to the 737 Base Model in the mid 2000s and decided to strap on Larger Engines and GunDeck the Revision and Certifications.

So Sad Too Bad. No Sympathies for BA.

Catullus , 4 hours ago link

Failure to disclose regulatory capture is a tough one. Do you issue an 8K on that one? Maybe bury it in the 10K in risk statements

"We maintain several regulatory relationships that will rubber stamp approvals for our aircraft. In the event of a major safety violation, those cozy relationships could be exposed and we be found to not only be negligent, but also nefariously so through regulatory capture."

You bought an airline manufacturer that had a malfunction. There's plenty of people to blame, but it's part of the business you own.

boooyaaaah , 4 hours ago link

Question?
Are the millennials too dishonest for freedom

Free markets, free exchange of ideas and information

The truth shall set you free

Arrow4Truth , 2 hours ago link

They have no comprehension of freedom, which translates to, they are incapable of seeing the truth. The indoctrination has worked swimmingly.

haley's_vomit , 4 hours ago link

Nikki 'luvsNetanyahu' Haley is Boeing's 'rabidjew' answer to their "look! up in the sky! it's Silverstein's Air Force"

[Apr 10, 2019] Boeing's 737 Max 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

Apr 10, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

The 737 Max is a legacy of its past, built on decades-old systems, many that date back to the original version. The strategy, to keep updating the plane rather than starting from scratch, offered competitive advantages. Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn't have to invest in costly new training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to redesign and recertify than starting anew.

But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following two deadly crashes in less than five months. The Max stretched the 737 design, creating a patchwork plane that left pilots without some safety features that could be important in a crisis -- ones that have been offered for years on other planes. It is the only modern Boeing jet without an electronic alert system that explains what is malfunctioning and how to resolve it. Instead pilots have to check a manual.

The Max also required makeshift solutions to keep the plane flying like its ancestors, workarounds that may have compromised safety. While the findings aren't final, investigators suspect that one workaround, an anti-stall system designed to compensate for the larger engines, was central to the crash last month in Ethiopia and an earlier one in Indonesia.

"They wanted to A, save money and B, to minimize the certification and flight-test costs," said Mike Renzelmann, an engineer who worked on the Max's flight controls. "Any changes are going to require recertification." Mr. Renzelmann was not involved in discussions about the sensors.

... ... ...

On 737s, a light typically indicates the problem and pilots have to flip through their paper manuals to find next steps. In the doomed Indonesia flight, as the Lion Air pilots struggled with MCAS for control, the pilots consulted the manual moments before the jet plummeted into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people aboard.

"Meanwhile, I'm flying the jet," said Mr. Tajer, the American Airlines 737 captain. "Versus, pop, it's on your screen. It tells you, This is the problem and here's the checklist that's recommended."

Boeing decided against adding it to the Max because it could have prompted regulators to require new pilot training, according to two former Boeing employees involved in the decision.

The Max also runs on a complex web of cables and pulleys that, when pilots pull back on the controls, transfer that movement to the tail. By comparison, Airbus jets and Boeing's more modern aircraft, such as the 777 and 787, are "fly-by-wire," meaning pilots' movement of the flight controls is fed to a computer that directs the plane. The design allows for far more automation, including systems that prevent the jet from entering dangerous situations, such as flying too fast or too low. Some 737 pilots said they preferred the cable-and-pulley system to fly-by-wire because they believed it gave them more control.

In the recent crashes, investigators believe the MCAS malfunctioned and moved a tail flap called the stabilizer, tilting the plane toward the ground. On the doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight, the pilots tried to combat the system by cutting power to the stabilizer's motor, according to the preliminary crash report.

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Once the power was cut, the pilots tried to regain control manually by turning a wheel next to their seat. The 737 is the last modern Boeing jet that uses a manual wheel as its backup system. But Boeing has long known that turning the wheel is difficult at high speeds, and may have required two pilots to work together.

In the final moments of the Ethiopian Airlines flight, the first officer said the method wasn't working, according to the preliminary crash report. About 1 minute and 49 seconds later, the plane crashed, killing 157 people.

Steve Lovelien Waukesha,WI 25m ago

The Seattle Times published what I consider a devastating article a few Sundays ago. It highlighted the depth to which Boeing and the FAA cut corners on the certification of the Max, more specifically the characterization of the impact of a failure of the new MCAS system. This allowed them to utilize the cheaper single sensor AOA vane instead of 2 or 3. The aircraft also got delivered with the MCAS system applying many more nose down units of trim than what was published in the certification process. Topping it off was the failure of Boeing to disclose to its customers that the MCAS system was installed or what abnormal or emergency procedures would accompany the system.


Catalin Iasi 2h ago

True, there are two kinds of pilots, and some are better. BUT no pilot should be put in a critical situation by bad and rushed design. What was Boeing thinking? `Yes, there is slight chance that things can go wrong... but if the pilot is experienced, if the weather is fine, if the FO is focused (and so on...) they will surely make it.' Why taking that risk? They should design a plane that even a drunk pilot can handle.
AeroEngineer Toronto 2h ago
The MCAS moves the entire horizontal tail (aka horizontal stabilizer) not just "a tail flap called the stabilizer". Normal stabilizer trim also moves the whole horizontal stabilizer. Presumably the "flap" being referred to here, incorrectly, is the elevator, a flight control surface on the trailing edge of the horizontal tail, which is control by pulling and pushing the flight control column. Both horizontal stabilizer trim and elevator affect the pitch (nose up, nose down) of the aircraft. Typically, horizontal stabilizer trim is used to maintain a particular attitude (e.g. level flight in cruise) without requiring the pilot to continously apply significant forces to the control column, which is tiring. When MCAS engages it effectively is attempting to "cancel out" the pilot's elevator command (pulling back on the control column to bring the nose up by ) by moving the horizontal stabilizer to counteract the pilots action (rotating the the horizontal stabilizer so that it's leading edge points down).
Tony Boston 2h ago
Boeing should have gone with a clean sheet of paper design. Look at the Airbus A220, previously known as Bombardier C Series. It has nearly similar seating, yet it carries less fuel, but has a longer range than the MAX8. Modern wing design. Heck, Boeing should have just bought Bombardier 10 years ago. Now they are in the arms of Airbus.
Ed N Southbury,CT 2h ago
Why doesn't BA just trash the entire max8 program and become a subcontractor for A320s instead? After all there is a demand for 5000 aircraft that now will not be fulfilled. Boeing management should be put on trial for criminal negligence.
Jim Mooney Apache Junction, AZ 2h ago
Finally, a comprehensive report that doesn't go on and on about software. The problem was a mechanical and training one, and instead of fixing the problems, the Bean Counters took over and went on the cheap.

[Apr 09, 2019] Should not McAuliffe be tried for treason?

Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 9, 2019 at 6:09 pm GMT

@Mark Bruzonsky The zionists parasitoid has been worming into the local administrations and stealing US taxpayers money (the zionists' favorite pastime): https://www.globalresearch.ca/virginia-israel-malignant-force-local-politics/5673823?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=virginia_is_now_part_of_israel_s_occupied_territories&utm_term=2019-04-08

a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of Israel.

According to the documents, VIAB, which avoids any public disclosure of its activities, is currently also being scrutinized by the state Attorney General over its handling of government funds.

VIAB was founded in 2001 but it grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe's administration McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons' "bag man," received what were regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic Party.

The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) reports that VIAB is "the only Israel business promotion entity in the United States embedded within a state government and funded entirely by the state's taxpayers.

In terms of the overall state budget, VIAB's direct share is small ($209,068 for fiscal years 2017 and 2018). However, VIAB's diversion of state, federal and private grants, as well as demands on state-funded entities like colleges and universities to collaborate in projects designed primarily to benefit Israel, run in the millions of dollars per year.

Should not McAuliffe be tried for treason?

anon [137] Disclaimer , says: April 9, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@annamaria

a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of Israel.

this is what (((they))) always do

patriotic americans or bloodsucking parasites?

they have no shame

[Apr 09, 2019] Trump had 4 bankruptcies and we let him run US economy !

Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 9, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT

@renfro

Trump had 4 bankruptcies let him run your economy !!

2+ years into his presidency, there is little room left for doubt about his competency. I regret having supported him, although arguably, the alternative was worse.

On a lighter note, here is Trump singing from Eurythmics, courtesy of Google AI:

[Apr 09, 2019] Boeing's 737 Max 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals - The New York Times

Apr 09, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

Pilots start some new Boeing planes by turning a knob and flipping two switches.

The Boeing 737 Max, the newest passenger jet on the market, works differently. Pilots follow roughly the same seven steps used on the first 737 nearly 52 years ago: Shut off the cabin's air-conditioning, redirect the air flow, switch on the engine, start the flow of fuel, revert the air flow, turn back on the air conditioning, and turn on a generator.

The 737 Max is a legacy of its past, built on decades-old systems, many that date back to the original version. The strategy, to keep updating the plane rather than starting from scratch, offered competitive advantages. Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn't have to invest in costly new training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to redesign and recertify than starting anew.

But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following two deadly crashes in less than five months . The Max stretched the 737 design, creating a patchwork plane that left pilots without some safety features that could be important in a crisis -- ones that have been offered for years on other planes. It is the only modern Boeing jet without an electronic alert system that explains what is malfunctioning and how to resolve it. Instead pilots have to check a manual.

The Max also required makeshift solutions to keep the plane flying like its ancestors, workarounds that may have compromised safety. While the findings aren't final, investigators suspect that one workaround, an anti-stall system designed to compensate for the larger engines, was central to the crash last month in Ethiopia and an earlier one in Indonesia.

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The Max "ain't your father's Buick," said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the American Airlines pilots' union who has flown the 737 for a decade. He added that "it's not lost on us that the foundation of this aircraft is from the '60s."

Dean Thornton, the president of Boeing, with an engine on the first 737-400 in 1988 in Seattle. The larger engines for Boeing's new Max line of jets prompted a number of design issues. Credit Benjamin Benschneider/The Seattle Times, via Associated Press
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Dean Thornton, the president of Boeing, with an engine on the first 737-400 in 1988 in Seattle. The larger engines for Boeing's new Max line of jets prompted a number of design issues. Credit Benjamin Benschneider/The Seattle Times, via Associated Press

[Boeing was "go, go, go " to beat Airbus with the 737 Max.]

The Max, Boeing's best-selling model, with more than 5,000 orders, is suddenly a reputational hazard. It could be weeks or months before regulators around the world lift their ban on the plane, after Boeing's expected software fix was delayed . Southwest Airlines and American Airlines have canceled some flights through May because of the Max grounding.

The company has slowed production of the plane, putting pressure on its profits, and some buyers are reconsidering their orders. Shares of the company fell over 4 percent on Monday, and are down 11 percent since the Ethiopia crash.

"It was state of the art at the time, but that was 50 years ago," said Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who helped design the Max's cockpit. "It's not a good airplane for the current environment."

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The 737 has long been a reliable aircraft, flying for decades with relatively few issues. Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesman, defended the development of the Max, saying that airlines wanted an updated 737 over a new single-aisle plane and that pilots were involved in its design.

"Listening to pilots is an important aspect of our work. Their experienced input is front-and-center in our mind when we develop airplanes," he said in a statement. "We share a common priority -- safety -- and we listen carefully to their feedback." He added that American regulators approved the plane under the same standards they used with previous aircraft.

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Boeing introduced the 737 Max as a reliable fuel- and cost-efficient solution to air travel in the 21st century. After two fatal Max crashes, all of the Max aircraft in the world are believed to have been grounded. Credit Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

[ Boeing announced that it was going to cut production of the 737 Max. ]

Boeing's chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, said in a statement on Friday that the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia appeared to have been caused by the Max's new anti-stall system. "We have the responsibility to eliminate this risk, and we know how to do it," he said.

At a factory near Seattle on Jan. 17, 1967, flight attendants christened the first Boeing 737, smashing champagne bottles over its wing. Boeing pitched the plane as a smaller alternative to its larger jets, earning it the nickname the "Baby Boeing."

Early on, sales lagged Boeing's biggest competitor, McDonnell Douglas. In 1972, Boeing had delivered just 14 of the jets, and it considered selling the program to a Japanese manufacturer, said Peter Morton, the 737 marketing manager in the early 1970s. "We had to decide if we were going to end it, or invest in it," Mr. Morton said.

Ultimately, Boeing invested. The 737 eventually began to sell, bolstered by airline deregulation in 1978. Six years later, Boeing updated the 737 with its "classic" series, followed by the "next generation" in 1997, and the Max in 2017. Now nearly one in every three domestic flights in the United States is on a 737, more than any other line of aircraft.

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Each of the three redesigns came with a new engine, updates to the cabin and other changes. But Boeing avoided overhauling the jet in order to appease airlines, according to current and former Boeing executives, pilots and engineers, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the open investigations. Airlines wanted new 737s to match their predecessors so pilots could skip expensive training in flight simulators and easily transition to new jets.

Boeing 737 Max: What's Happened After Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air Crashes

Boeing has come under intense scrutiny after its best-selling 737 Max jet was involved in two deadly crashes in five months.

Boeing's strategy worked. The Federal Aviation Administration never required simulator training for pilots switching from one 737 to the next.

"Airlines don't want Boeing to give them a fancy new product if it requires them to retrain their pilots," said Matthew Menza, a former 737 Max test pilot for Boeing. "So you iterate off a design that's 50 years old. The old adage is: If it's not broke, don't fix it."

It did require engineering ingenuity, to ensure a decades-old jet handled mostly the same. In doing so, some of the jet's one-time selling points became challenges.

For instance, in the early years of the 737, jet travel was rapidly expanding across the world. The plane's low-slung frame was a benefit for airlines and airports in developing countries. Workers there could load bags by hand without a conveyor belt and maintain the engines without a lift, Mr. Morton said. In the decades that followed, the low frame repeatedly complicated efforts to fit bigger engines under the wing.

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By 2011, Boeing executives were starting to question whether the 737 design had run its course. The company wanted to create an entirely new single-aisle jet. Then Boeing's rival Airbus added a new fuel-efficient engine to its line of single-aisle planes, the A320, and Boeing quickly decided to update the jet again.

The 737 Max 8 at Boeing's plant in Renton, Wash. Nearly one in every three domestic flights in the United States is on a 737, more than any other line of aircraft. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
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The 737 Max 8 at Boeing's plant in Renton, Wash. Nearly one in every three domestic flights in the United States is on a 737, more than any other line of aircraft. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

"We all rolled our eyes. The idea that, 'Here we go. The 737 again,'" said Mr. Ludtke, the former 737 Max cockpit designer who spent 19 years at Boeing.

"Nobody was quite perhaps willing to say it was unsafe, but we really felt like the limits were being bumped up against," he added.

Some engineers were frustrated they would have to again spend years updating the same jet, taking care to limit any changes, instead of starting fresh and incorporating significant technological advances, the current and former engineers and pilots said. The Max still has roughly the original layout of the cockpit and the hydraulic system of cables and pulleys to control the plane, which aren't used in modern designs. The flight-control computers have roughly the processing power of 1990s home computers. A Boeing spokesman said the aircraft was designed with an appropriate level of technology to ensure safety.

When engineers did make changes, it sometimes created knock-on effects for how the plane handled, forcing Boeing to get creative. The company added a new system that moves plates on the wing in part to reduce stress on the plane from its added weight. Boeing recreated the decades-old physical gauges on digital screens.

As Boeing pushed its engineers to figure out how to accommodate bigger, more fuel-efficient engines, height was again an issue. Simply lengthening the landing gear to make the plane taller could have violated rules for exiting the plane in an emergency.

Boeing 737 engines at the company's factory in 2012. By 2011, Boeing executives were starting to question whether the 737 design had run its course. Credit Stephen Brashear/Associated Press
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Boeing 737 engines at the company's factory in 2012. By 2011, Boeing executives were starting to question whether the 737 design had run its course. Credit Stephen Brashear/Associated Press
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Instead, engineers were able to add just a few inches to the front landing gear and shift the engines farther forward on the wing. The engines fit, but the Max sat at a slightly uneven angle when parked.

While that design solved one problem, it created another. The larger size and new location of the engines gave the Max the tendency to tilt up during certain flight maneuvers, potentially to a dangerous angle.

To compensate, Boeing engineers created the automated anti-stall system, called MCAS, that pushed the jet's nose down if it was lifting too high. The software was intended to operate in the background so that the Max flew just like its predecessor. Boeing didn't mention the system in its training materials for the Max.

Boeing also designed the system to rely on a single sensor -- a rarity in aviation, where redundancy is common. Several former Boeing engineers who were not directly involved in the system's design said their colleagues most likely opted for such an approach since relying on two sensors could still create issues. If one of two sensors malfunctioned, the system could struggle to know which was right.

Airbus addressed this potential problem on some of its planes by installing three or more such sensors. Former Max engineers, including one who worked on the sensors, said adding a third sensor to the Max was a nonstarter. Previous 737s, they said, had used two and managers wanted to limit changes.

The angle of attack sensor, bottom, on a Boeing 737 Max 8. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
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The angle of attack sensor, bottom, on a Boeing 737 Max 8. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

"They wanted to A, save money and B, to minimize the certification and flight-test costs," said Mike Renzelmann, an engineer who worked on the Max's flight controls. "Any changes are going to require recertification." Mr. Renzelmann was not involved in discussions about the sensors.

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The Max also lacked more modern safety features.

Most new Boeing jets have electronic systems that take pilots through their preflight checklists, ensuring they don't skip a step and potentially miss a malfunctioning part. On the Max, pilots still complete those checklists manually in a book.

A second electronic system found on other Boeing jets also alerts pilots to unusual or hazardous situations during flight and lays out recommended steps to resolve them.

On 737s, a light typically indicates the problem and pilots have to flip through their paper manuals to find next steps. In the doomed Indonesia flight, as the Lion Air pilots struggled with MCAS for control, the pilots consulted the manual moments before the jet plummeted into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people aboard.

"Meanwhile, I'm flying the jet," said Mr. Tajer, the American Airlines 737 captain. "Versus, pop, it's on your screen. It tells you, This is the problem and here's the checklist that's recommended."

Boeing decided against adding it to the Max because it could have prompted regulators to require new pilot training, according to two former Boeing employees involved in the decision.

The Max also runs on a complex web of cables and pulleys that, when pilots pull back on the controls, transfer that movement to the tail. By comparison, Airbus jets and Boeing's more modern aircraft, such as the 777 and 787, are "fly-by-wire," meaning pilots' movement of the flight controls is fed to a computer that directs the plane. The design allows for far more automation, including systems that prevent the jet from entering dangerous situations, such as flying too fast or too low. Some 737 pilots said they preferred the cable-and-pulley system to fly-by-wire because they believed it gave them more control.

In the recent crashes, investigators believe the MCAS malfunctioned and moved a tail flap called the stabilizer, tilting the plane toward the ground. On the doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight, the pilots tried to combat the system by cutting power to the stabilizer's motor, according to the preliminary crash report.

Advertisement

Once the power was cut, the pilots tried to regain control manually by turning a wheel next to their seat. The 737 is the last modern Boeing jet that uses a manual wheel as its backup system. But Boeing has long known that turning the wheel is difficult at high speeds, and may have required two pilots to work together.

In the final moments of the Ethiopian Airlines flight, the first officer said the method wasn't working, according to the preliminary crash report. About 1 minute and 49 seconds later, the plane crashed, killing 157 people.

Correction : April 8, 2019

An earlier version of this article transposed the death tolls in two crashes involving Boeing's 737 Max jets. In the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last year, 189 people died, not 157; 157 people were killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash last month, not 189. Rebecca R. Ruiz and Stephen Grocer contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research. A version of this article appears in print on April 9, 2019 , on Page A 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Boeing's 737 Max: '60s Design Meets '90s Computing Power. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

[Apr 08, 2019] Roosevelt Conspired to Start World War II in Europe by John Wear

Jan 26, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Establishment historians claim that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never wanted war and made every reasonable effort to prevent war. This article will show that contrary to what establishment historians claim, Franklin Roosevelt and his administration wanted war and made every effort to instigate World War II in Europe.

THE SECRET POLISH DOCUMENTS
The Germans seized a mass of documents from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they invaded Warsaw in late September 1939. The documents were seized when a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army. Von Kuensberg's men took control of the Polish Foreign Ministry just as Ministry officials were in the process of burning incriminating documents. These documents clearly establish Roosevelt's crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. They also reveal the forces behind President Roosevelt that pushed for war. [1] Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 , Summer 1983, pp. 136-137, 140. Some of the secret Polish documents were first published in the United States as The German White Paper . Probably the most-revealing document in the collection is a secret report dated January 12, 1939 by Jerzy Potocki, the Polish ambassador to the United States. This report discusses the domestic situation in the United States. I quote (a translation of) Ambassador Potocki's report in full:
There is a feeling now prevalent in the United States marked by growing hatred of Fascism, and above all of Chancellor Hitler and everything connected with National Socialism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100% [of the] radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible–above all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited–this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective since the public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe. At the present moment most Americans regard Chancellor Hitler and National Socialism as the greatest evil and greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent platform for public speakers of all kinds, for emigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with a great many words and with most various calumnies incite the public. They praise American liberty which they contrast with the totalitarian states. It is interesting to note that in this extremely well-planned campaign which is conducted above all against National Socialism, Soviet Russia is almost completely eliminated. Soviet Russia, if mentioned at all, is mentioned in a friendly manner and things are presented in such a way that it would seem that the Soviet Union were cooperating with the bloc of democratic states. Thanks to the clever propaganda the sympathies of the American public are completely on the side of Red Spain. This propaganda, this war psychosis is being artificially created. The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a thread and that war is inevitable. At the same time the American people are unequivocally told that in case of a world war, America also must take an active part in order to defend the slogans of liberty and democracy in the world. President Roosevelt was the first one to express hatred against Fascism. In doing so he was serving a double purpose; first he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from difficult and intricate domestic problems, especially from the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Second, by creating a war psychosis and by spreading rumors concerning dangers threatening Europe, he wanted to induce the American people to accept an enormous armament program which far exceeds United States defense requirements. Regarding the first point, it must be said that the internal situation on the labor market is growing worse constantly. The unemployed today already number 12 million. Federal and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only the huge sums, running into billions, which the treasury expends for emergency labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken place. But how long this government aid can be kept up it is difficult to predict today. The excitement and indignation of public opinion, and the serious conflict between private enterprises and enormous trusts on the one hand, and with labor on the other, have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are causing him many sleepless nights. As to point two, I can only say that President Roosevelt, as a clever player of politics and a connoisseur of American mentality, speedily steered public attention away from the domestic situation in order to fasten it on foreign policy. The way to achieve this was simple. One needed, on the one hand, to enhance the war menace overhanging the world on account of Chancellor Hitler, and, on the other hand, to create a specter by talking about the attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend. He described it as the capitulation of France and England to bellicose German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain at pistol-point. Hence, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a shameful peace. The prevalent hatred against everything which is in any way connected with German National Socialism is further kindled by the brutal attitude against the Jews in Germany and by the émigré problem. In this action Jewish intellectuals participated; for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and others who are personal friends of Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-mongers. These groups, people who want to pose as representatives of "Americanism" and "defenders of democracy" in the last analysis, are connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry. For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to put the President of the United States at this "ideal" post of champion of human rights, was a clever move. In this manner they created a dangerous hotbed for hatred and hostility in this hemisphere and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a mysterious manner. Roosevelt has been forcing the foundation for vitalizing American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring enormous stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving consciously. With regard to domestic policy, it is extremely convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is ever growing in the United States, by talking about the necessity of defending faith and individual liberty against the onslaught of Fascism. [2] Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.
On January 16, 1939, Potocki reported to the Warsaw Foreign Ministry a conversation he had with American Ambassador to France William Bullitt. Bullitt was in Washington on a leave of absence from Paris. Potocki reported that Bullitt stated the main objectives of the Roosevelt administration were:
1. The vitalizing foreign policy, under the leadership of President Roosevelt, severely and unambiguously condemns totalitarian countries. 2. The United States preparation for war on sea, land and air which will be carried out at an accelerated speed and will consume the colossal sum of $1,250 million. 3. It is the decided opinion of the President that France and Britain must put [an] end to any sort of compromise with the totalitarian countries. They must not let themselves in for any discussions aiming at any kind of territorial changes. 4. They have the moral assurance that the United States will leave the policy of isolation and be prepared to intervene actively on the side of Britain and France in case of war. America is ready to place its whole wealth of money and raw materials at their disposal." [3] Ibid ., pp. 32-33. (Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.)
Juliusz (Jules) Łukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, sent a top-secret report from Paris to the Polish Foreign Ministry at the beginning of February 1939. This report outlined the U.S. policy toward Europe as explained to him by William Bullitt:
A week ago, the Ambassador of the United States, W. Bullitt, returned to Paris after having spent three months holiday in America. Meanwhile, I had two conversations with him which enable me to inform Monsieur Minister on his views regarding the European situation and to give a survey of Washington's policy . The international situation is regarded by official quarters as extremely serious and being in danger of armed conflict. Competent quarters are of the opinion that if war should break out between Britain and France on the one hand and Germany and Italy on the other, and Britain and France should be defeated, the Germans would become dangerous to the realistic interests of the United States on the American continent. For this reason, one can foresee right from the beginning the participation of the United States in the war on the side of France and Britain, naturally after some time had elapsed after the beginning of the war. Ambassador Bullitt expressed this as follows: "Should war break out we shall certainly not take part in it at the beginning, but we shall end it." [4] Juliusz Lukasiewicz to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 43-44.
On March 7, 1939, Ambassador Potocki sent another remarkably perceptive report on Roosevelt's foreign policy to the Polish government. I quote Potocki's report in full:
The foreign policy of the United States right now concerns not only the government, but the entire American public as well. The most important elements are the public statements of President Roosevelt. In almost every public speech he refers more or less explicitly to the necessity of activating foreign policy against the chaos of views and ideologies in Europe. These statements are picked up by the press and then cleverly filtered into the minds of average Americans in such a way as to strengthen their already formed opinions. The same theme is constantly repeated, namely, the danger of war in Europe and saving the democracies from inundation by enemy fascism. In all of these public statements there is normally only a single theme, that is, the danger from Nazism and Nazi Germany to world peace. As a result of these speeches, the public is called upon to support rearmament and the spending of enormous sums for the navy and the air force. The unmistakable idea behind this is that in case of an armed conflict the United States cannot stay out but must take an active part in the maneuvers. As a result of the effective speeches of President Roosevelt, which are supported by the press, the American public is today being conscientiously manipulated to hate everything that smacks of totalitarianism and fascism. But it is interesting that the USSR is not included in all of this. The American public considers Russia more in the camp of the democratic states. This was also the case during the Spanish civil war when the so-called Loyalists were regarded as defenders of the democratic idea. The State Department operates without attracting a great deal of attention, although it is known that Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull and President Roosevelt swear allegiance to the same ideas. However, Hull shows more reserve than Roosevelt, and he loves to make a distinction between Nazism and Chancellor Hitler on the one hand, and the German people on the other. He considers this form of dictatorial government a temporary "necessary evil." In contrast, the State Department is unbelievably interested in the USSR and its internal situation and openly worries itself over its weaknesses and decline. The main reason for the United States interest in the Russians is the situation in the Far East. The current government would be glad to see the Red Army emerge as the victor in a conflict with Japan. That's why the sympathies of the government are clearly on the side of China, which recently received considerable financial aid amounting to 25 million dollars. Eager attention is given to all information from the diplomatic posts as well as to the special emissaries of the President who serve as ambassadors of the United States. The President frequently calls his representatives from abroad to Washington for personal exchanges of views and to give them special information and instructions. The arrival of the envoys and ambassadors is always shrouded in secrecy and very little surfaces in the press about the results of their visits. The State Department also takes care to avoid giving out any kind of information about the course of these interviews. The practical way in which the President makes foreign policy is most effective. He gives personal instructions to his representatives abroad, most of whom are his personal friends. In this way the United States is led down a dangerous path in world politics with the explicit intention of abandoning the comfortable policy of isolation. The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition. He listens carefully and happily to his echo in the other capitals of the world. In domestic as well as foreign policy, the Congress of the United States is the only object that stands in the way of the President and his government in carrying out his decisions quickly and ambitiously. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Constitution of the United States gave the highest prerogatives to the American parliament which may criticize or reject the law of the White House. The foreign policy of President Roosevelt has recently been the subject of intense discussion in the lower house and in the Senate, and this has caused excitement. The so-called Isolationists, of whom there are many in both houses, have come out strongly against the President. The representatives and the senators were especially upset over the remarks of the President, which were published in the press, in which he said that the borders of the United States lie on the Rhine. But President Roosevelt is a superb political player and understands completely the power of the American parliament. He has his own people there, and he knows how to withdraw from an uncomfortable situation at the right moment. Very intelligently and cleverly he ties together the question of foreign policy with the issues of American rearmament. He particularly stresses the necessity of spending enormous sums in order to maintain a defensive peace. He says specifically that the United States is not arming in order to intervene or to go to the aid of England or France in case of war, but because of the need to show strength and military preparedness in case of an armed conflict in Europe. In his view this conflict is becoming ever more acute and is completely unavoidable. Since the issue is presented this way, the houses of Congress have no cause to object. To the contrary, the houses accepted an armament program of more than 1 billion dollars. (The normal budget is 550 million, the emergency 552 million dollars). However, under the cloak of a rearmament policy, President Roosevelt continues to push forward his foreign policy, which unofficially shows the world that in case of war the United States will come out on the side of the democratic states with all military and financial power. In conclusion it can be said that the technical and moral preparation of the American people for participation in a war–if one should break out in Europe–is proceeding rapidly. It appears that the United States will come to the aid of France and Great Britain with all its resources right from the beginning. However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America. [5] Germany. Foreign Office Archive Commission. Roosevelts Weg in den Krieg: Geheimdokumente zur Kriegspolitik des Praesidenten der Vereinigten Staaten . Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1943. Translated into English by Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , pp. 150-152.
These secret Polish reports were written by top-level Polish ambassadors who were not necessarily friendly to Germany. However, they understood the realities of European politics far better than people who made foreign policy in the United States. The Polish ambassadors realized that behind all of their rhetoric about democracy and human rights, the Jewish leaders in the United States who agitated for war against Germany were deceptively advancing their own interests. There is no question that the secret documents taken from the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw are authentic. Charles C. Tansill considered the documents genuine and stated, "Some months ago I had a long conversation with M. Lipsky, the Polish ambassador in Berlin in the prewar years, and he assured me that the documents in the German White Paper are authentic." [6] Tansill, Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace , Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 184 (footnote 292). William H. Chamberlain wrote , "I have been privately informed by an extremely reliable source that Potocki, now residing in South America, confirmed the accuracy of the documents, so far as he was concerned." [7] Chamberlain, William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, p. 60 (footnote 14). Historian Harry Elmer Barnes also stated, "Both Professor Tansill and myself have independently established the thorough authenticity of these documents." [8] Barnes, Harry Elmer, The Court Historians versus Revisionism , N.p.: privately printed, 1952, p. 10. Edward Raczyński, the Polish ambassador to London from 1934 to 1945, confirmed in his diary the authenticity of the Polish documents. He wrote in his entry on June 20, 1940: "The Germans published in April a White Book containing documents from the archives of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, consisting of reports from Potocki from Washington, Łukasiewicz in Paris and myself. I do not know where they found them, since we were told that the archives had been destroyed. The documents are certainly genuine, and the facsimiles show that for the most part the Germans got hold of the originals and not merely copies." [9] Raczynski, Edward, In Allied London , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963, p. 51. The official papers and memoirs of Juliusz Łukasiewicz published in 1970 in the book Diplomat in Paris 1936-1939 reconfirmed the authenticity of the Polish documents. Łukasiewicz was the Polish ambassador to Paris, who authored several of the secret Polish documents. The collection was edited by Wacław Jędrzejewicz, a former Polish diplomat and cabinet member. Jędrzejewicz considered the documents made public by the Germans absolutely genuine, and quoted from several of them. Tyler G. Kent, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in London in 1939 and 1940, has also confirmed the authenticity of the secret Polish documents. Kent says that he saw copies of U.S. diplomatic messages in the files which corresponded to the Polish documents. [10] Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142. The German Foreign Office published the Polish documents on March 29, 1940. The Reich Ministry of Propaganda released the documents to strengthen the case of the American isolationists and to prove the degree of America's responsibility for the outbreak of war. In Berlin, journalists from around the world were permitted to examine the original documents themselves, along with a large number of other documents from the Polish Foreign Ministry. The release of the documents caused an international media sensation. American newspapers published lengthy excerpts from the documents and gave the story large front-page headline coverage. [11] Ibid ., pp. 137-139. (Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142.) However, the impact of the released documents was far less than the German government had hoped for. Leading U.S. government officials emphatically denounced the documents as not being authentic. William Bullitt, who was especially incriminated by the documents, stated, "I have never made to anyone the statements attributed to me." Secretary of State Cordell Hull denounced the documents: "I may say most emphatically that neither I nor any of my associates in the Department of State have ever heard of any such conversations as those alleged, nor do we give them the slightest credence. The statements alleged have not represented in any way at any time the thought or the policy of the American government." [12] New York Times , March 30, 1940, p. 1. American newspapers stressed these high-level denials in reporting the release of the Polish documents. These categorical denials by high-level U.S. government officials almost completely eliminated the effect of the secret Polish documents. The vast majority of the American people in 1940 trusted their elected political leaders to tell the truth. If the Polish documents were in fact authentic and genuine, this would mean that President Roosevelt and his representatives had lied to the American public, while the German government told the truth. In 1940, this was far more than the trusting American public could accept.
MORE EVIDENCE ROOSEVELT INSTIGATED WORLD WAR II
While the secret Polish documents alone indicate that Roosevelt was preparing the American public for war against Germany, a large amount of complementary evidence confirms the conspiracy reported by the Polish ambassadors. The diary of James V. Forrestal, the first U.S. secretary of defense, also reveals that Roosevelt and his administration helped start World War II. Forrestal's entry on December 27, 1945 stated:
Played golf today with Joe Kennedy [Roosevelt's Ambassador to Great Britain in the years immediately before the war]. I asked him about his conversations with Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain from 1938 on. He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of war if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt, he said, kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn't fight; Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war. In his telephone conversations with Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 the President kept telling him to put some iron up Chamberlain's backside. Kennedy's response always was that putting iron up his backside did no good unless the British had some iron with which to fight, and they did not . What Kennedy told me in this conversation jibes substantially with the remarks Clarence Dillon had made to me already, to the general effect that Roosevelt had asked him in some manner to communicate privately with the British to the end that Chamberlain should have greater firmness in his dealings with Germany. Dillon told me that at Roosevelt's request he had talked with Lord Lothian in the same general sense as Kennedy reported Roosevelt having urged him to do with Chamberlain. Lothian presumably was to communicate to Chamberlain the gist of his conversation with Dillon. Looking backward there is undoubtedly foundation for Kennedy's belief that Hitler's attack could have been deflected to Russia ." [13] Forrestal, James V., The Forrestal Diaries , edited by Walter Millis and E.S. Duffield, New York: Vanguard Press, 1951, pp. 121-122.
Joseph Kennedy is known to have had a good memory, and it is highly likely that Kennedy's statements to James Forrestal are accurate. Forrestal died on May 22, 1949 under suspicious circumstances when he fell from his hospital window. Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British ambassador to Washington, confirmed Roosevelt's secret policy to instigate war against Germany with the release of a confidential diplomatic report after the war. The report described a secret meeting on September 18, 1938 between Roosevelt and Ambassador Lindsay. Roosevelt said that if Britain and France were forced into a war against Germany, the United States would ultimately join the war. Roosevelt's idea to start a war was for Britain and France to impose a blockade against Germany without actually declaring war. The important point was to call it a defensive war based on lofty humanitarian grounds and on the desire to wage hostilities with a minimum of suffering and the least possible loss of life and property. The blockade would provoke some kind of German military response, but would free Britain and France from having to declare war. Roosevelt believed he could then convince the American public to support war against Germany, including shipments of weapons to Britain and France, by insisting that the United States was still neutral in a non-declared conflict. [14] Dispatch No. 349 of Sept. 30, 1938, by Sir Ronald Lindsay, Documents on British Foreign Policy , (ed.). Ernest L. Woodard, Third Series, Vol. VII, London, 1954, pp. 627-629. See also Lash, Joseph P., Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941, New York: Norton, 1976, pp. 25-27. President Roosevelt told Ambassador Lindsay that if news of their conversation was ever made public, it could mean Roosevelt's impeachment. What Roosevelt proposed to Lindsay was in effect a scheme to violate the U.S. Constitution by illegally starting a war. For this and other reasons, Ambassador Lindsay stated that during his three years of service in Washington he developed little regard for America's leaders. [15] Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932-1945 , New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 31, 164-165. Ambassador Lindsay in a series of final reports also indicated that Roosevelt was delighted at the prospect of a new world war. Roosevelt promised Lindsay that he would delay German ships under false pretenses in a feigned search for arms. This would allow the German ships to be easily seized by the British under circumstances arranged with exactitude between the American and British authorities. Lindsay reported that Roosevelt "spoke in a tone of almost impish glee and though I may be wrong the whole business gave me the impression of resembling a school-boy prank." Ambassador Lindsay was personally perturbed that the president of the United States could be gay and joyful about a pending tragedy which seemed so destructive of the hopes of all mankind. It was unfortunate at this important juncture that the United States had a president whose emotions and ideas were regarded by a friendly British ambassador as being childish. [16] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 518-519. Roosevelt's desire to support France and England in a war against Germany is discussed in a letter from Verne Marshall, former editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette , to Charles C. Tansill. The letter stated:
President Roosevelt wrote a note to William Bullitt [in the summer of 1939], then Ambassador to France, directing him to advise the French Government that if, in the event of a Nazi attack upon Poland, France and England did not go to Poland's aid, those countries could expect no help from America if a general war developed. On the other hand, if France and England immediately declared war on Germany, they could expect "all aid" from the United States. F.D.R.'s instructions to Bullitt were to send this word along to "Joe" and "Tony," meaning Ambassadors Kennedy, in London, and Biddle, in Warsaw, respectively. F.D.R. wanted Daladier, Chamberlain and Josef Beck to know of these instructions to Bullitt. Bullitt merely sent his note from F.D.R. to Kennedy in the diplomatic pouch from Paris. Kennedy followed Bullitt's idea and forwarded it to Biddle. When the Nazis grabbed Warsaw and Beck disappeared, they must have come into possession of the F.D.R. note. The man who wrote the report I sent you saw it in Berlin in October, 1939. [17] Tansill, Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace , Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 168.
William Phillips, the American ambassador to Italy, also stated in his postwar memoirs that the Roosevelt administration in late 1938 was committed to going to war on the side of Britain and France. Phillips wrote: "On this and many other occasions, I would have liked to have told him [Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister] frankly that in the event of a European war, the United States would undoubtedly be involved on the side of the Allies. But in view of my official position, I could not properly make such a statement without instructions from Washington, and these I never received." [18] Phillips, William, Ventures in Diplomacy , North Beverly, Mass.: privately published, 1952, pp. 220-221. When Anthony Eden returned to England in December 1938, he carried with him an assurance from President Roosevelt that the United States would enter as soon as practicable a European war against Hitler if the occasion arose. This information was obtained by Senator William Borah of Idaho, who was contemplating how and when to give out this information, when he dropped dead in his bathroom. The story was confirmed to historian Harry Elmer Barnes by some of Senator Borah's closest colleagues at the time. [19] Barnes, Harry Elmer, Barnes against the Blackout , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1991, p. 208. The American ambassador to Poland, Anthony Drexel Biddle, was an ideological colleague of President Roosevelt and a good friend of William Bullitt. Roosevelt used Biddle to influence the Polish government to refuse to enter into negotiations with Germany. Carl J. Burckhardt, the League of Nations High Commissioner to Danzig, reported in his postwar memoirs on a memorable conversation he had with Biddle. On December 2, 1938, Biddle told Burckhardt with remarkable satisfaction that the Poles were ready to wage war over Danzig. Biddle predicted that in April a new crisis would develop, and that moderate British and French leaders would be influenced by public opinion to support war. Biddle predicted a holy war against Germany would break out. [20] Burckhardt, Carl, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939 , Munich: Callwey, 1960, p. 225. Bernard Baruch, who was Roosevelt's chief advisor, scoffed at a statement made on March 10, 1939 by Neville Chamberlain that "the outlook in international affairs is tranquil." Baruch agreed passionately with Winston Churchill, who had told him: "War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you [the United States] will be in it." [21] Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins, an Intimate History , New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948, p. 113. Georges Bonnet, the French foreign minister in 1939, also confirmed the role of William Bullitt as Roosevelt's agent in pushing France into war. In a letter to Hamilton Fish dated March 26, 1971, Bonnet wrote, "One thing is certain is that Bullitt in 1939 did everything he could to make France enter the war." [22] Fish, Hamilton, FDR The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War II, New York: Vantage Press, 1976, p. 62. Dr. Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia, wrote in his memoirs that he had a lengthy secret conversation at Hyde Park with President Roosevelt on May 28, 1939. Roosevelt assured Beneš that the United States would actively intervene on the side of Great Britain and France against Germany in the anticipated European war. [23] Beneš, Edvard, Memoirs of Dr. Edvard Beneš , London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954, pp. 79-80. American newspaper columnist Karl von Wiegand, who was the chief European newspaper columnist of the International News Service, met with Ambassador William Bullitt at the U.S. embassy in Paris on April 25, 1939. More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it." [24] "Von Wiegand Says-," Chicago-Herald American , Oct. 8, 1944, p. 2. When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing." [25] Chicago-Herald American , April 23, 1944, p. 18. On March 14, 1939, Slovakia dissolved the state of Czechoslovakia by declaring itself an independent republic. Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity. The British government initially accepted the new situation, reasoning that Britain's guarantee of Czechoslovakia given after Munich was rendered void by the internal collapse of that state. It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it. Also, the danger of a war between the Czechs and the Slovaks had been averted. [26] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 250. However, Bullitt's response to the creation of the German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia was highly unfavorable. Bullitt telephoned Roosevelt and, in an "almost hysterical" voice, Bullitt urged Roosevelt to make a dramatic denunciation of Germany and to immediately ask Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act. [27] Moffat, Jay P., The Moffat Papers 1919-1943 , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956, p. 232. Washington journalists Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen reported in their nationally syndicated column that on March 16, 1939, President Roosevelt "sent a virtual ultimatum to Chamberlain" demanding that the British government strongly oppose Germany. Pearson and Allen reported that "the President warned that Britain could expect no more support, moral or material through the sale of airplanes, if the Munich policy continued." [28] Pearson, Drew and Allen, Robert S., "Washington Daily Merry-Go-Round," Washington Times-Herald , April 14, 1939, p. 16. Responding to Roosevelt's pressure, the next day Chamberlain ended Britain's policy of cooperation with Germany when he made a speech at Birmingham bitterly denouncing Hitler. Chamberlain also announced the end of the British "appeasement" policy, stating that from now on Britain would oppose any further territorial moves by Hitler. Two weeks later the British government formally committed itself to war in case of German-Polish hostilities. Roosevelt also attempted to arm Poland so that Poland would be more willing to go to war against Germany. Ambassador Bullitt reported from Paris in a confidential telegram to Washington on April 9, 1939, his conversation with Polish Ambassador Łukasiewicz. Bullitt told Łukasiewicz that although U.S. law prohibited direct financial aid to Poland, the Roosevelt administration might be able to supply warplanes to Poland indirectly through Britain. Bullitt stated: "The Polish ambassador asked me if it might not be possible for Poland to obtain financial help and airplanes from the United States. I replied that I believed the Johnson Act would forbid any loans from the United States to Poland, but added that it might be possible for England to purchase planes for cash in the United States and turn them over to Poland." [29] U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Diplomatic Papers), 1939, General, Vol. I, Washington: 1956, p. 122. Bullitt also attempted to bypass the Neutrality Act and supply France with airplanes. A secret conference of Ambassador Bullitt with French Premier Daladier and the French minister of aviation, Guy La Chambre, discussed the procurement of airplanes from America for France. Bullitt, who was in frequent telephonic conversation with Roosevelt, suggested a means by which the Neutrality Act could be circumvented in the event of war. Bullitt's suggestion was to set up assembly plants in Canada, apparently on the assumption that Canada would not be a formal belligerent in the war. Bullitt also arranged for a secret French mission to come to the United States and purchase airplanes in the winter of 1938-1939. The secret purchase of American airplanes by the French leaked out when a French aviator crashed on the West Coast. [30] Chamberlain, William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 101-102. On August 23, 1939, Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain's closest advisor, went to American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy with an urgent appeal from Chamberlain to President Roosevelt. Regretting that Britain had unequivocally obligated itself to Poland in case of war, Chamberlain now turned to Roosevelt as a last hope for peace. Kennedy telephoned the State Department and stated: "The British want one thing from us and one thing only, namely that we put pressure on the Poles. They felt that they could not, given their obligations, do anything of this sort but that we could." Presented with a possibility to save the peace in Europe, President Roosevelt rejected Chamberlain's desperate plea out of hand. With Roosevelt's rejection, Kennedy reported, British Prime Minister Chamberlain lost all hope. Chamberlain stated: "The futility of it all is the thing that is frightful. After all, we cannot save the Poles. We can merely carry on a war of revenge that will mean the destruction of all Europe." [31] Koskoff, David E., Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times , Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974, p. 207; see also Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War , New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005, p. 272.
Conclusion
Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. This is proven by the secret Polish documents as well as numerous statements from highly positioned, well-known and authoritative Allied leaders who corroborate the contents of the Polish documents.


chris , says: April 8, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT

@conatus Good reference!

Here also a summary from "the Bionic Mosquito" https://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2012/05/poland-as-pawn-hoover-identifies.html
Regrading the denials after the revelation of the released Polish documents, the Mosquito writes:

When these documents were published, their authenticity was denied by both Bullitt and by the Polish Ambassador to the U.S. The Polish Ambassador later informed Hoover that he denied their authenticity at the request of the State Department.

leftright , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
@Paul More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it."[24] When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing."

those behind the wars do not serve ideology or democracy. they serve their own interests. then and now. they rule by dividing the rest of the world. by pitting germany against russia, in this case, they worked toward their own domination. their short term goal is the elimination of competitions by all means. their long tern goal is their hegemony and domination of the world. they believe that they are that superior.

ben sampson , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:43 pm GMT
Roosevelt was no incompetent or fool. he knew exactly what he was doing. he was executive and ran his show.

Roosevelt was elite and smart enough to know how to compromise and neutralize the american socialist cat until he had a war to smash all worker opposition, directing it into war and depopulation of the capitalist opposition.

,
Thorfinnsson , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:19 pm GMT
@Wally The Nazis very clearly did dismember Czechoslovakia, which is what destroyed Hitler's credibility with the British. It's also what German_reader found objectionable about the original piece.

I'm not a supporter of the Icebreaker thesis, though obviously Bolshevism had aggressive intentions.

Thorfinnsson , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:10 pm GMT
@German_reader

If true, that's indeed interesting, I might have to look into this. The arguments in the article above (referring to a lot of pretty weak sources like newspaper articles or much later reminiscences) don't seem convincing to me though.
What would have been Roosevelt's reasoning for pushing for a European war? I know he was pathologically anti-German and soft on communism, but that doesn't seem like a sufficient rationale.
Commenters here would of course argue that he was a mere puppet of the Jews, but I don't buy that either (during the war the Holocaust doesn't seem to have been a central preoccupation for him).

It may be down simply to politics.

Roosevelt's New Deal proved to be a failure, and the Roosevelt Recession was especially damaging to his power and prestige. While it could be a coincidence (or merely a response to increasingly assertive German policy), it's noteworthy that the aggressive turn in Roosevelt's foreign policy coincided with the Roosevelt Recession.

It's forgotten today, but many of the policies of the New Deal were not Keynesian and were actually inspired by WW1 planning. FDR's prewar budget deficits were on average lower than American fiscal deficits are today. Thus rearmament appeared to offer a way out of the intractable Depression.

That Roosevelt himself was a Germanophobe, an Anglophile, a naval enthusiast, and extremely weak on communism no doubt contributed. Biographers have also noted that FDR always wanted to be a wartime President, comparing himself to Lincoln.

Roosevelt was also influenced by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford John Mackinder. Thus he subscribed to the idea that the US needed to prevent any one power from controlling the "heartland". Wartime American propaganda reflects these ideas by noting the strategic need to prevent the Axis powers from completely controlling two of the world's three "industrial regions".

I know about those sentiments on the other hand his policy made the US the dominant world power, at the cost of the lowest casualties among WW2 combatants.
Personally I've come to view US post-war dominance quite negatively (not least because it facilitated the spread of US liberalism with its particularly demented manifestations like Negrophilia, which may well lead to the eventual destruction of the entire pan-European world), but from the point of view of most Americans FDR's foreign policy must be seen as highly successful imo.

This American views FDR's foreign policy very negatively, and the domestic effects of America's strategic reorientation must be considered in any assessment. The perceived requirements of WW2 and the subsequent Cold War led to the replacement of America's "white nationalism" with "civil rights". It also led to the dismantling of America's formidable protective barriers and those which existed between the other industrial powers, which in turn allowed them to converge with America's level of economic development.

FDR simply converted latent potential into military and diplomatic power. What actually turned America into the world's greatest power was seizing the best parts of the North American continent, populating it with white people, a good legal and economic system, and a consistent pro-manufacturing policy orientation until 1945.

WW2 in fact planted the seeds for the end of America (via the destruction of its racial identity) and its eclipse as the world's foremost power by China (via its unification).

It's also worth pointing out that other than the capital expenditures made during the war Americans got nothing out of victory. Just a bunch of vassal states to garrison with troops and propped up with ruinous economic concessions. The only actual gains were German scientists and intellectual property.

This fundamental reorientation of America has persisted for more than seventy years and is destroying the country. It has also had decidedly negative consequences for Europe as you note.

Asagirian , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Hitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street backers were. Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities. Long standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi" Stephen Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)

The problem with such uber-contextual logic is that everyone can blame the world for all his actions. He can say the World made me do it.

Yes, there was Versailles Treaty, communism, and British fears of Germany. All of that is true.

But there was also this. Brits came around to feeling that Germans got a raw deal after WWI. British hostility mostly ebbed away by the time of Hitler's rise.

It's true that World Jewry hated the rise of Hitler and tried to hurt Germany. But Jews back then didn't have the power to force world governments to strangulate Germany.

The fact is France and UK let Germany retake the Rhineland. They allowed the unification of Germany and Austria. And they let Germany take Sudetenland. And when Germany overstepped its bounds and took Crezh territory, UK made a deal with Germany.

But Germans went beyond that and invaded Poland. They didn't just invade but made a pact with USSR. Now, this was an evil pact but very smart on Hitler's part. He knew that aggression against Poland could set UK and France against him. So, as backup, it was good to have Russia on his side.
People say World War II began with invasion of Poland but no so. Poland was quickly quelled, and German-French war ended quickly. With most of Western allied with Germany, occupied by Germany, or neutral and with USSR on his side, the smart thing for Hitler was to wait it out in a war of contrition with UK. But Hitler decided to attack Russia, and that set off the real WWII in 1941, esp sealed after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and brought US into the war.

Even if FDR wanted war or hostility, the fact is most American didn't want war, and FDR had run on peace. He couldn't bring US to war against Germany UNLESS Germans(and their Japanese allies) did something spectacularly foolish.
If Germany hadn't attacked USSR and hadn't emboldened Japan to make a even dumber move against the US, WWII could have been avoided.
Some argue that Hitler invaded USSR because Stalin planned to attack first, and their evidence is offensive Soviet positions against German lines. But knowing Stalin, it's difficult to imagine he was willing to risk everything. Stalin was more a scavenger than hunter. He looked for weak spots and easy opportunities. He didn't like to risk all. If Soviet positions had really been placed offensively against Germany, it was likely a bluff to force Germans into defensive position, making them less likely to take the offensive initiative. Stalin was a mind-gamer like Hitler, who was also a mind-gambler.

From the article above, it's instructive to know that the events that led to WWII weren't entirely Hitler's fault and that he was working within the context of larger world politics, but as John Lukacs said, HE was the main driver of events that led to WWII. It wasn't FDR or Stalin or Churchill even though some of their actions made things worse. A more cautious and sensible Hitler could have prevented the war from turning into a total war.

It's like events in the Middle East since end of Cold War must be mostly blamed on Jewish Globalists. They were the main drivers. Sure, Iran, Iraq, and etc. did their part to destabilize the region, but the main drivers were Zionists who took the initiative to turn the whole place upside down to serve Zionist supremacism.

anon [227] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:27 am GMT

Potocki:

However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America .

the average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another relative in that war?

German_reader , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT

Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity.

It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.

It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it.

Lol. Sure, Czechs must have been thrilled at losing their independence and being occupied by a foreign power, at least some of whose representatives eventually developed extremely sinister plans for the future of Czechs (Heydrich during his time in the protectorate thought that about 50% of Czechs had to be "deported", while 50% could be Germanized, but Czech nationhood had to disappear in any case).
I don't know why Ron Unz keeps publishing these absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).

truthman , says: April 8, 2019 at 6:10 am GMT
Best book about these events is The Forced War by David Hoggan. He goes over many of these same events with a great attention to detail, though certainly from a pro-German stance.
Sean , says: April 8, 2019 at 9:05 am GMT

He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland

Stalin understood that he was freeing Hitler to strike in the west by making a pact with Hitler. In effect he facilitated it. The British considered the Soviet Union to be the real problem. Stalin had already grabbed the Baltic states plus parts of Finland and Romania. The British were mobilizing against the USSR over the war with Finland even after declaring war with Germany. The British guarantee to Poland originally covered only their independence not territory ; the British thought allowing Germany to take Polish land was acceptable and it would make war between Germany and the USSR quite likely (Chamberlain's strategy was to let Hitler and Stalin into conflict). Only after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was announced was the guarantee extended to Poland's territory because at that point the British decided war was necessary; Germany and the USSR being friendly was not acceptable as it meant Hitler was going to go West instead of East.

Clearly Stalin wanted to sit the war between the capitalists out and reap the rewards. Neville Chamberlain wanted to see the fighting done by the Germans and Bolshies, we know he thought that because he said so to a meeting of important Tories.With the the Nazi-Soviet pact the powerful Soviet deterrent to any aggression was out of the equation and the British realized the balance of power had moved against them, which was unacceptable in a way that war between the Nazis and Soviets was not. If Hitler didn't have to worry about the Soviets at his back that suddenly made all the previous calculations obsolete.

Although Stalin may have anticipated territorial demands or military pressure such as border incidents he was astounded when Hitler subjected the USSR to an all out attack with the promethean goal of conquering the Soviet state. Everybody underestimated the effectiveness of the combination of Weimar reforms increasing centralised revenue raising for military purposes, Hitler's decisiveness and the German army's fighting power.

PeterMX , says: April 8, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
@German_reader As thrilled as the Germans were when Bohemia and Moravia was taken from them (Austria) and over three million Germans forcibly became Czech citizens in a newly created state that never existed before.

This video is banned here in Europe, where the lies are upheld by the law, but it can be viewed in the USA.

1942 – At a mass meeting in Prague, 200,000 Czechs pledge loyalty to their homeland and to the German Reich. Czech Minister Emanuel Moravec addresses the large rally on July 3, 1942, on Wenceslas Square, near the historic statute of St. Wenceslas. He concludes with an expression of confidence in a better future for the Czech people, and of support for the "new Europe," the "National Socialist revolution," "our leader, Adolf Hitler," and "our state president, Dr. Hacha." Emil Hacha, head of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia government is present, along with many other officials. The meeting concludes with the crowd singing the Czech national hymn. Three minute newsreel clip, with Czech narration.

Alfred , says: April 8, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT
@anon the average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another relative in that war?

The Wikipedia says that 4,000,000 American soldier were mobilised and 111,000 killed – mostly by disease.

That is absolutely nothing compared to the losses of Imperial Russia (12,000,000), France (8,900,000) and the British Empire (9,000,000). The demographics of France will never recover.

The USA entered the war only 18 months before it ended. Of course, it took months before the troops even got there.

I fear that the average educated American has no idea what war is like when it is fought in their homeland. Putin warned the Americans that the next war will not be fought on Russian soil. The American elites think that he means it will be fought in Europe. LOL

bossel , says: April 8, 2019 at 10:48 am GMT

a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army

Nonsense. Gruppe Künsberg was sent into Warsaw in October 1939 after the unconditional surrender at the end of September of Warsaw's defenders.

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II.

Also nonsense. Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it. Unless you can show that the US was behind Hitler breaching the Munich Agreement & later attacking Poland, you have no case.

Wizard of Oz , says: April 8, 2019 at 11:25 am GMT
There is a lot of interesting information in the article and reports hitherto not familiar to me but I think the author has too limited a focus and certainly doesn't justify the big claims that WW2 was aimed for and caused by FDR. You only have to suppose that, in Roosevelt's judgment Hitler was going to make war and that the US had to be in it for its long term security. He may eell have regarded the Soviet Union as weak and vulnerable enough for their to be no reason to be actively anti Bolshevik. And – maybe alternatively – he would have had the Japanese well in mind and applauded the Soviet Union having recently given them a licking.
james bacque , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 12:17 pm GMT
Most of the information in this article was gathered together by Herbert Hoover who wrote it up in long book form in the 1950s. He worked from Polish documents captured in Warsaw as the article says. Hoover's Ms remained unpublished for many years. After it was published, as Freedom Betrayed a few years ago, I wrote to the editor, Stephen Nash who did not reply. I also called the publisher's editor who would not discuss it with me. I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed that the tales told by court historians such as Nash, Stephen E Ambrose. "Sir" Michael Howard, Martin Gilbert and so on are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides. The leaders included Roosevelt in a gallery of the guilty running from him through Churchill, and Hitler to Stalin and Henry C Morgenthau, deviser of the infamous Morgenthau Plan for the destruction of the German people.
eah , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMT
Podcast with Douglas Horne:

FDR and the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Asagirian , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 1:06 pm GMT
@Robert Whatever The only winners of WW2 were the Jews.

US and USSR emerged as superpowers.
Post-war Europe recovered fast and living standards improved greatly.

Jews lost a great deal in the war. Shoah.

If Jews emerged victorious, it was because they took over institutions in the US. It would have happened even without WWII though, minus the Shoah narrative, Jewish power would have had less of a moral shield.

Asagirian , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 1:17 pm GMT
@German_reader these absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).

These revisionist pieces are 50% kooky but offer up kernels of facts and insights that reveal aspects of the time mostly buried by the Judeo-centric media. It has elements of Nazi apologia, but keep in mind that much of US narrative is Jewish Supremacist propaganda.

Now, there is something to be learned from the Jewish Narrative as it isn't all lies either.

If we can select the truths from the Jewish Supremacist narrative and truths from the Nazi-sympathizing narrative, we can construct a truer narrative. Of course the lies and distortions of both.

The recent events in Iraq and Syria and the whole Russia Collusion hysteria go to show that the 'liberal'corporate media can be just as full of BS as any totalitarian press.
Of course, the difference is Putin and Assad are NOT Hitlers whereas Hitler was truly a hitler, a pathological demagogue.

Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded given Hitler's actions against Poland and then against the USSR, an ally. Also,Hitler was someone with whom diplomacy was often impossible since he regarded the compromise of others as weakness to exploit.

But it's also true that the US, for ideological, imperial, and tribal reasons of its own, believed Germany must be toppled first before its preferred world order could prevail.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT
This is another great article and both the author and UR deserve to be highly commended.

Potocki's reports (according to the translations given) were amazingly perceptive on all points.

The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition.

That's a conclusion that, while obvious, is almost never addressed but should be. It also sounds a lot like the doofus, Woody Wilson, and his fake messianic "idealism." Both of those clowns were amoral narcissistic fools to the max and menaces to world peace. Both were functionally crazy, cunning and downright evil.

It's interesting to note that FDR was taken to task for essentially sitting out WW1 at a desk job by Teddy Roosevelt ( another militaristic, blowhard, self stroking fool) while Teddy's 4 sons were fighting in Europe, so he took a "playtime" tour of the battlefields to bolster his "war" credentials.
He also

was enjoying every aspect of being a man of authority in a government at war. Early on he had confided to a friend, "It would be wonderful to be a war president." Thomas Fleming, The Illusion of Victory, p254 (2003)

For me, one of the morals of all that is that men cannot be trusted in positions of power and "we" must act accordingly. Another lesson learned is that the US government has long acted against the interests of the American prols, peasants, peons and pissants, and no doubt shall as long as it exists. What to do about it appears to be, at this point, an individual thing.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:35 pm GMT
@German_reader

It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.

Credible source, please.

Now go back and read the article and try to find out who was threatening whom. You could also review the causes of WW1, but that may be asking too much.

Also, it would be interesting to hear your opinion on the report that New York "Jews" declared war on Germany in 1933, years before the Nazis did anything (they were subsequently accused of) to the Jews.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:38 pm GMT
@Paul

The fear is that they will then come for us.

What's your assessment of the validity of that fear and how familiar are you with the concept of pretexts ?

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:46 pm GMT
@james bacque

I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed that the tales told by court historians are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides.

Kindly elaborate on that conclusion, please.

MrVoxPopuli , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT
@Sean Now THAT makes perfect sense! Kudos!
Thorfinnsson , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
@German_reader The Nazi apologism of these pieces is unfortunate (e.g. casually glossing over the German destruction of Czechoslovakia as you cite), but other than that they're quite valuable. The standard narrative is that America was completely neutral until the outbreak of war, after which it adopted pro-British neutrality.

The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war, and once war had broken out its policy was to commit America to the war.

That obviously does not absolve the Axis powers. If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted German demands. It of course doesn't follow that this would've preserved the peace in Europe.

This also has special relevance for American politics as Roosevelt has long been a despised figure on the American right.

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:10 pm GMT
@bossel

Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it.

Duh.

That's a classic straw man fallacy. Unless you can show that the author claimed what you said he did, you have no case. And since the Dizzard agreed with you, it's almost certain that you have none.

anon [170] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT
@LondonBob

No doubt the Roosevelt administration was agitating for war. Between the Soviets, the Nazis and FDR's chums what chance did Europe have? Always found the US saving Britain meme particularly offensive.

somehow you left the belligerent Churchill out of this mix

note that he was on the hook to some jew bankers for the solvency of his entire estate, also note the quip by a Rothschild woman "if my sons didn't want wars there would be no wars"

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:17 pm GMT
@Asagirian

Jews lost a great deal in the war. Shoah.

Maybe a few little ones did, but the bigshot moneybag crowd probably did not.

Here's an anecdote to ponder.

The new [Jewish] prosperity was born in rearmament, and that was begun in the name of anti-Communism and anti-Semitism. Abyssinia, Spain and China have already shown that the new armaments race spells death, not for Jews, but for indiscriminate millions of helpless Gentiles, Africans, Chinese and whatnot. The profits from the armaments race will go largely into the pockets of Jews, because of their preponderant share in retail trade Such is Hitler's achievement in the cause of antiSemitism.

I was talking one day to Z, a Jewish journalist expelled from Germany who has settled in Vienna, where he has a pleasant home and a motor car. He talked with bitter resentment of Germany. 'Ah', he complained, 'the Poles murdered us, but the Germans have robbed us', and it was quite clear from his tone which was the worse thing for him. Then he told me how his son was still working for a big German film company in Berlin and had thrice had his salary raised to induce him not to leave and emigrate, as he desired, wishing to join his father. The Jews. As I write, in Vienna, they are all about me, watching with non-committal, veiled, appraising eyes the comedy that is going on in Insanity Fair. They know that when Hitlerism has passed away they will still be trading in the Kärntnerstrasse.

-Douglas Reed, Insanity Fair (1938), chapter 17

anon [170] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:20 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

This also has special relevance for American politics as Roosevelt has long been a despised figure on the American right.

more accurate is the other way around – Roosevelt has long been deified by the MSM and the American left.

The American right just notices he was a flawed man

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
@Asagirian

Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded

Hitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street backers were. Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities. Long standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi" Stephen Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)

This oughta be depressing

German_reader , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:32 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

but other than that they're quite valuable.

I don't think so, imo those pieces without exception are so stupid that they'll actually be counter-productive and reinforce existing narratives.
I actually think there are some areas of WW2 where revisionism might be justified (and you don't even have to go to kooky "revisionists" for it, the gap between the mythology and the writings even of many quite mainstream historians is often wide) but Unz review has nothing to contribute in this regard.

The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war

I don't think the article above demonstrated that, tbh the documents cited in it appear to be totally unremarkable to me and don't support such a thesis.
Maybe someone else has made a better case for it, but that Roosevelt actively wanted a European war seems unlikely to me.

If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted German demands.

But the US didn't really do anything in 1939/40, it was just words. iirc even Lend-Lease was only adopted after the fall of France.
The backing of Britain and France (still seen as premier world powers at the time, and in the case of France with a large army with modern equipment) was probably enough for Poland, I don't think the remote possibility of American intervention (which was years away anyway) was decisive.
A fundamental issue was of course that Hitler had already shown with the destruction of Czechoslovakia (so casually dismissed in the article above) in March 1939 that his ambitions went beyond merely uniting all majority German areas in the Reich and that he wasn't trustworthy at all.

Agent76 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:41 pm GMT
Bankers Hate Peace: All Wars Are Bankers' Wars

In the beginning of World War I, Woodrow Wilson had adopted initially a policy of neutrality. But the Morgan Bank, which was the most powerful bank at the time, and which wound up funding over 75 percent of the financing for the allied forces during World War I pushed Wilson out of neutrality sooner than he might have done, because of their desire to be involved on one side of the war.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/bankers-hate-peace-all-wars-are-bankers-wars/5438849

*All Wars Are Bankers' Wars*

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.

ben sampson , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:43 pm GMT
from the up-to-date history of the second world war it is now possible to see the utter madness, irrelevance really of white people! from Churchill and the English, to Roosevelt, the Germans, the Russians.. and all others at the top of the white countries..the white elites..what on earth are they, what are they about on planet earth, what do they want?

they smash, beat, poison, blow up, lie all the time, cheat, steal, draw all human profit off into few hands, bring world economy to a standstill then create wars for all and every socially controlling purpose including the reduction of ordinary people..all working people. war is to protect the money grubbers and economic slavers from the mess they make in their own profit taking and exploitation of the people..to reduce the people to easy captivity, their numbers as a fighting force capable of social revolution and on and on, permitting the restart of another profit taking cycle and the same flow of events again and again and again

by new information when properly considered Hitler comes of a relatively sane man who did not want war..but look at the things he did himself!

and over all of this, like mad directors of a horror movie are the fake Jews, the Khazars who collectively must be the devil himself, directing a MADD movie of existence.

LOOK AT WHAT THEY ARE ALL COLLECTIVELY DOING -HAVE DONE. IT IS CONSTANT CENTURIES LONG LUNACY, PURE NAKED INSANITY THAT THEY HAVE MANAGED TO PUT OR PULL A CONSISTENT PATINA OVER, THAT ALLOWS THE REST OF US TO TAKE THEIR BEHAVIOR AS SANE AND TO ACCEPT WHITE PEOPLE AS LOGICAL AND RIGHT IN THE WORLD..THE ACTUAL OPPOSITE OF WHO/WHAT THEY ARE

I don know of anything historically like the 19 century. from the Japanese Russian war, the first world war, the Russian revolution, the economic games of the years between 1920-39 they call the great crash, the second world war..all the way to currently when white people appear to be finally tired of themselves and are ready to end it all in another explosion of war with nuclear weapons..we have had such a show of absolutely human insanity there are negative words capable of describing that flow of human time and the people involved.

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Churchill, Chamberlin, Mussolin, DeGaulle,..all, an endless flow of terrible human beings..and it has not stopped, all the way through the Clintons, Obama, Macron..and on and on and on, the same carnage, the same insanity..it never stops, never ever. nothing depresses me as human history does..the white part of it..the rise of the white man. there is no way out of it..white outlook and socially dominant power, will not allow for anything positive in the human potential to manifest. only genocide, human engineering and the development of social grotesque forms of social organization looms for the human future

and they say some god made this life..a supreme and good god worked all this out and made ot, let it be. and of course that is more grotesque nonsense that leads to more hell for humanity.

I dont see the point to life. the ancient Africans had a point. they developed a life in nature, accepted nature as the template and flowed accordingly. in that way they gave us all a chance by developing the basis of survival, of social organization and spiritual sanity. the white man took that and poisoned it, twisted it into all the insane religious nonsense that drives human suicide currently.

but with the rise of the white male into global power for 500 years now humanity has gone totally insane..impenetrably insane, comprehensively insane. we have all been made nuts by white logic. we have ringed ourselves by that same logic with every conceivable weapon that can kill all humanity. we have actually set the stage for the possible rise out of nature itself organic mutations that may wipe humanity all on their own..mutations changed by what we have routinely thrown into the world as waste for which humanity has no biological defense.

that is the white mans logic..operating on the principle that there is a free lunch, always looking for on and causing existential chaos in the process. I want to cite the obvious stupidity in that approach..a collectively arsine approach..but it is far, far, far, far .. worse than that. the condition of the white man appears to be irreversible, cannot be changed and with the destructive means the white elites now have it is totally unlikely that humanity comes out of the experience of white power, white global domination, alive..or in one piece. we may crawl out alive but we wont be human anymore

SCREW ROOSEVELT. HE WAS THE WORST FROM THE START! I KNEW THAT SINCE I WAS MUCH YOUNGER AND COULD CONSIDER REALITY. ROOSEVELT HAS BEEN BUILT INTO A HERO, HE IS A FAKE HERO!.

I HOPE TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE HIS STATUE TORN DOWN AS LENIN'S STATUE WAS WITH THE FALL OF RUSSIAN STATE CAPITALISM

Mulegino1 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
A wonderful article!

The myth that the US and their henceforth junior partner UK- along with the Soviet Union- "liberated" Europe ought to be put to rest. There was no "liberation" of Europe from Germany, unless massive civilian deaths and the unprecedented destruction of property and cultural landmarks equates to "liberation." As an American, this is disturbing to me, but it is the truth.

FDR was an ignoramus and an ingenue surrounded, in his later years, by communists and their sympathizers. Had he adopted National Socialist economic policies here in the US, he could have ended the depression and brought America to unprecedented prosperity and the ultimate fulfillment of its great providential mission to be an impregnable continental power. Instead, he squandered all that and doubled down on the catastrophically error of his predecessor Wilson.

In both cases- FDR's and Wilson's- Europe lost. Disastrously and tragically.

Che Guava , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:48 pm GMT
That is an interesting article.

I tend to concetrate on Rosenfeldt's actions in the Pacific, knew about many non-neutral actions in the Atlantic, non-neutrality of 'lend-lease', but most (all )of the content of this article is new to me.

Very interesting.

Changing the subject a little for entertainment, I enjoy reading Charles Bukowski (RIP) at times.

His account of the behaviour of young men post-Pearl Harbour is hilarious, he is drinking (and drunk) on a park bench, suddenly sees them start shouting 'godawar' and frantically running around.

I forget the title, but it is a very laconic and funny description.

When seeing Starship Troopers by Verhoeven, I always think that at least one of the scriptwriters must have read Bukowski.

It is so similar.

Mulegino1 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
@fnn His book is a must read: "The War that Had Many Fathers".

[Apr 08, 2019] US "defense" strategy looks more like Queen Victoria's with not a wink toward contemporary reality.

Apr 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm ,

The very good profits of the 17 year long and continuing global war for profits has spent the US into no longer being dominant in the US' preferred way of war!

"The most dogmatic, tautological, egregiously unsubstantiated assertion, and the one most likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, comes in four parts: 1) The United States is emerging from a period of strategic atrophy; 2) Our competitive military advantage has been eroding; .."

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/04/national-defense-strategy-no-strategy/156068/?oref=d-channeltop

US "defense" strategy looks more like Queen Victoria's with not a wink toward contemporary reality.

A good read all the way by a brave commentator.

mulp -> ilsm... , April 06, 2019 at 02:02 PM
The high profits come from pillaging capital.

The US has had a huge amount of housing abandoned, or turned into "slums", as a result of increasing profits by outsourcing jobs outside the traditional heart of US production, the Midwest.

Case-shiller does not reflect housing abandoned because the house prices fell below labor costs.

Just as stock indexes remove the shares of stock that start losing price so the continuing price losses do not drag down the market index.

Ie, GE drove up the indexes while stock prices rose, but as it restructures from decades of pillaged and plunder of its most valuable capital, its workers with culture of innovation, it has been removed from indexes so it does not correct the indexes its bad management inflated by fake profits when GE was really losing value.

Paine -> ilsm... , April 06, 2019 at 03:22 PM
Let the union protect the territorial integrity of the planet's
Existing state systems

Kuwait grab style circa 1991

Not Korea civil war style circa 1950

[Apr 08, 2019] Zionism, Crypto-Judaism, and the Biblical Hoax by Laurent Guyénot

Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
What's a neocon, Dad?

"What's a neocon?" clueless George W. Bush once asked his father in 2003. "Do you want names, or a description?" answered Bush 41. "Description." "Well," said 41, "I'll give it to you in one word: Israel." True or not, that exchange quoted by Andrew Cockburn [1] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, His fall, and Catastrophic Legacy, Scribner, 2011, p. 219. Cockburn claims to have heard this repeated by "friends of the family." sums it up: the neoconservatives are crypto-Israelis. Their true loyalty goes to Israel -- Israel as defined by their mentor Leo Strauss in his 1962 lecture "Why We Remain Jews," that is, including an indispensable Diaspora. [2] Leo Strauss, "Why we Remain Jews", quoted in Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, St. Martin's Press, 1999 (on archive.org), p. 31-43.

In his volume Cultural Insurrections, Kevin MacDonald has accurately described neoconservatism as "a complex interlocking professional and family network centered around Jewish publicists and organizers flexibly deployed to recruit the sympathies of both Jews and non-Jews in harnessing the wealth and power of the United States in the service of Israel ." [3] Kevin MacDonald, Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilizations, Jewish Influence, and Anti-Semitism, The Occidental Press, 2007, p. 122. The proof of the neocons' crypto-Israelism is their U.S. foreign policy:

"The confluence of their interests as Jews in promoting the policies of the Israeli right wing and their construction of American interests allows them to submerge or even deny the relevance of their Jewish identity while posing as American patriots. [ ] Indeed, since neoconservative Zionism of the Likud Party variety is well known for promoting a confrontation between the United States and the entire Muslim world, their policy recommendations best fit a pattern of loyalty to their ethnic group, not to America." [4] Kevin McDonald, Cultural Insurrection, op. cit., p. 66.

The neocons' U.S. foreign policy has always coincided with the best interest of Israel as they see it. Before 1967, Israel's interest rested heavily on Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. From 1967, when Moscow closed Jewish emigration to protest Israel's annexation of Arab territories, Israel's interest included the U.S. winning the Cold War. That is when the editorial board of Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee, experienced their conversion to "neoconservatism," and Commentary became, in the words of Benjamin Balint, "the contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the neoconservative right . " [5] Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right, Public Affairs, 2010. Irving Kristol explained to the American Jewish Congress in 1973 why anti-war activism was no longer good for Israel: "it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States. [ ] American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel." [6] Congress Bi-Weekly, quoted by Philip Weiss, "30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views," Mondoweiss.net, May 23, 2007: mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne.html This tells us what "reality" Kristol was referring to, when he famously defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality" ( Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, 1995).

With the end of the Cold War, the national interest of Israel changed once again. The primary objective became the destruction of Israel's enemies in the Middle East by dragging the U.S. into a third world war. The neoconservatives underwent their second conversion, from anti-communist Cold Warriors to Islamophobic "Clashers of Civilizations" and crusaders in the "War on Terror."

In September 2001, they got the "New Pearl Harbor" that they had been wishing for in a PNAC report a year before. [7] http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/Rebuil...es.pdf Two dozens neoconservatives had by then been introduced by Dick Cheney into key positions, including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, David Wurmser at the State Department, and Philip Zelikow and Elliott Abrams at the National Security Council. Abrams had written three years earlier that Diaspora Jews "are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart -- except in Israel -- from the rest of the population." [8] Elliott Abrams, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 181. Perle, Feith and Wurmser had co-signed in 1996 a secret Israeli report entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm , urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to break with the Oslo Accords of 1993 and reaffirm Israel's right of preemption on Arab territories. They also argued for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." As Patrick Buchanan famously remarked, the 2003 Iraq war proves that the plan "has now been imposed by Perle, Feith, Wurmser & Co. on the United States." [9] Patrick J. Buchanan, "Whose War? A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interest," The American Conservative, March 24, 2003, www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-war/

How these neocon artists managed to bully Secretary of State Colin Powell into submission is unclear, but, according to his biographer Karen DeYoung, Powell privately rallied against this "separate little government" composed of "Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, and Feith's 'Gestapo Office'." [10] Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, Enigma Edition, 2008, p. 156. His chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, declared in 2006 on PBS that he had "participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council," [11] http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.html and in 2011, he openly denounced the duplicity of neoconservatives such as Wurmser and Feith, whom he considered "card-carrying members of the Likud party." "I often wondered," he said, "if their primary allegiance was to their own country or to Israel." [12] Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal , op. cit., p. 120. Something doesn't quite ring true when neocons say "we Americans," for example Paul Wolfowitz declaring: "Since September 11th, we Americans have one thing more in common with Israelis." [13] April 11, 2002, quoted in Justin Raimondo, The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection , iUniverse, 2003, p. 19.

The neocons' capacity to deceive the American public by posturing as American rather than Israeli patriots required that their Jewishness be taboo, and Carl Bernstein, though a Jew himself, provoked a scandal by citing on national television the responsibility of "Jewish neocons" for the Iraq war. [14] April 26, 2013, on MSNBC, watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlatDWqh0o. But the fact that the destruction of Iraq was carried out on behalf of Israel is now widely accepted, thanks in particular to the 2007 book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy . And even the best liars betray themselves sometimes. Philip Zelikow briefly dropped the mask during a conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002:

"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat is and actually has been since 1990: it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell." [15] Noted by Inter-Press Service on March 29, 2004, under the title "U.S.: Iraq war is to protect Israel, says 9/11 panel chief," and repeated by United Press International the next day, on www.upi.com.

From crypto-Judaism to crypto-Zionism

Norman Podhoretz, editor-in-chief of Commentary (and father-in-law of Elliott Abrams), said that after June 1967, Israel became "the religion of the American Jews." [16] Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir, Harper & Row , 1979, p. 335. That is, at least, what he started working at. But, naturally, such religion had better remain discreet outside the Jewish community, if possible even secret, and disguised as American patriotism. The neocons have perfected this fake American patriotism wholly profitable to Israel, and ultimately disastrous for Americans -- a pseudo-Americanism that is really a crypto-Israelism or crypto-Zionism.


Colin Wright , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:52 am GMT

On a less exalted note, I've long found it a convincing theory that as Jews have ceased to take Judaism seriously and have become culturally almost indistinguishable from gentile whites, Israel and Zionism have become increasingly important as the sole remaining touchstone of Jewish identity. Like as not, a modern American Jew has only his loyalty to Israel as evidence that he remains a good Jew.

For most Jews, Judaism and its strictures have ceased to be compelling. One can get modern secular Jews to eat pork, or marry gentiles, or cease practicing their religion entirely; but for that very reason, there are few who are prepared to renounce Israel outright.

It's all they have left.

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 6:34 am GMT
For the moment I will only make this observation. The UN did not base their establishment of Israel on the promises of the OT – certainly not formally. And nothing about the state of Israel relations with God makes her exempt from international law. And to my knowledge nothing about the current rules regarding international law demand that Israel do anything to disobey God.

So if the article is intended to be informative – ok. But what of a prescription is intended to promote, if any is unknown to me.

Agent76 , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
The New American Century Part 1/10

This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present.

Jun 29, 2016 Neoconservatives Endorse Hillary Clinton for President Because They Know She's One of Them

Neoconservatives like Iraq warmonger Robert Kagan aren't endorsing Hillary Clinton for president merely because they want rid of Donald Trump, but because she's one of them, writes Trevor Timm at The Guardian.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/neoconservatives_endorse_hillary_clinton

HallParvey , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:07 pm GMT
@Matt07924 It doesn't matter. When a group of people can get together and find psychic connection to one another through some talisman, no matter how inconsequential, they form a group of self interested individuals who can and do control their own destiny.
As we see in the west today, they can, by controlling the money, take over the leadership of the area where they live. Thereby dictating that which can be discussed in polite company. i.e. Political Correctness.
There are other, less effective groups that have done the same thing. But not recently.
Digital Samizdat , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:31 pm GMT
Excellent article. Brilliant! This is why Unz.com is now my favorite website. Guyénot has already written several fine articles for Unz, but this is probably his best yet. Keep 'em coming!

I have been exposed to elements of Guyénot's thesis before in various different contexts. For example, I understand that many of the original Gnostic sects of Christianity also rejected the idea that Yahweh and the Creator God were one and the same being. Many Gnostics seemed to have regarded the former as a 'lesser god', or as a Platonic demiurge, or even as a completely diabolical entity. In their view, Jesus had come to rebuke the Israelites–the Pharisees especially–for worshipping a false god, and for putting themselves on a pedestal relative to the goyim. (He often spoke sympathetically of the Samaritans, for example, who were a race of lowly converts.)

All of which makes me wonder about Christianity and the Abrahamic religions generally. I, personally, am sure that there is a God or a supreme spirit of some sort; but I really just don't buy the catechism I was raised with at all. And if, once upon a time, I might have gone along with it in public anyway, accepting its theological anomalies as the price that had to be paid for preserving the moral foundations of civilization, now that I no longer believe it does our civilization any good, I have lost all interest in it whatsoever.

But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently unstable state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind of civic religion to provide moral order. At the moment, 'Holocaustianity' serves as our overarching civic religion, and so we get a modern version of the old faith vs. good-works dichotomy (i.e., Zionism vs. SJWism). Generally speaking, the hardline Protestants prefer the former, while the remaining denominations prefer the latter. Virtually all of our remaining 'Christian' churches, it seems, have lined up behind one or the other; but either way you go, it's all for the benefit of another people–not our own.

Depressing

Job's brother , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT
Very interesting article. Informative throughout. Purely on a political level, this piece has given me a much greater understanding of the psychic sources of historical abuses by those who call themselves Jews...
AaronB , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:37 pm GMT
@Jake

a Race beyond Good and Evil.

I think this is another very important concept. Its not that Jews don't hold themselves to moral standards, but it's that sin cannot alter their fundamental 'rightnes'. They are Chosen – if they sin they will be punished mercilessly, but they are fundamentally and basically 'justified' unto eternity.

Catholics used to have this concept as well, and it was also a source of immense strength for them – first, you are saved through Jesus. Jesus took on the sins of humanity. Nothing you can do will make you any less saved, provided you accept Jesus's gift.

Second, by confessing your sins you are absolved.

So the old Christian is eternally justified and his sins cannot fundamentally put him on the 'wrong' side of life.

This also led to that absolutely crucial thing – in Jungian terms, acceptance of the Shadow, the bad and weak side of man. People were not afraid to accept the dirty and bad and weak about themselves without collapsing into self hatred, because they knew they were fundamentally right anyways. This is an immense source of strength and integrity.

When the modern Western world lost this ability to accept the Shadow, and strove to become God itself, it very easily fell into a crushing sense of guilt and self hatred at its 'sins', as it no longer has a theology that allowed to accept its common human frailty without collapsing into self hatred.

The Jews never abandoned their theory of being 'saved' – and so their evil and weakness does not result in self hatred, but is more accepted.

Bardon Kaldian , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT
@AaronB This is too divorced from reality & is basically some kind of dubious philosophy of history.

Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional cultures. Jews' behavior & position in pre-modern Europe was not determined by some metaphysical ingredient in their belief, or their ethnic-religious peculiarity. They were middle-eastern tolerated aliens in Christian Europe, and they survived because medieval Christian order had found a place for them (unlike Muslims, who were not tolerated).

After assimilation in 19th C, we can't speak of a unified (more or less) "Jewish culture". True, some branches like ethno-psychology could find common traits among them (professions oriented, eager to get educated, politicized, showbiz & entertainment,..), but they are not too adaptable -- persons of Jewish ancestry are, perhaps, but many/most of them are not Jews anymore. Assimilated individuals of Jewish ancestry do not show any more flexibility than their co-nationals of other faiths.

As for Zionism, this is a typical late 19th C national ideology from central- & eastern Europe. It differs from pre-modern Jewish historical mass movements.

Anonymous [271] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT
@Anon Theologically Jesus came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace the tribalism and overly legalistic Law of Moses.

The reason the New Testament quotes so heavily from the Old Testament is that the early church sought to cement it's legitimacy by establishing that Jesus was the one prophesied about.

AaronB , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:25 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional cultures

Agreed. What was distinctively 'modern' in European culture was the one-sided development of abstract reason and the increasing neglect of the emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual side of man. At first the imaginative arts responded to this challenge – producing masterpieces – and attempted to incorporate or ameliorate this development. Eventually, in our day, the 'managerial' movement became exclusively dominant, as was bound to happen.

So we can turn to any traditional culture, not just Jewish. What is unusual about Jews perhaps is that they went further than other traditional cultures in adopting European abstract reason and participating in European culture.

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:43 pm GMT
I am unclear yet what the author's point besides making a claim that Israel has no right to be a state based on false notions of scripture. But that has very little to do with why Israel is a state in the secular understanding.

One can complain about Israel from now till doomsday, but until you make a case to Israel's supporting states that Israel is out of line -- the complaint doesn't have much weight. They exist by international law. And they engage in tactics to their own interests – no kidding.

Israel is not going to change course if what she is doing yields her results. The attempt to decouple support for Israel by engaging in arguments about how "rotten" she is only fuels the complaint that Israel is surrounded by enemies that seek her destruction. Which is fed into the "holocaust" pipeline, which in the secular is why Israel was afforded the statehood she now has.

Anon [819] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@Anonymous

Theologically Communism came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace the tribalism and overly legalistic Law of nationalism.

Fixed it for you.

As with communism, Christianity was written by the very same nationalists (Jews) who wrote it to use as a cultural and political weapon against their enemies and peoples they wished to eventually rule. Such international domination being the expressed primary goal of the Jewish god as described in the Jewish Torah.

Colin Wright , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:39 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat 'This. Jewish 'leftism' historically is mostly about destroying the church, the (goy) family and the (goy) nations. It is almost never about helping the working class or making life better for the goyim generally.'

I don't think that's fair -- but at the same time, there is something mindlessly destructive about Jewish radicalism.

I'm reminded of More Powerful than Dynamite -- a fairly good book about the radical upheavals that beset New York City around 1915.

The author doesn't seem to notice, but a disproportionate number of his protagonists are young Jewish immigrants, fresh out of the shetl. The young Jewesses seem to have been the worst; those girls had the devil in them somehow.

I think it probably all had more to do with a rebellion against the traditional authorities of Judaism more than anything; the rabbis et al who had held Eastern Jewry in thrall for so long. I'm not saying they actually wished gentiles well -- but I don't think destroying gentile society was really the motive.

Just the effect.

Anon [157] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMT
@mcohen

Judaism has survived in all its different forms for one reason only and that reason is simply that it elevates a human being to a higher plane.

Please. Judaism survived because it spreads Jews internationally, which creates a unique economic network for any nation that will have them

nsa , says: April 8, 2019 at 5:54 pm GMT
Censorship and brain washing in the USA, Canada, and Europe is beyond extreme... You'll only get to try it once ..ask Chuck Hagel. ...
EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@ploni almoni Laughing. Ohh it's secret. I see.

Maybe it's one of those secrets like, deligitimizing Israel's right to exist. That if one dismantles the Zionist pose, then the UN will simply reneg the 1948 resolution and Israel will be no more. I think I can keep that secret.

I have news for you. It's not going to happen. Not even the Russians or the Chinese are on that band wagon

advancedatheist , says: April 8, 2019 at 7:05 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat

But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently unstable state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind of civic religion to provide moral order.

Atheists in the real world don't act like the Christian belief about them. This suggests that atheists didn't invent nihilism; instead Christians imagined nihilism late in history as a new Christian doctrine about atheism in response to the growth of nonbelief among quite functional people in Western countries since the Enlightenment, and they did so as a new strategy to try to recover from their loss of power and status.

Of course, real atheists, as opposed to Christians' fantasy atheists, face no obligation to live according to the Christian stereotype. And atheists have made enormous contributions to civilization in recent generations. You have to wonder why they would have bothered if they suffered from "nihilism."

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists_in_science_and_technology

PADOJO , says: April 8, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMT
Dr. Guyenot, your book is excellent and so are your sources/recommendations. What needs to be sorely addressed is Zionist exploitation of Christ in the free world. Jewish and Christian Zionists are no different than Al Sharpton never did see the first relavent issue (he/they) couldn't exploit. It's all about Israel first and nothing second. That is they ONLY seek to possess, enslave and then destroy (their) host friend or foe conquering nation or friendly host for the Zionist parasite. Good job as always. Like Douglas Reed your prior preparations have brought you to your most important work.
Vojkan , says: April 8, 2019 at 7:18 pm GMT
@Laurent Guyénot You are treading a thin line. I wish too that they could be convinced to recant their belief in a vengeful, merciless, whimsical, jealous, nepotistic, 'variable-geometry' God. The world would be spared a lot of suffering.

[Apr 08, 2019] I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations

Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT

@Agent76

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations.

Thank you in spades for bringing our attention to that truth.

[Apr 08, 2019] Trump deadly deregulation

Apr 04, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , April 05, 2019 at 01:50 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/opinion/trump-deadly-deregulation.html

April 4, 2019

Donald Trump Is Trying to Kill You: Trust the pork producers; fear the wind turbines. By Paul Krugman

There's a lot we don't know about the legacy Donald Trump will leave behind. And it is, of course, hugely important what happens in the 2020 election. But one thing seems sure: Even if he's a one-term president, Trump will have caused, directly or indirectly, the premature deaths of a large number of Americans.

Some of those deaths will come at the hands of right-wing, white nationalist extremists, who are a rapidly growing threat, partly because they feel empowered by a president who calls them "very fine people."

Some will come from failures of governance, like the inadequate response to Hurricane Maria, which surely contributed to the high death toll in Puerto Rico. (Reminder: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.)

Some will come from the administration's continuing efforts to sabotage Obamacare, which have failed to kill health reform but have stalled the decline in the number of uninsured, meaning that many people still aren't getting the health care they need. Of course, if Trump gets his way and eliminates Obamacare altogether, things on this front will get much, much worse.

But the biggest death toll is likely to come from Trump's agenda of deregulation -- or maybe we should call it "deregulation," because his administration is curiously selective about which industries it wants to leave alone.

Consider two recent events that help capture the deadly strangeness of what's going on.

One is the administration's plan for hog plants to take over much of the federal responsibility for food safety inspections. And why not? It's not as if we've seen safety problems arise from self-regulation in, say, the aircraft industry, have we? Or as if we ever experience major outbreaks of food-borne illness? Or as if there was a reason the U.S. government stepped in to regulate meatpacking in the first place?

Now, you could see the Trump administration's willingness to trust the meat industry to keep our meat safe as part of an overall attack on government regulation, a willingness to trust profit-making businesses to do the right thing and let the market rule. And there's something to that, but it's not the whole story, as illustrated by another event: Trump's declaration the other day that wind turbines cause cancer.

Now, you could put this down to personal derangement: Trump has had an irrational hatred for wind power ever since he failed to prevent construction of a wind farm near his Scottish golf course. And Trump seems deranged and irrational on so many issues that one more bizarre claim hardly seems to matter.

But there's more to this than just another Trumpism. After all, we normally think of Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, as people who minimize or deny the "negative externalities" imposed by some business activities -- the uncompensated costs they impose on other people or businesses.

For example, the Trump administration wants to roll back rules that limit emissions of mercury from power plants. And in pursuit of that goal, it wants to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from taking account of many of the benefits from reduced mercury emissions, such as an associated reduction in nitrogen oxide.

But when it comes to renewable energy, Trump and company are suddenly very worried about supposed negative side effects, which generally exist only in their imagination. Last year the administration floated a proposal that would have forced the operators of electricity grids to subsidize coal and nuclear energy. The supposed rationale was that new sources were threatening to destabilize those grids -- but the grid operators themselves denied that this was the case.

So it's deregulation for some, but dire warnings about imaginary threats for others. What's going on?

Part of the answer is, follow the money. Political contributions from the meat-processing industry overwhelmingly favor Republicans. Coal mining supports the G.O.P. almost exclusively. Alternative energy, on the other hand, generally favors Democrats.

There are probably other things, too. If you're a party that wishes we could go back to the 1950s (but without the 91 percent top tax rate), you're going to have a hard time accepting the reality that hippie-dippy, unmanly things like wind and solar power are becoming ever more cost-competitive.

Whatever the drivers of Trump policy, the fact, as I said, is that it will kill people. Wind turbines don't cause cancer, but coal-burning power plants do -- along with many other ailments. The Trump administration's own estimates indicate that its relaxation of coal pollution rules will kill more than 1,000 Americans every year. If the administration gets to implement its full agenda -- not just deregulation of many industries, but discrimination against industries it doesn't like, such as renewable energy -- the toll will be much higher.

So if you eat meat -- or, for that matter, drink water or breathe air -- there's a real sense in which Donald Trump is trying to kill you. And even if he's turned out of office next year, for many Americans it will be too late.

ilsm -> anne... , April 05, 2019 at 03:56 PM
"uninsured" in the for profit system is a terrible measure!

US health outcomes in relation to OEDC remains sad.

point -> anne... , April 05, 2019 at 07:19 PM
One wonders how when expected deaths are 1/x and activity is x, then the product does not mean 1 expected death, and then ordinary legal consequences.
mulp -> anne... , April 06, 2019 at 03:25 AM
Trump does not want to go back to the 50s when government policy was to greatly increase costs by paying more workers more, while driving down prices, and elinimating rents and scarcity profits.

Trump wants to kill jobs that are paid, but force work that is unpaid.

Well, if you means 1850, by the 50s, that's when Trump would have excelled by raping his slaves to create more workers he would force to work, probably Brazil style, worked to death to cut costs, based on continued enslavement of slaves, ie, no ban on slave imports after 1808.

JohnH -> anne... , April 06, 2019 at 03:39 PM
Trump may be trying to kill us...but do Democrats have a plan to save us? So far, I can discern no coherent message or plan from corrupt, comatose Democrats other than 'Trump is guilty [of something or other.]
mulp -> JohnH... , April 07, 2019 at 03:11 PM
You are simply rejecting Democrats calls to reverse policies since 1970 to MAGA as failed liberal policies because its not new, never tried before, and not free.

The growth of the 50s and 60s was too costly, requiring people to work, save, and pay ever rising prices, taxes, and living costs.

You want economics where you can buy a million dollar home for $50,000 and have schools funded by modest property taxes on million dollar homes, but with low tax rates on houses assessed at $40,000.

TANSTAAFL

The only way working class families get better off is by paying higher costs.

Zero sum.

Christopher H. said in reply to anne... , April 07, 2019 at 11:00 AM
The Jungle was written about Chicago and Chicago just elected 5 (possibly 6) socialists to the City Council (which is made up of 50 total alderman).

Chicago also elected a black lesbian mayor but she's not that progressive.

I guess Krugman would dismiss this all as "purity" politics.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/andre-vasquex-democratic-socialist-pat-oconnor-40th-ward-aldermanic-election/

04/05/2019, 05:37pm

Meet the democratic socialist who sent Rahm's floor leader packing

By Mark Brown

There's never been a Chicago politician who quite fits the profile of Andre Vasquez, the former battle rapper and current democratic socialist who just took down veteran 40th Ward Ald. Patrick O'Connor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's city council floor leader.

That probably scares some people.

But those folks might want to nod to the wisdom of the 54 percent of voters in the North Side ward who waded through an onslaught of attack ads and concluded they have nothing to fear from the 39-year-old AT&T account manager, his music or his politics.

I stopped by Vasquez's campaign office to satisfy my own curiosity about this new breed of aldermen. Vasquez will be part of a Chicago City Council bloc of at least five, probably six democratic socialists who, if nothing else, will alter the debate on a range of issues.

Vazquez said he understands democratic socialism as "just injecting a healthy dose of democracy in a system we already have.

"Where we see the influence of big money and corporations in our government, where we see the corruption in the council, where we see elected officials as bought and paid for, to me, democratic socialism is providing a counterbalance," he said.

Vasquez also reminded me that generalizing about democratic socialists is as foolish as generalizing about Democrats.

"I think even within democratic socialism there's such a spectrum of different folks, right? I tend to be a counterbalance to some of the louder stuff, the louder hardcore, what some would view as extreme," said Vasquez, noting that he sometimes takes flak within democratic socialist circles because he's never read Marx and doesn't "bleed rose red."

"Everyone's got their part to play," he said. "Somebody's going to be the loud one in the room because you need that kind of impetus to move things forward. And someone's got to be the one who's making deals on legislation. You can't have ideological fights and think you're going to come up with solutions."

Though Vasquez prefers the dealmaker role, his background suggests he also could get loud if the occasion demanded.

Until he decided it was time to do something else with his life around 2010, Vasquez was a battle rapper who performed under the stage name Prime. He had enough success to pay the bills for a while, touring nationally and appearing on MTV's "Direct Effect" and HBO's "Blaze Battle."

For old people like me who are unclear on the concept (begging the pardon of the rest of you), battle rapping involves performers trading insults in rhyme put to music.

"Then, imagine you have a crowd around you," Vasquez explained. "And now people are cheering you on, and the insults are getting more vicious and intricate, and it becomes a sporting match. Right? So, in that arena, you're getting heralded for how well you can insult the person in front of you while rhyming and improvising all as this stream of consciousness is coming out."

I suggested a battle rap might occasionally be just the antidote to the drudgery of a council meeting, but Vasquez wasn't amused.

The problem with battle rapping, as 40th Ward voters were reminded ad nauseam during the runoff campaign, is that the genre relies heavily on crude insults invoking disrespectful terms for women and LGBTQ individuals.

"The issue is toxic masculinity plagues everything," said Vasquez, who obliquely fronted an apology for his past verbal misdeeds early in the campaign -- and more directly when hit with a barrage of negative mailers detailing a greatest hits of his transgressions.

A lesser candidate would have been toast at that point, but Vasquez had girded himself in advance through his door-to-door organizing.

By then, enough 40th Ward residents knew who Vasquez really was -- the son of Guatemalan immigrants, a city kid from the neighborhoods who had become a family guy with two young kids and a late-discovered talent for politics -- that they couldn't be scared off.

Vasquez, who lives in Edgewater, was introduced to politics when he felt the Bern in 2014 and volunteered for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. A left-leaning community group, Reclaim Chicago, then recruited Vasquez to expand upon his organizing talents -- and taught him how to build a classic grassroots campaign.

The result is a new Latino alderman in a ward where fewer than one-fifth of the voters are Latino. And a Democratic Socialist representing a ward previously ruled by Emanuel's floor leader.

"I'm not trying to plant a flag," Vasquez said. "I'm trying to make sure that people can live here and not be forced out."

Christopher H. said in reply to Christopher H.... , April 07, 2019 at 11:02 AM
"Vasquez, who lives in Edgewater, was introduced to politics when he felt the Bern in 2014 and volunteered for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. A left-leaning community group, Reclaim Chicago, then recruited Vasquez to expand upon his organizing talents -- and taught him how to build a classic grassroots campaign."

I like the centrists like Krugman and liberals here like EMike who dismiss Bernie as a cult of personality. No he's spurring local organizing which doesn't revolve around him.

mulp -> Christopher H.... , April 07, 2019 at 03:34 PM
Will Bernie as president build walls around big cities like Chicago, build iron Curtains, to keep the rich inside these cities where all their wealth is taxed away every year, and they are prevented from moving to the towns outside Chicago city limits?

[Apr 08, 2019] A320 series vs B737 Max 8

Notable quotes:
"... In fact Airbus 320 series never had the same issue as it was properly designed from scratch and not like Max 8 retrofitted to carry bigger engines by that changing distribution of balance of the Aircraft and hence requiring steeper ascending angle and faster speed (for the same wing design) and hence by design more prone to stalling while in takeoff phase. ..."
"... So what is the same in B737 Max and A320 was response of AI software to sensor failures and specific external conditions of flight. In both cases such scenarios were never trained in simulators. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

Kalen4 days ago

Thanks for the report but I may add that AI auto pilot systems on Airbus are not same or similar to MCAS as they are all integrated in autopilot on A320 series while on B737 Max 8 they are completely separate from one another not communicating at all.

In fact Airbus 320 series never had the same issue as it was properly designed from scratch and not like Max 8 retrofitted to carry bigger engines by that changing distribution of balance of the Aircraft and hence requiring steeper ascending angle and faster speed (for the same wing design) and hence by design more prone to stalling while in takeoff phase.

The problem with A320 crash over Atlantic was failure of one or two of two sensors and while in cruise phase of flight autopilot AI software response was just inappropriate in fact detrimental as pilots were blinded disoriented during night over the ocean trying to figure out where they are as conflicting data was coming in.

It seems by some accounts they trusted autopilot decisions and suggestions and simply descended, hit into ocean almost horizontally.

So what is the same in B737 Max and A320 was response of AI software to sensor failures and specific external conditions of flight. In both cases such scenarios were never trained in simulators.

[Apr 08, 2019] Why aren't Boeing executives being prosecuted for the 737 Max 8 crashes

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Evidence has mounted implicating in both crashes an automated anti-stall system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which was installed by Boeing in response to the new plane's tendency to pitch upward and go into a potentially fatal stall. On a whole number of fronts -- design, marketing, certification and pilot training -- information from the black boxes of the two planes points to a lack of concern for the safety of passengers and crew on the part of both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, reaching the level of criminality. ..."
"... Despite the presence on the plane of two angle-of-attack sensors, which signal a potential stall and trigger the automated downward pitch of the plane's nose, MCAS relied on data from only one of the sensors. This means the standard redundancy feature built into commercial jets to avert disasters resulting from a faulty sensor was lacking. Boeing's main rival to the 737 Max, the European-built Airbus A320neo, for example, uses data from three sensors to manage a system similar to MCAS. ..."
"... Pilot certification for a commercial plane typically requires hundreds of hours of training, both in simulators and in actual flights. Boeing itself is now mandating at least 21 days of training on new Max planes. ..."
"... There is no innocent explanation for these obvious safety issues. They point to reckless and arguably criminally negligent behavior on the part of Boeing executives, who rushed the new plane into service and marketed it against the Airbus A320neo on the basis of its cost-saving features. ..."
"... This is highlighted by a press release the day of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in which Boeing stated that "for the past several months and in aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610," the company "has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX." ..."
"... In other words, both Boeing and the FAA were aware, possibly even before the October 2018 Lion Air crash and certainly afterward, that a system critical to the safe operation of the aircraft needed to be fixed, and still allowed the plane to continue flying. The wording also suggests that the plane shouldn't have been certified for flight in the first place. ..."
"... This was aided and abetted by the Trump administration, which shielded Boeing as long as it could by not ordering the FAA to ground the plane immediately after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. There were no doubt immense concerns that such a move would cut into Boeing's multibillion-dollar profits and affect its stock price, which has nearly tripled since the election of Trump in November 2016, accounting for more than 30 percent of the increase in the Dow Jones index since then. ..."
"... The relationship between Trump and Muilenburg is only a symptom of the much broader collusion between the airline industry and the US government. Starting in 2005 and expanded during the Obama administration, the FAA introduced the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program, which allows the agency to appoint as "designees" airplane manufacturers' employees to certify their own company's aircraft on behalf of the government. ..."
"... This is the logical end of the deregulation of the airline industry as a whole that was spearheaded by the Democratic Carter administration, which passed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978. With the help of liberal icon Edward Kennedy, the legislation disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board, which up to that point treated interstate airlines as a regulated public utility, setting routes, schedules and fares. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.wsws.org

It is nearly a month since the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which slammed into the ground only six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa airport, killing all 157 people on board. That disaster came less than five months after the fatal crash of Lion Air Flight 610 only 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta airport, killing all 189 passengers and crew members.

Both crashes involved the same airplane, the Boeing 737 Max 8, and both followed wild up-and-down oscillations which the pilots were unable to control.

In the weeks since these disasters, there have been no calls within the media or political establishment for Boeing executives to be criminally prosecuted for what were evidently entirely avoidable tragedies that killed a total of 346 people. This speaks to the corrupt relationship between the US government and the aerospace giant -- the biggest US exporter and second-largest defense contractor -- as well as the company's critical role in the stock market surge and the ever-expanding fortunes of major Wall Street investors.

Black box recordings and simulations show that in the 60 seconds the pilots had to respond to the emergency, faulty software forced the Lion Air flight into a nose dive 24 separate times, as the pilots fought to regain control of the aircraft before plunging into the ocean at more than 500 miles per hour.

Evidence has mounted implicating in both crashes an automated anti-stall system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which was installed by Boeing in response to the new plane's tendency to pitch upward and go into a potentially fatal stall. On a whole number of fronts -- design, marketing, certification and pilot training -- information from the black boxes of the two planes points to a lack of concern for the safety of passengers and crew on the part of both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, reaching the level of criminality.

The most recent revelations concerning the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash, based on preliminary findings from the official investigation, show that the pilots correctly followed the emergency procedures outlined by Boeing and disengaged the automated flight control system. Nevertheless, the nose of the plane continued to point downward. This strongly suggests a fundamental and perhaps fatal flaw in the design of the aircraft. Numerous questions have been raised about the design and certification process of the 737 Max 8 and MCAS, including:

Despite the presence on the plane of two angle-of-attack sensors, which signal a potential stall and trigger the automated downward pitch of the plane's nose, MCAS relied on data from only one of the sensors. This means the standard redundancy feature built into commercial jets to avert disasters resulting from a faulty sensor was lacking. Boeing's main rival to the 737 Max, the European-built Airbus A320neo, for example, uses data from three sensors to manage a system similar to MCAS.

Boeing Vice President Mike Sinnett admitted last November that cockpit warning lights alerting pilots of a faulty angle-of-attack sensor were only optional features on the Max 8. The MCAS system was absent from pilot manuals and flight simulators, including for the well-known flight training program X-Plane 11, which came out in 2018, one year after the first commercial flight of the 737 Max 8. Pilot training for the 737 Max 8, which has different hardware and software than earlier 737s, was a single one-hour computer course.

Pilot certification for a commercial plane typically requires hundreds of hours of training, both in simulators and in actual flights. Boeing itself is now mandating at least 21 days of training on new Max planes.

There is no innocent explanation for these obvious safety issues. They point to reckless and arguably criminally negligent behavior on the part of Boeing executives, who rushed the new plane into service and marketed it against the Airbus A320neo on the basis of its cost-saving features.

Threatened with a loss of market share and profits to its chief competitor, Boeing reduced costs by claiming that no significant training on the new Max 8 model, with the money and time that entails, was necessary for pilots with previous 737 experience.

Such imperatives of the capitalist market inevitably downgrade safety considerations. This is highlighted by a press release the day of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in which Boeing stated that "for the past several months and in aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610," the company "has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX."

In other words, both Boeing and the FAA were aware, possibly even before the October 2018 Lion Air crash and certainly afterward, that a system critical to the safe operation of the aircraft needed to be fixed, and still allowed the plane to continue flying. The wording also suggests that the plane shouldn't have been certified for flight in the first place.

This was aided and abetted by the Trump administration, which shielded Boeing as long as it could by not ordering the FAA to ground the plane immediately after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. There were no doubt immense concerns that such a move would cut into Boeing's multibillion-dollar profits and affect its stock price, which has nearly tripled since the election of Trump in November 2016, accounting for more than 30 percent of the increase in the Dow Jones index since then.

Trump himself received a call from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg two days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, during which Muilenburg reportedly continued to uphold the Max 8's safety. The FAA finally grounded the plane on March 13, after every other country in the world had done so.

The relationship between Trump and Muilenburg is only a symptom of the much broader collusion between the airline industry and the US government. Starting in 2005 and expanded during the Obama administration, the FAA introduced the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program, which allows the agency to appoint as "designees" airplane manufacturers' employees to certify their own company's aircraft on behalf of the government.

As a result, there was virtually no federal oversight on the development of the 737 Max 8. FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell told Congress, "As a result of regular meetings between the FAA and Boeing teams, the FAA determined in February 2012 that the [Max 8] project qualified [a] project eligible for management by the Boeing ODA." This extended to the MCAS system as well.

This is the logical end of the deregulation of the airline industry as a whole that was spearheaded by the Democratic Carter administration, which passed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978. With the help of liberal icon Edward Kennedy, the legislation disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board, which up to that point treated interstate airlines as a regulated public utility, setting routes, schedules and fares.

In a rational world, the ongoing Senate hearings and Department of Justice investigations would have already brought criminal charges against Muilenburg, Sinnett, Elwell and all those involved in overseeing the production, certification and sale of the 737 Max 8. This would include the executives at Boeing and all those who have helped to deregulate the industry at the expense of human lives.

Under capitalism, however, Boeing will get little more than a slap on the wrist. Experts estimate the company will likely be fined at most $800 million, less than one percent of the $90 billion Boeing expects in sales from the Max 8 in the coming years. As in Hurricane Katrina, the Wall Street crash in 2008, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017, the brunt of this disaster will be borne by the working class.

The Boeing 737 Max 8 disasters point to the inherent incompatibility between safe, comfortable and affordable air transport and private ownership of the airline industry, as well as the division of the world economy between rival nation-states. These catastrophes were driven by both the greed of Boeing executives and big investors and the intensifying trade conflict between the United States and Europe.

The technological advances that make it possible for travelers to move between any two points in the world in a single day must be freed from the constraints of giant corporations and the capitalist system as a whole. Major airlines and aerospace companies must be expropriated on an international scale and transformed into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities, as part of the establishment of a planned economy based on social need, not private profit.

Bryan Dyne

[Apr 08, 2019] The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos, by Michael Hudson and John Siman - The Unz Review

Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Note: Michael Hudson published and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year in November of last year. It is the first volume in what will be a trilogy on the long history of the tyranny of debt. I have interviewed him extensively as he writes the second volume, The Collapse of Antiquity.

John Siman : Michael, in the first volume of your history of debt -- "

ORDER IT NOW

and forgive them their debts , dealing with the Bronze Age Near East, Judaism and early Christianity -- you showed how over thousands of years, going back to the invention of interest-bearing loans in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, many kings from a variety of Mesopotamian civilizations proclaimed Clean Slate debt cancellations on a more or less regular basis. And you showed that these royal proclamations of debt amnesty rescued the lower classes from debt bondage, maintaining a workable economic balance over many centuries. Because these kings were so powerful -- and, let's say, enlightened -- they were able to prevent the social and economic polarization that is inevitable when there is no check on an oligarchic creditor class extracting exponentially increasing interest from debtors.

But now, as you write the second volume, your theme gets turned upside down. You are showing how the Greeks and the Romans learned about interest-bearing debt from their contacts with Middle Eastern civilizations, but tragically failed to institute programs of Clean Slate debt amnesty. Their failure has been a kind of albatross around the neck of Western economies ever since.

So I'd like to start this conversation in the late 500s BC, because we can see at that time the beginnings of both the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic, plus of two more important civilizations. First was the Athens of Cleisthenes, who had led the overthrow the "tyrant" Hippias and became the father of Athenian democracy. Second, there was the Roman Republic of Lucius Junius Brutus, who overthrew the last of Rome's legendary kings, the "tyrant" Tarquinius Superbus.Third was the Persian civilization of Cyrus the Great. He was a "divine king," in many ways in the ancient tradition of Hammurabi. Fourth were the post-exilic Jews of Ezra and Nehemiah, who returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple and redacted the Bible. They were the inventors of the Jubilee years of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, even though they depicted the teaching as coming from Moses.

So, beginning with the late 500s BC, to what extent was the notion of Clean Slate debt amnesty remembered, and to what extent was it rejected?

Michael Hudson : Every kind of reform, from Mesopotamia to Greece, was put forth as if it simply restored the way things were in the beginning. There was no concept of linear progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only one way to do things, so any reform must be the way the world was meant to be in the very beginning. All reformers would say that in the beginning everybody must have been equal. Their reform was aimed at restoring this state of affairs.

That's why, when Plutarch and even the Spartan kings in the third century BC talked about canceling debts and promoting equality, they said that they were simply restoring the original system that Lycurgus had created. But there was no sign that Lycurgus had really done these things. It was made up. Lycurgus was a legendary figure. So was Moses in the Jewish tradition. When the Bible was redacted and put together after the return from Babylon, they put debt cancellation and land redistribution -- the Jubilee Year -- right in the center of Mosaic Law. So it seemed that this was not an innovation, but what Moses said in the beginning. They created a Moses figure much like the Greeks created a Lycurgus figure. They said that this is how things were meant to be. This is how it was in the beginning -- and it just happened to be their own program.

This was a projection backwards: a retrojection. Felix Jacoby wrote that Athenian history was that way, basically party pamphleteering projecting their ideal program back to Solon or to whomever one might choose as a good guy to model. Writers would then say that this original good guy supported the program that they were proposing in their epoch. This was the ancient analogy to "Constitutional Originalism" in the United States as a frame for right-wing policies.

JS : So, ever since the 500s BC, the surefire way to critique the status quo has been to say you are trying to go back to the Garden of Eden or to some other pristine Saturnian Golden Age.

MH : Yes, you want to say that the unfair world around you isn't what was meant, so this couldn't have been the original plan, because the past had to be a successful takeoff. So the program that reformers always turned out to be what the Founding Fathers meant.

JS : That's veryinspirational!

MH : The key is to appear as a conservative, not a radical. You accuse the existing status quo as being the beneficiaries of the radicals who have distorted the original Fair Plan that you're trying to restore.

JS : So in the 500s BC we have Cyrus -- and his inscription on the Cyrus Cylinder -- boasting that he freed the Babylonians from their tax debt and bonds, and we have the post-exilic Jews proclaiming d'ror [דְּרֹ֛ור] in Leviticus 25, proclaiming "liberty throughout the land." We also have the reforms of Cleisthenes in Athens, isonomia [ἰσονομία, literally, equality under the law], a genuine attempt at democracy. But let's start with Rome. What do you want to say about the nova libertas , the "new liberty" proclaimed in Rome after the last king was expelled and the Republic was founded? Didn't Brutus and his wellborn friends boast that they were the institutors of true liberty?

MH : Liberty for them was the liberty to destroy that of the population at large. Instead of cancelling debts and restoring land tenure to the population, the oligarchy created the Senate that protected the right of creditors to enslave labor and seize public as well as private lands (just as had occurred in Athens before Solon). Instead of restoring a status quo ante of free cultivators -- free of debt and tax obligations, as Sumerian amargi and Babylonian misharum and andurarum meant -- the Roman oligarchy accused anyone of supporting debtor rights and opposing its land grabs of "seeking kingship." Such men were murdered, century after century.

Rome was turned into an oligarchy, an autocracy of the senatorial families. Their "liberty" was an early example of Orwellian Doublethink. It was to destroy everybody else's liberty so they could grab whatever they could, enslave the debtors and create the polarized society that Rome became.

JS : OK, but this program worked. The Republic grew and grew and conquered everyone else for century after century. Then the Principate became the supreme power in the Western world for several more centuries.

MH : It worked by looting and stripping other societies. That can only continue as long as there is some society to loot and destroy. Once there were no more kingdoms for Rome to destroy, it collapsed from within. It was basically a looting economy. And it didn't do more than the British colonialists did: It only scratched the surface. It didn't put in place the means of production that would create enough money for them to grow productively. Essentially, Rome was a financial rentier state .

Rentiers don't create production. They live off existing production, they don't create it. That's why the classical economists said they were supporting industrial capitalists, not British landlords, not monopolists and not predatory banks.

JS : This has all been forgotten, both in the United States and in England --

MH : Let's say, expurgated from the curriculum.

JS : Worse than forgotten!

MH : That's why you don't have any history of economic thought taught anymore in the United States. Because then you'd see that Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and the "Ricardian socialists" and indeed most of the 19th century had a completely opposite idea of what constituted a free market.

JS : Opposite? How so?

MH : Opposite from the neoliberal idea that freedom means freedom for the wealthy to indebt and destroy the economy. Opposite from the liberty of Brutus to overthrow the Roman kings and establish an autocratic oligarchy.

JS : So do we want to see the Roman kings as defenders of the people -- defending them from predatory oligarchs?

MH : Yes, especially Servius Tullius. There was a great flowering of Rome, making it attractive to immigrants by making the city livable for newcomers. They did this because at that time, in the 6th century BC, all societies had a shortage of labor. Labor was the factor of production in short supply, not land. Not even in Athens was land in short supply in the 6th and 5th centuries. You needed labor, and so you had to make it attractive for immigrants to join your society instead of having your people run away, as they would in a society run by creditors reducing clients to bondage.

JS : So you are writing about how Roman liberty was actually the liberty of oligarchic creditors from populist pressures for debt forgiveness. What of the d'ror of Leviticus 25 -- the liberty of the postexilic Jews? Did they actually proclaim years of Jubilee in which debts were forgiven and bondservants were returned to their families?

MH : After the Babylonian Jews returned to Jerusalem, I'm sure that they said that it was time for the land to be returned to its original owners -- and their families, by the way, were the original owners who were exiled in the Babylonian Captivity. I rely largely on Baruch Levine for this idea of the ge'ullah [גְּאֻלָּה], saying give us back our ancestral lands. [See thecolloquium Levine and Hudson co-edited on Land and Urbanization in the Ancient Near East , and their preceding volume on ancient privatization.] There must have been some kind of settlement along those lines. Unfortunately, the Judaic lands did not keep their records on on clay tablets that could be thrown out and recovered thousands of years later. We don't have any record of their economic history after the Return.

JS : Now I've brought along the transcriptions of several Egyptian papyri for you to look at. I also want to show you a papyrus in Aramaic from Judæa. It's not direct evidence that the post-exilic Jews were having Jubilee years, but it's indirect evidence, because it says that a particular debt has to be paid, even during a time of general debt amnesty, even if it falls due in a shmita [שמיטה], a sabbath year. So it sounds like the Jews were finding loopholes --

MH : It certainly sounds like it! Babylonian creditors tried a similar ploy, but this was disallowed. (We have court records confirming the realm's misharum acts.)

JS : In the Mosaic commandments to forgive debt, can we infer that there was some sort of program of debt forgiveness in place already in place in postexilic Jerusalem?

MH : Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign this clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and the rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about [ And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord" = the Jubilee year.] Luke also pointed out that the Pharisees loved money!

JS : Let me ask you about Egypt here. Unfortunately, as you said, the postexilic Jews did not leave us any clay tablets and almost no papyri, but we do have loads of papyri concerning the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. So from, say, 300 B.C. to the death of Cleopatra, we have official evidence that the Egyptian kings proclaimed debt amnesties. Maybe one of the reasons, or perhaps the main reason for this, is because they were so powerful, like the Mesopotamian kings. So even though the Ptolemaic kings were biologically and genetically Macedonian Greek -- married to their sisters, too -- they aspired to rule in the ancient Egyptian pharaonic tradition of We Are God-Kings and We Own Everything in the Kingdom.

MH : Certainly the Hellenistic kings had the ancient pharaonic Sed festivals, which go back thousands of years and were a kind of jubilee. The Egyptians had regular debt cancellations, because under the pharaohs the debts that would have been cancelled were basically tax debts. They were owed to the crown, so he was cancelling debts owed to himself ultimately. And we see this thousands of years later in the trilingual stone, the Rosetta Stone, which the priests wrote for that young boy who was Ptolemy V. They explained to him that this is how Egypt always had done it, and to act as a pharaoh, he had to do the same.

JS : And I think it is worth pointing out here that the same verb-plus-noun combination for forgiving debts that the priests used in Greek on the Rosetta Stone is also used by Matthew in the Lord's Prayer [ἀφῆκεν/ἄφες ὀφειλήματα, aphēken/aphes opheilēmata]. It shows up in lots of papyri. The same Greek verb and noun, again and again and again.

But let's go back to the Greeks of the 500s BC. They are a couple of hundred years out of their Dark Age, so their society has been reconstituted after the demographic wipeout. It's been reconstituted, but without Near Eastern-style "divine kingship" and its Clean Slate proclamations. Just the opposite. Socrates had conversations with the rhapsodes who had memorized and recited the Iliad . Even in their great epic, the Greeks' legendary king of kings Agamemnon comes across as a kind of narcissistic loser. How would you describe Greek kingship, especially the so-called tyrants?

MH : There never really were Greek kings of the type found throughout the Bronze Age Near East and surviving into the first millennium in Assyria and even in Persia. The Greek polities that emerged from their Dark Age were run by what shrewd Classicists call mafiosi , something like the post-Soviet kleptocrats. They formed closed political monopolies reducing local populations to clientage and dependency. In one polity after another they were overthrown and exiled, mainly by aristocratic reformers from the elite families (often secondary branches, as was Solon). Later oligarchic writers called them "tyrants" as an invective, much as the word rex -- king -- became an invective in oligarchic Rome.

These tyrant-reformers consolidated their power by redistributing land from the leading families (or in Sparta, land conquered from Messenia, along with its population reduced to helotage) to the citizen-army at large all over Greece – except in Athens. That was one of the most reactionary cities in the 7th century, as shown by what is known about the laws of Draco. After some abortive coups in the seventh century, Solon was appointed in 594 to avoid the kind of revolution that had led reformer "tyrants" to overthrow narrow aristocracies in neighboring Megara and Corinth. Solon decreed a half-way reform, abolishing debt slavery (but not the debtor's obligation to work off debts with his own labor), and did not redistribute Athenian land from the city's elites.

Athens was one of the last to reform but then because it was such a badly polarized autocratic society, it swung -- like Newton's Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction -- it swung to become the most democratic of all the Greek polities.

Some historians in the past speculated that Solon might somehow have been influenced by Judaic law or other Near Eastern practice, but this is not realistic. I think Solon was simply a pragmatist responding to widespread demands that he do what the reformers -- the so-called tyrants -- were doing throughout Greece. He didn't redistribute the land like they did, but he at least ended outright debt slavery. Free debtors (mainly cultivators on the land) were being seized and sold outside of Athens to slave dealers. Solon also tried to recover some of the land that wealthy families had grabbed. At least, that's what he wrote in his poems describing his actions.

So to answer your question, I think debt cancellations were not a diffusionist policy from the East, but a spontaneous pragmatic response such as was being widely advocated as far west as Rome with its Secession of the Plebs a century later -- followed by much of Greece in the 4th century BC, and Sparta's kings in the late 3rd century BC.

Poorer Athenians were so angry with Solon for being not revolutionary enough that he went into exile for 10 years. The real creators of Athenian democracy were Peisistratos [died 528/7 BC], his sons, also called tyrants, and then Cleisthenes in 507. He was a member of the wealthy but outcast family, the Alcmaeonidae, who had been expelled in the 7th century. Solon had allowed them to return, and they were backed by Delphi (to which the family contributed heavily). Cleisthenes fought against the other oligarchic families and restructured Athenian politics on the basis of locality instead of clan membership. Servius Tullius is credited for enacting much the same reform in Rome. Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society [1877] described this restructuring of voting districts as the great watershed creation of western-style democracy.

JS : Let me go back now to the way Athens and the other poleis emerged from the Dark Age.

MH : Judging from the art and pottery, Greece didn't begin to recover until the 8th century BC.

JS : So we're talking about the 700s BC. As Greece was learning from the Near Eastern civilizations, everything from mythology to the alphabet to weights and measures --

MH : And commercial practices, credit practices.

JS : Yes, all this came from the Near East, including the practice of charging interest. But what about Clean Slate debt amnesty? I want to argue logically here -- not from any hard historical evidence, but only deductively -- that the Greeks would have wanted the concept of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, they would have wanted to learn this too from the Near East, but they could not do it because they were always going to lack a Hammurabi-style "divine king."

MH : I think you miss the whole point of how Western civilization evolved here. First of all, who "wanted" Near Eastern kingship? Certainly not the emerging oligarchies. The ruling elites wanted to use interest-bearing debt to enrich themselves – by obtaining control over the labor power of debtors.

Second, I don't think the Greeks and Italians knew about Near Eastern royal proclamations, except as an alien practice much further East than Asia Minor. Falling into debt was a disaster for the poor, but a means for their Western patrons to gain power, land and wealth. There is no record of anyone suggesting that they should be in the Near East. The connection between the Near East and Greece or Italy was via traders. If you're a Phoenician or Syrian merchant with the Aegean or Italy, you're going to set up a temple as an intermediary, typically on an island. Such temples became the cosmopolitan meeting places where you had the oligarchs of the leading families of Greek cities visiting each other as part of a Pan-Hellenic group. You could say that Delphi was the "Davos" of its day.

It was through these trading centers that culture diffused – via the wealthiest families who travelled and established relationships with other leading families. Finance and trade have always been cosmopolitan. These families learned about debt obligations and contracts from the Near East, and ended up reducing much of their local populations to clientage, without kings to overrule them. That would have been the last thing they wanted.

JS : So absent Hammurabi-style "divine kingship," is debt bondage and brutal polarization almost inevitably going to happen in any society that adopts interest-bearing debt?

MH : We see a balance of forces in the ancient Near East, thanks to the fact that its rulers had authority to cancel debt and restore land that wealthy individuals had taken from smallholders. These kings were powerful enough to prevent the rise of oligarchies that would reduce the population to debt peonage and bondage (and in the process, deprive the palace of revenue and corvée labor, and even the military service of debtors owing their labor to their private creditors). We don't have any similar protection in today's Western Civilization. That's what separates Western Civilization from the earlier Near Eastern stage. Modern financialized civilization has stripped away the power to prevent a land-grabbing creditor oligarchy from controlling society and its laws.

So you could characterize Western Civilization is being decadent. It's reducing populations to austerity on a road to debt peonage. Today's new oligarchy calls this a "free market," but it is the opposite of freedom. You can think of the Greek and Roman decontextualization of Near Eastern economic regulations as if the IMF had been put in charge of Greece and Rome, poisoning its legal and political philosophy at the outset. So Western Civilization may be just a vast detour. That's what my forthcoming book, The Collapse of Antiquity, is all about. That will be the second volume in my trilogy on the history of debt.

JS : So are we just a vast detour?

MH : We have to restore a balanced economy where the oligarchy is controlled, so as to prevent the financial sector from impoverishing society, imposing austerity and reducing the population to clientage and debt serfdom.

JS : How do you do that without a Hammurabi-style "divine kingship"?

MH : You need civil law to do what Near Eastern kings once did. You need a body of civil law with a strong democratic government acting to shape markets in society's overall long-term interest, not that of the One Percent obtaining wealth by impoverishing the 99 Percent. You need civil law that protects the population from an oligarchy whose business plan is to accumulate wealth in ways that impoverish the economy at large. This requires a body of civil law that would cancel debts when they grow too large for the population to pay. That probably requires public banking and credit – in other words, deprivatization of banking that has become dysfunctional.

All this requires a mixed economy, such as the Bronze Age Near Eastern economies were. The palace, temples, private sector and entrepreneurs acted as checks and balances on each other. Western Civilization isn't a mixed economy. Socialism was an attempt to create a mixed economy, but the oligarchs fought back. What they call a "free market" is an unmixed monolithic, centrally planned financialized economy with freedom for the oligarchy to impoverish the rest of society. That was achieved by landlordism monopolizing the land in feudal Europe, and it is done by finance today.

Part 2: Mixed Economies Today, Compared to Those of Antiquity

John Siman : Could you define what you mean by a mixed economy ?

Michael Hudson : There are many degrees of how "mixed" an economy will be -- meaning in practice, how active its government sector will be in regulating markets, prices and credit, and investing in public infrastructure.

In the 20 th century's Progressive Era a century ago, a "mixed economy" meant keeping natural monopolies in the public sector: transportation, the post office, education, health care, and so forth. The aim was to save the economy from monopoly rent by a either direct public ownership or government regulation to prevent price gouging by monopolies.

The kind of "mixed economy" envisioned by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical 19 th century free market economists aimed at saving the economy from land rent paid to Europe's hereditary landlord class. Either the government would tax away the land's rent, or would nationalize it by taking land out of the hands of landlords. The idea was to free markets from economic rent ("unearned income") in general, including monopoly rents, and also to subsidize basic needs to create a price-competitive national economy.

Long before that, in the Bronze Age -- which I describe in and forgive them their debts -- the palace reversed the buildup of personal and agrarian debts by annulling them on a more or less regular basis. This freed the economy from the overgrowth of debt that tended to build up chronically from the mathematical dynamics of compound interest, and from crop failures or other normal "market" phenomenon.

In all these cases a mixed economy was designed to maintain stability and avoid exploitation that otherwise would lead to economic polarization.

JS: So a mixed economy is still a market economy?

MH : Yes. All these degrees of "mixed economy" were market economies. But their markets were regulated and subordinated to broad social and political objectives rather than to personal rent-seeking or creditor gains. Their economic philosophy was long-term, not short-term, and aimed at preventing economic imbalance from debt and land monopoly.

Today's "mixed economy" usually means an active public sector undertaking investment in infrastructure and controlling money and credit, and shaping the context of laws within which the economy operates. This is best understood by contrasting it to what neoliberals call a "pure" or "market" economy – including what the Trump administration accuses China of when it proposes countervailing tariffs to shape the U.S. and international market in a way that favors American corporations and banks.

So it is necessary to clear the terminological slate before going into more detail. Every economy is a "market economy" of some sort or another. What is at issue is how large a role governments will play -- specifically, how much it will regulate, how much it will tax, how much it will invest directly into the economy's infrastructure and other means of production or act as a creditor and regulator of the monetary and banking system.

JS: What can we learn from the mixed economies of the Ancient Near East? Why were they so prosperous and also stable for so long?

MH : The Bronze Age mixed economies of Sumer, Babylonia, Egypt and their Near Eastern neighbors were subject to "divine kingship," that is, the ability of kings to intervene to keep restoring an economy free of personal and rural debt, so as to maintain a situation where the citizenry on the land was able to serve in the military, provide corvée labor to create basic infrastructure, and pay fees or taxes to the palace and temples.

Mesopotamian rulers proclaimed Clean Slates to keep restoring an idealized status quo ante of free labor (free from debt bondage). Babylonian rulers had a more realistic view of the economy than today's mainstream economists. They recognized that economies tended to polarize between wealthy creditors and debtors if what today are called "market forces" are not overridden -- especially the "market forces" of debt, personal liberty or bondage, and land rent. The task of Bronze Age rulers in their kind of mixed economy was to act from "above" the market so as to prevent creditors from reducing the king's subjects (who were their military defense force) to bondage from appropriating their land tenure rights. By protecting debtors, strong rulers also prevented creditors from becoming an oligarchic power in opposition to themselves.

JS: What kind of economic theories and economic models are the critics of mixed economies trying to advance?

MH : Opponents of a mixed economy have developed an "equilibrium theory" claiming to show that markets come to a natural, fair and stable balance without any government "interference." Their promise is that if governments will refrain from regulating prices and credit, from investing and from providing public services, economies will settle naturally at a highly efficient level. This level will be stable, unless "destabilized" by government "interference." Instead of viewing public investment as saving the economy from monopoly rent and debt peonage, the government itself is described as a "rent seeker" exploiting and impoverishing the economy.

JS: But is this sort of economic theory legitimate, or just a libertarian-sounding camouflage for neoliberal pillage?

MH : It's Orwellian Doublethink. Today's neoliberal theory justifies oligarchies breaking free of public control to appropriate the economic surplus by indebting economies to skim off the economic surplus as interest and then foreclose on personal landholdings and public property, overthrowing "mixed economies" to create a "pure oligarchy." Their idea of a free market is one free for creditors and monopolists to deny economic freedom to the rest of the population. The political extension of this approach in antiquity was to unseat kings and civic regimes, to concentrate power in the hands of an increasingly predatory class reducing the economy to bondage, impoverishing it, and ultimately leaving it to be conquered by outsiders. That is what happened to Rome in Late Antiquity.

Advocates of strong government have a diametrically opposite mathematical model. Ever since the Bronze Age, they recognized that the "natural" tendency of economies is to polarize between a wealthy creditor and land-owning class and the rest of society. Bronze Age rulers recognized that debts tend to grow faster than the ability to pay (that is, faster than the economy). Babylonian rulers recognized that if rulers did not intervene to cancel personal debts (mainly agrarian debts by cultivators) when crops failed, when military action interfered, or simply when debts built up over time, then creditors would end up taking the crop surplus and even the labor services of debtors as interest, and finally foreclosing on the land. This would have deprived the palatial economy of land and labor contributions. And by enriching an independent class of creditors (on their way to becoming large landowners) outside of the palace, financial wealth would express itself in economic and even military power. An incipient financial and landholding oligarchy would mount its own military and political campaign to unseat rulers and dismantle the mixed palatial/private economy to create one that was owned and controlled by oligarchies.

The result in Classical Antiquity was economic polarization leading to austerity and bondage, grinding the economy to a halt. That is the tendency of economies in "unmixed" economies where the public sector is privatized and economic regulation is dismantled. Land and credit was monopolized and smallholders became dependent clients and ultimately were replaced by slaves.

Mixed economies by the late 19 th century aimed at minimizing market prices for real estate and monopoly goods, and for credit. The economic aim was to minimize the cost of living and doing business so as to make economies more productive. This was called "socialism" as the natural outgrowth of industrial capitalism protecting itself from the most burdensome legacies of feudalism: an absentee landlord class, and a banking class whose money-lending was not productive but predatory.

JS: So mixed economies require strong and ultimately good governments.

MH : Any "mixed" economy has some basic economic theory of what the proper role of government is. At the very least, as in the 20 th century, this included the limitation of monopoly rents. The neoclassical (that is, anti-classical) reaction was to formulate a euphemistic theory of consumer "demand" -- as if American consumers "demand" to pay high prices for pharmaceuticals and health care. Likewise in the case of housing prices for renters or, for owner-occupied housing, mortgage charges: Do renters and home buyers really "demand" to pay higher and higher rents and larger and larger mortgages? Or are they compelled to pay out of need, paying whatever their suppliers demand ( e.g ., as in "Your money or your life/health").

So to answer your question, a mixed economy is one in which governments and society at large realize that economies need to be regulated and monopolies (headed by credit and land ownership) kept out of the hands of private rent-seekers in order to keep the economy free and efficient.

JS : Has there ever been a civil society that effectively implemented a mixed economy since, say, 500 BC?

MH : All successful economies have been mixed economies. And the more "mixed" they are, the more successful, stable and long-lasting they have been as a result of their mutual public/private checks and balances.

America was a mixed economy in the late 19th century. It became the world's most successful industrial economy because it didn't have an absentee landlord class like Europe did (except for the railroad octopus), and it enacted protective tariffs to endow a domestic manufacturing class to catch up with and overtake England.

JS : Other countries?

MH : Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I. But it had a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural faith in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.

JS : Isn't it pretty brutal in China for most of the population?

MH : Most of the population does not find it brutal there. It was brutal under colonialism and later still, under Mao's Cultural Revolution. But now, most people in China seem to want to get rich. That's why you're having a consolidation period of trying to get rid of the local corruption, especially in the rural areas. You're seeing a consolidation period that requires clamping down on a lot of people who became successful through shady operations.

JS : So how would you describe an ideal society without a Hammurabi-style "divine kingship"? An ideal mixed economy?

MH : The credit system would be public. That way, public banks could create credit for socially productive purposes -- and could cancel the occasional overgrowth of debts without causing private creditors to lose and protest. The public sector also would own and operate the natural infrastructure monopolies. That was the basic principle of classical economics from Adam Smith to Marx, even for erstwhile libertarians such as Henry George. Everybody in the 19th century expected a mixed economy with governments playing a growing role, replacing absentee landlords, bankers and monopolists with public collection of economic rent, public control of the credit system and provider of basic needs.

JS : How extensive should the public sector be?

MH : A classical public sector would include the natural monopolies that otherwise would engage in price gouging, especially the credit and banking system. These sectors should be public in character. For one thing, only a public bank can write down the debts -- like student debts today -- without hurting an independent oligarchic financial class. If student debts and mortgage debts were owed to public banks, they could be written down in keeping with the reasonable ability to be paid. Also, public banks wouldn't make junk mortgage loans to NINJA borrowers, as did Citibank and the other crooked banks. A public bank wouldn't make predatory corporate raiding and takeover loans, or finance and speculate in derivative gambles.

Most of all, when the debt overhead becomes too large -- when a large corporation that is essential to the economy can't pay its debts -- public banks can write down the debt so that the company isn't forced into bankruptcy and sold to an American vulture fund or other vulture fund. It can keep operating. In China the government provides this essential service of public banks.

The key public concern throughout history has been to prevent debt from crippling society. That aim is what Babylonian and other third-millennium and second-millennium Near Eastern rulers recognized clearly enough, with their mathematical models. To make an ideal society you need the government to control the basic utilities -- land, finance, mineral wealth, natural resources and infrastructure monopolies (including the Internet today), pharmaceuticals and health care so their basic services can be supplied at the lowest price.

All this was spelled out in the 19 th century by business school analysts in the United States. Simon Patten [1852-1922] who said that public investment is the "fourth factor of production." But its aim isn't to make a profit for itself. Rather, it's to lower the cost of living and of doing business, by providing basic needs either on a subsidized basis or for free. The aim was to create a low-cost society without a rentier class siphoning off unearned income and making this economic rent a hereditary burden on the economy at large. You want to prevent unearned income.

To do that, you need a concept to define economic rent as unearned and hence unnecessary income. A well-managed economy would do what Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marx and Veblen recommended: It would prevent a hereditary rentier class living off unearned income and increasing society's economic overhead. It's okay to make a profit, but not to make extractive monopoly rent, land rent or financial usury rent.

JS : Will human beings ever create such a society?

MH : If they don't, we're going to have a new Dark Age.

JS : That's one thing that especially surprises me about the United States. Is it not clear to educated people here that our ruling class is fundamentally extractive and exploitative?

MH : A lot of these educated people are part of the ruling class, and simply taking their money and running. They are disinvesting, not investing in industry. They're saying, "The financial rentier game is ending, so let's sell everything and maybe buy a farm in New Zealand to go to when there is a big war." So the financial elite is quite aware that they are getting rich by running the economy into the ground, and that this must end at the point where they've taken everything and left a debt-ridden shell behind.

JS : I guess this gets back to what you were saying: The history of economics has been expurgated from the curriculum.

MH : Once you strip away economic history and the history of economic thought, you wipe out memory of the vocabulary that people have used to criticize rent seeking and other unproductive activity. You then are in a position to redefine words and ideals along the lines that euphemize predatory and parasitic activities as if they are productive and desirable, even natural. You can rewrite history to suppress the idea that all this is the opposite of what Adam Smith and the classicaleconomists down through Marx advocated.

Today's neoliberal wasteland is basically a reaction against the 19 th century reformers, against the logic of classical British political economy. The hatred of Marx is ultimately the hatred of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, because neoliberals realize that Smith and Mill and Ricardo were all leading to Marx. He was the culmination of their free market views -- a market free from rentiers and monopolists.

That was the immediate aim of socialism in the late 19 th century. The logic of classical political economy was leading to a socialist mixed economy. In order to fight Marxism, you have to fight classical economics and erase memory of how civilization has dealt with (or failed to deal with) the debt and rent-extracting problems through the ages. The history of economic thought and the original free-market economics has to be suppressed. Today's choice is therefore between socialism or barbarism, as Rosa Luxemburg said.

JS : Let's consider barbarism: When I observe the neoliberal ruling class -- the people who control the finance sector and the managerial class on Wall Street -- I often wonder if they're historically exceptional because they've gone beyond simple greed and lust for wealth. They now seek above all some barbaric and sadistic pleasure in the financial destruction and humiliation of other people. Or is this historically normal?

MH : The financial class has always lived in the short run, and you can make short-term money much quicker by asset stripping and being predatory can by being productive. Moses Finley wrote that there was not a single productive loan in all of Antiquity. That was quite an overstatement, but he was making the point that there were no productive financial markets in Antiquity. Almost all manufacturing, industry, and agriculture was self-financed. So the reader of Finley likely infers that we modern people have progressed in a fundamental way beyond Antiquity. They were characterized by the homo politicus , greedy for status. We have evolved into homo œconomicus , savvy enough to live in stable safety and comfort.

We are supposedly the beneficiaries of the revolution of industrial capitalism, as if all the predatory, polarizing, usurious lending that you had from feudal times (and before that, from Antiquity), was replaced by productive lending that finances means of production and actual economic growth.

But in reality, modern banks don't lend money for production. They say, "That's the job of the stock market." Banks only lend if there's collateral to grab. They lend against assets in place. So the result of more bank lending is to increase the price of the assets that banks lend against -- on credit! This way of "wealth creation" via asset-price inflation is the opposite of real substantive progress. It enriches the narrow class of asset holders at the top of the economic pyramid.

JS : What about the stock market?

MH : The stock market no longer primarily provides money for capital investment. It has become a vehicle for bondholders and corporate raiders to borrow from banks and private funds to buy corporate stockholders, take the companies private, downsize them, break them up or strip their assets, and borrow more to buy back their stocks to create asset-price gains without increasing the economy's tangible real asset base. So the financial sector, except for a brief period in the late 19th century, especially in Germany, has rarely financed productive growth. Financial engineering has replaced industrial engineering, just as in Antiquity creditors were asset strippers.

The one productive activity that the financial sector engaged in from the Bronze Age onward was to finance foreign trade. The original interest-bearing debt was owed by merchants to reimburse their silent partners, typically the palace or the temples, and in time wealthy individuals. But apart from financing trade – in products that were already produced – you've rarely had finance increase the means of production or economic growth. It's almost always been to extract income. The income that finance extracts is at the expense of the rest of society. So the richer the financial sector is, the more austerity is imposed on the non-financial sector.

JS : That's pretty depressing.

MH : When I did the show with Jimmy Dore [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvcB55R8jM ], he saw that the most important dynamic to understand is that debts grow more rapidly than the economy at large. The rate of interest is higher than the rate of growth. It may not be higher than the profit rate, but it's higher than the rate of growth. So every society that has interest-bearing debt is going to end up deeper and deeper in debt. At a certain point the creditors are paid at the expense of production and investment -- and soon enough they foreclose.

JS : And then?

MH : Then you have debt deflation. That is the norm. Austerity. It is not an anomaly, but the essence. The Babylonians knew this, and they tried to avoid debt deflation by wiping out the predatory personal debts, not the business debts that were commercial and productive. Only the non-commercial debts were wiped out.

JS : How could Modern Monetary Theory be used now, effectively?

MH : The main way is to say that governments don't have to borrow at interest from existing financial "savers," mainly the One Percent. The government can do what America did during the Civil War: print greenbacks. (The MMT version is the Trillion-dollar platinum coin.) The Treasury can provide the money needed by the economy. It does that by running a budget deficit and spending money into the economy. If you don't do that, if you do what Bill Clinton did in the last years of his presidency and run a budget surplus, then you force the economy to depend on banks for credit.

The problem is that bank credit is essentially predatory and extractive. The same thing happens in Europe. The Eurozone governments cannot run a budget deficit of more than 3 percent, so the government is unable to spend enough money to invest in public infrastructure or anything else. As a result, the Eurozone economy is subject to debt deflation, which is exacerbated by people having to borrow from the banks at high interest rates that far exceeds the rate of growth. So Europe is suffering an even more serious debt deflation than the United States.

JS : Is any of this going to change, either in Europe or here?

MH : Not until there's a crash. Not until it gets serious enough that people realize that there has to be an alternative. Right now Margaret Thatcher and the neoliberals have won. She said there was no alternative, and as long as people believe There Is No Alternative, they're not going to realize that it doesn't have to be this way, and that you don't need a private banking sector. A public banking sector would be much more efficient.

JS : How would you sum up Wall Street right now? Is it entirely predatory? Entirely parasitical? What are Wall Street's essential functions now?

MH : Number one, to run a casino. By far the largest volume at stake is betting on whether interest rates, foreign exchange rates or stock prices will go up or down. So the financial system has turned into a gambling casino. Its second aim is to load the economy down with as much debt as possible. Debt is the banking system's "product," and the GDP counts its "carried interest" penalties and late fees, its short-term trading gains as "financial services" counted as part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The aim is to get as much of these financial returns as possible, and finally to foreclose on as much property of defaulting debtors as possible. The business plan -- as I learned at Chase Manhattan years ago -- is to transfer all economic growth into the hands of financial investors, the One Percent. The financial business plan is to create a set of laws and mount a campaign of regulatory capture so that all the growth in the economy accrues to the One Percent, not the 99 Percent. That means that as the One Percent's rentier income grows, the 99 Percent gets less and less each year, until finally it emigrates or dies off, or is put into a for-profit prison, which looks like a growth industry today.

JS : Is there a single good thing that Wall Street does? Is there anything good that comes out of Wall Street?

MH: You have to look at it as a system. You can't segregate a particular action from the overall economy. If the overall system aims at making money in predatory ways at somebody else's expense, then it is a zero-sum game. That is essentially a short-run business model. And politically, it involves opposing a mixed economy. At least, the "old fashioned" socialist mixed economy in which governments subordinate short-term gain-seeking to long-term objectives uplifting the entire economy.

As the Greek philosophers recognized, wealthy people define their power by their ability to injure the rest of society, so as to lord it over them. That was the Greek philosophy of money-lust [πλεονεξία, pleonexia ] and hubris [ὕβρις] -- not merely arrogance, but behavior that was injurious to others.

Rentier income is injurious to society at large. Rentiers define a "free market" as one in which they are free to deny economic freedom to their customers, employees and other victims. The rentier model is to enrich the oligarchy to a point where it is able to capture the government.

Part 3: The Inherent Financial Instability in Western Civilization's DNA

John Siman : It seems that unless there's a Hammurabi-style "divine king" or some elected civic regulatory authority, oligarchies will arise and exploit their societies as much as they can, while trying to prevent the victimized economy from defending itself.

Michael Hudson : Near Eastern rulers kept credit and land ownership subordinate to the aim of maintaining overall growth and balance. They prevented creditors from turning citizens into indebted clients obliged to work off their debts instead of serving in the military, providing corvée labor and paying crop rents or other fees to the palatial sector.

JS : So looking at history going back to 2000 or 3000 BC, once we no longer have the powerful Near Eastern "divine kings," there seems not to have been a stable and free economy. Debts kept mounting up to cause political revolts. In Rome, this started with the Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC, a century after Solon's debt cancellation resolved a similar Athenian crisis.

MH : Near Eastern debt cancellations continued into the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires in the first millennium BC, and also into the Persian Empire. Debt amnesties and laws protecting debtors prevented the debt slavery that is found in Greece and Rome. What modern language would call the Near Eastern "economic model" recognized that economies tended to become unbalanced, largely as a result of buildup of debt and various arrears on payments. Economic survival in fact required an ethic of growth and rights for the citizenry (who manned the army) to be self-supporting without running into debt and losing their economic liberty and personal freedom. Instead of the West's ultimate drastic solution of banning interest, rulers cancelled the buildup of personal debts to restore an idealized order "as it was in the beginning."

This ideology has always needed to be sanctified by religion or at least by democratic ideology in order to prevent the predatory privatization of land, credit, and ultimately the government. Greek philosophy warned against monetary greed [πλεονεξία, pleonexia ] and money-love [φιλοχρηματία, philochrêmatia ] from Sparta's mythical lawgiver Lycurgus to Solon's poems describing his debt cancellation in 594 and the subsequent philosophy of Plato and Socrates, as well as the plays of Aristophanes. The Delphic Oracle warned that money-love was the only thing that could destroy Sparta [Diodorus Siculus 7.5]. That indeed happened after 404 BC when the war with Athens ended and foreign tribute poured into Sparta's almost un-monetized regulated economy.

The problem, as famously described in The Republic and handed down in Stoic philosophy, was how to prevent a wealthy class from becoming wealth-addicted, hubristic and injurious to society. The 7 th -century "tyrants" were followed by Solon in Athens in banning luxuries and public shows of wealth, most notoriously at funerals for one's ancestors. Socrates went barefoot [ἀνυπόδητος, anupodêtos ] to show his contempt for wealth, and hence his freedom from its inherent personality defects. Yet despite this universal ideal of avoiding extremes, oligarchic rule became economically polarizing and destructive, writing laws to make its creditor claims and the loss of land by smallholders irreversible. That was the opposite of Near Eastern Clean Slates and their offshoot, Judaism's Jubilee Year.

JS : So despite the ideals of their philosophy, Greek political systems had no function like that of Hammurabi-like kings -- or philosopher-kings for that matter -- empowered to hold financial oligarchies in check. This state of affairs led philosophers to develop an economic tradition of lamentation instead. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Livy and Plutarch bemoaned the behavior of the money-loving oligarchy. But they did not develop a program to rectify matters. The best they could do was to inspire and educate individuals -- most of whom were their wealthy students and readers. As you said, they bequeathed a legacy of Stoicism. Seeing that the problem was not going to be solved in their lifetimes, they produced a beautiful body of literature praising philosophical virtue.

MH : The University of Chicago, where I was an undergraduate in the 1950s, focused on Greek philosophy. We read Plato's Republic , but they skipped over the discussion of wealth-addiction. They talked about philosopher-kings without explaining that Socrates' point was that rulers must not own land and other wealth, so as not to have the egotistical tunnel vision that characterized creditors monopolizing control over land and labor.

JS : In Book 8 of the Republic , Socrates condemns oligarchies as being characterized by an insatiable greed [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for money and specifically criticizes them for allowing polarization between the super-rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi ] and the poor [πένητες, penêtes ], who are made utterly resourceless [ἄποροι, aporoi ].

MH : One needs to know the context of Greek economic history in order to understand The Republic 's main concern. Popular demands for land redistribution and debt cancellation were resisted with increasing violence. Yet few histories of Classical Antiquity focus on this financial dimension of the distribution of land, money and wealth.

Socrates said that if you let the wealthiest landowners and creditors become the government, they're probably going to be wealth-addicted and turn the government into a vehicle to help them exploit the rest of society. There was no idea at Chicago of this central argument made by Socrates about rulers falling subject to wealth-addiction. The word "oligarchy" never came up in my undergraduate training, and the "free market" business school's Ayn Rand philosophy of selfishness is as opposite from Greek philosophy as it is from Judeo-Christian religion.

JS : The word "oligarchy" comes up a lot in book 8 of Plato's Republic . Here are 3 passages:

1. At Stephanus page 550c "And what kind of a regime," said he, "do you understand by oligarchy [ὀλιγαρχία]?" "That based on a property qualification," said I, "wherein the rich [πλούσιοι] hold office [550d] and the poor man [πένης, penês ] is excluded.

2. at 552a "Consider now whether this polity [ i.e . oligarchy] is not the first that admits that which is the greatest of all such evils." "What?" "The allowing a man to sell all his possessions, which another is permitted to acquire, and after selling them to go on living in the city, but as no part of it, neither a money-maker, nor a craftsman, nor a knight, nor a foot-soldier, but classified only as a pauper [πένης, penês ] and a dependent [ἄπορος, aporos ]." [552b] "This is the first," he said. "There certainly is no prohibition of that sort of thing in oligarchical states. Otherwise some of their citizens would not be excessively rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi ], and others out and out paupers [πένητες, penêtes ]."

3 at 555b: "Then," said I, "is not the transition from oligarchy to democracy effected in some such way as this -- by the insatiate greed [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for that which oligarchy set before itself as the good, the attainment of the greatest possible wealth?"

MH : By contrast, look where Antiquity ended up by the 2 nd century BC. Rome physically devastated Athens, Sparta, Corinth and the rest of Greece. By the Mithridatic Wars (88-63 BC) their temples were looted and their cities driven into unpayably high debt to Roman tax collectors and Italian moneylenders. Subsequent Western civilization developed not from the democracy in Athens but from oligarchies supported by Rome. Democratic states were physically destroyed, blocking civic regulatory power and imposing pro-creditor legal principles making foreclosures and forced land sales irreversible.

JS: It seems that Greek and Roman Antiquity could not solve the problem of economic polarization. That makes me want to ask about our own country: To what extent does America resemble Rome under the emperors?

MH: Wealthy families have always tried to break "free" from central political power -- free to destroy the freedom of people they get into debt and take their land and property. Successful societies maintain balance. That requires public power to check and reverse the excesses of personal wealth seeking, especially debt secured by the debtor's labor and land or other means of self-support. Balanced societies need the power to reverse the tendency of debts to grow faster than the ability to be paid. That tendency runs like a red thread through Greek and Roman history.

This overgrowth of debt is also destabilizing today's U.S. and other financialized economies. Banking and financial interests have broken free of tax liability since 1980, and are enriching themselves not by helping the overall economy grow and raising living standards, but just the opposite: by getting the bulk of society into debt to themselves.

This financial class is also indebting governments and taking payment in the form of privatizing the public domain. (Greece is a conspicuous recent example.) This road to privatization, deregulation and un-taxing of wealth really took off with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan cheerleading the anti-classical philosophy of Frederick von Hayek and the anti-classical economics of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys.

Something much like this happened in Rome. Arnold Toynbee described its oligarchic land grab that endowed its ruling aristocracy with unprecedented wealth as Hannibal's Revenge. That was the main legacy of Rome's Punic Wars with Carthage ending around 200 BC. Rome's wealthy families who had contributed their jewelry and money to the war effort, made their power grab and said that what originally appeared to be patriotic contributions should be viewed as having been a loan. The Roman treasury was bare, so the government (controlled by these wealthy families) gave them public land, the ager publicus that otherwise would have been used to settle war veterans and other needy.

Once you inherit wealth, you tend to think that it's naturally yours, not part of society's patrimony for mutual aid. You see society in terms of yourself, not yourself as part of society. You become selfish and increasingly predatory as the economy shrinks as a result of your indebting it and monopolizing its land and property. You see yourself as exceptional, and justify this by thinking of yourself as what Donald Trump would call "a winner," not subject to the rules of "losers," that is, the rest of society. That's a major theme in Greek philosophy from Socrates andPlato and Aristotle through the Stoics. They saw an inherent danger posed by an increasingly wealthy landholding and creditor ruling class atop an indebted population at large. If you let such a class emerge independently of social regulation and checks on personal egotism and hubris, the economic and political system becomes predatory. Yet that has been the history of Western civilization.

Lacking a tradition of subordinating debt and land foreclosure from smallholders, the Greek and Italian states that emerged in the 7 th century BC took a different political course from the Near East. Subsequent Western civilization lacked a regime of oversight to alleviate debt problems and keep the means of self-support broadly distributed.

The social democratic movements that flowered from the late 19 th century until the 1980s sought to re-create such regulatory mechanisms, as in Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting, the income tax, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, postwar British social democracy. But these moves to reverse economic inequality and polarization are now being rolled back, causing austerity, debt deflation and the concentration of wealth at the top of the economic pyramid. As oligarchies take over government, they lorded it over the rest of society much like feudal lords who emerged from the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the West.

The tendency is for political power to reflect wealth. Rome's constitution weighted voting power in proportion to one's landholdings, minimizing the voting power of the non-wealthy. Today's private funding of political campaigns in the United States is more indirect in shifting political power to the Donor Class, away from the Voting Class. The effect is to turn governments to serve a financial and property-owning class instead of prosperity for the economy at large. We thus are in a position much like that of Rome in 509 BC, when the kings were overthrown by an oligarchy claiming to "free" their society from any power able to control the wealthy. The call for "free markets" today is for deregulation of rentier wealth, turning the economy into a free-for-all.

Classical Greece and Italy had a fatal flaw: From their inception they had no tradition of a mixed public/private economy such as characterized in the Near East, whose palatial economy and temples produced the main economic surplus and infrastructure. Lacking royal overrides, the West never developed policies to prevent a creditor oligarchy from reducing the indebted population to debt bondage, and foreclosing on the land of smallholders. Advocates of debt amnesties were accused of "seeking kingship" in Rome, or aspiring to "tyranny"(in Greece).

JS: It seems to me that you're saying this economic failure is Antiquity's original sin as well as fatal flaw. We have inherited a great philosophic and literary tradition from them analyzing and lamenting this failure, but without a viable program to set it right.

MH: That insight unfortunately has been stripped out of the curriculum of classical studies, just as the economics discipline sidesteps the phenomenon of wealth addiction. If you take an economics course, the first thing you're taught in price theory is diminishing marginal utility: The more of anything you have, the less you need it or enjoy it. You can't enjoy consuming it beyond a point. But Socrates and Aristophanes emphasized, accumulating money is not like eating bananas, chocolate or any other consumable commodity. Money is different because, as Socrates said, it is addictive, and soon becomes an insatiable desire [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ].

JS: Yes, I understand! Bananas are fundamentally different from money because you can get sick of bananas, but you can never have too much money! In your forthcoming book, The Collapse of Antiquity , you quote what Aristophanes says in his play Plutus (the god of wealth and money). The old man Chremylus -- his name is based on the Greek word for money, chrêmata [χρήματα] -- Chremylus and his slave perform a duet in praise of Plutus as the prime cause of everything in the world, reciting a long list. The point is that money is a singular special thing: "O Money-god, people never get sick of your gifts. They get tired of everything else; they get tired of love and bread, of music and honors, of treats and military advancement, of lentil soup, etc., etc. But they never get tired of money. If a man has thirteen talents of silver -- 13 million dollars, say -- he wants sixteen; and if he gets sixteen, he will want forty, and so forth, and he will complain of being short of cash the whole time."

MH: Socrates's problem was to figure out a way to have government that did not serve the wealthy acting in socially destructive ways. Given that his student Platowas an aristocrat and that Plato's students in the Academy werearistocratsas well, how can you have a government run by philosopher-kings? Socrates's solution was not practical at that time: Rulers should not have money or property. But all governments were based on the property qualification, so his proposal for philosopher-kings lacking wealth was utopian. And like Plato and other Greek aristocrats, they disapproved of debt cancellations, accusing these of being promoted by populist leaders seeking to become tyrants.

JS: Looking over the broad sweep of Roman history, your book describes how, century after century, oligarchs were whacking every energetic popular advocate whose policies threatened their monopoly of political power, and their economic power as creditors and privatizers of the public domain, Rome's ager publicus , for themselves.

I brought with me on the train Cæsar's Gallic War . What do you think of Cæsar and how historians have interpreted his role?

MH: The late 1 st century BC was a bloodbath for two generations before Cæsar was killed by oligarchic senators. I think his career exemplifies what Aristotle said of aristocracies turning into democracies: He sought to take the majority of citizens into their own camp to oppose the aristocratic monopolies of landholding, the courts and political power.

Cæsar sought to ameliorate the oligarchic Senate's worst abuses that were stifling Rome's economy and even much of the aristocracy. Mommsen is the most famous historian describing how rigidly and unyieldingly the Senate opposed democratic attempts to achieve a role in policy-making for the population at large, or to defend the debtors losing their land to creditors, who were running the government for their own personal benefit. He described how Sulla strengthened the oligarchy against Marius, and Pompey backed the Senate against Caesar. But competition for the consulship and other offices was basically just a personal struggle among rival individuals, not rival concrete political programs. Roman politics was autocratic from the very start of the Republic when the aristocracy overthrew the kings in 509 BC. Roman politics during the entire Republic was a fight by the oligarchy against democracy and the populace as a whole.

The patricians used violence to "free" themselves from any public authority able to check their own monopoly of power, money and land acquisition by expropriating smallholders and grabbing the public domain being captured from neighboring peoples. Roman history from one century to the next is a narrative of killing advocates of redistributing public land to the people instead of letting it be grabbed by the patricians, or who called for a debt cancellation or even just an amelioration of the cruel debts laws.

On the one hand, Mommsen idolized Cæsar as if he were a kind of revolutionary democrat. But given the oligarchy's total monopoly on political power and force, Mommsen recognized that under these conditions there could not be any political solution to Rome's economic polarization and impoverishment. There could only be anarchy or a dictatorship. So Caesar's role was that of a Dictator -- vastly outnumbered by his opposition.

A generation before Caesar, Sulla seized power militarily, bringing his army to conquer Rome and making himself Dictator in 82 BC. He drew up a list of his populist opponents to be murdered and their estates confiscated by their killers. He was followed by Pompey, who could have become a dictator but didn't have much political sense, so Caesar emerged victorious. Unlike Sulla or Pompey, he sought a more reformist policy to check the senatorial corruption and self-dealing.

The oligarchic Senate's only "political program" was opposition to "kingship" or any such power able to check its land grabbing and corruption. The oligarchs assassinated him, as they had killed Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus in 133 and 121, the praetor Asellio who sought to alleviate the population's debt burden in 88 by trying to enforce pro-creditor laws, and of course the populist advocates of debt cancellation such as Catiline and his supporters. Would-be reformers were assassinated from the very start of the Republic after the aristocracy overthrew Rome's kings.

JS: If Caesar had been successful, what kind of ruler might he have been?

MH: In many ways he was like the reformer-tyrants of the 7 th and 6 th centuries in Corinth, Megara and other Greek cities. They all were members of the ruling elite. He tried to check the oligarchy's worst excesses and land grabs, and like Catiline, Marius and the Gracchi brothers before him, to ameliorate the problems faced by debtors. But by his time the poorer Romans already had lost their land, so the major debts were owed by wealthier landowners. His bankruptcy law only benefited the well-to-do who had bought land on credit and could not pay their moneylenders as Rome's long Civil War disrupted the economy. The poor already had been ground down. They supported him mainly for his moves toward democratizing politics at the expense of the Senate.

JS: After his assassination we get Caesar's heir Octavian, who becomes Augustus. So we have the official end of the Republic and the beginning of a long line of emperors, the Principate. Yet despite the Senate's authority being permanently diminished, there is continued widening of economic polarization. Why couldn't the Emperors save Rome?

MH: Here's an analogy for you: Just as nineteenth-century industrial reformers thought that capitalism's political role was to reform the economy by stripping away the legacy of feudalism -- a hereditary landed aristocracy and predatory financial system based mainly on usury -- what occurred was not an evolution of industrial capitalism into socialism. Instead, industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Rome you had the end of the senatorial oligarchy followed not by a powerful, debt-forgiving central authority (as Mommsen believed that Caesar was moving toward, and as many Romans hoped that he was moving towards), but to an even more polarized imperial garrison state.

JS: That's indeed what happened. The emperors who ruled in the centuries after Cæsar insisted on being deified -- they were officially "divine," according to their own propaganda. Didn't any of them have the potential power to reverse the Roman economy's ever-widening polarization of the, like the Near Eastern "divine kings" from the third millennium BC into the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and even the Persian Empire in the first millennium?

MH: The inertia of Rome's status quo and vested interests among patrician nobility was so strong that emperors didn't have that much power. Most of all, they didn't have a conceptual intellectual framework for changing the economy's basic structure as economic life became de-urbanized and shifted to self-sufficient quasi-feudal manor estates. Debt amnesties and protection of small self-sufficient tax-paying landholders as the military base was achieved only in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Byzantium under the 9 th – and 10 th -century emperors (as I've described in my history of debt cancellations in and forgive them their debts ).

The Byzantine emperors were able to do what Western Roman emperors could not. They reversed the expropriation of smallholders and annulled their debts in order to keep a free tax-paying citizenry able to serve in the army and provide public labor duties. But by the 11 th and 12 th centuries, Byzantium's prosperity enabled its oligarchy to create private armies of their own to fight against centralized authority able to prevent their grabbing of land and labor.

It seems that Rome's late kings did something like this. That is what attracted immigrants to Rome and fueled its takeoff. But with prosperity came rising power of patrician families, who moved to unseat the kings. Their rule was followed by a depression and walkouts by the bulk of the population to try and force better policy. But that could no be achieved without democratic voting power, so faith was put in personal leader -- subject to patrician violence to abort any real economic democracy.

In Byzantium's case, the tax-avoiding oligarchy weakened the imperial economy to the point where the Crusaders were able to loot and destroy Constantinople. Islamic invaders were then able to pick up the pieces.

The most relevant point of studying history today should be how the economic conflict between creditors and debtors affected the distribution of land and money. Indeed, the tendency of a wealthy overclass to pursue self-destructive policies that impoverish society should be what economic theory is all about. We'll discuss this in Part 4.

Part 4: A New "Reality Economics" Curriculum is Needed

John Siman: I want to spell out the implications of the points that Socrates brought up, and with which you and I agree. That leaves the question facing us today: Is the American oligarchy and state as rapacious as that of Rome? Or is it universally the nature of oligarchy in any historical setting to be rapacious? And if so, where is it all leading?

Michael Hudson : If Antiquity had followed the "free market" policies of modern neoliberal economics, the Near East, Greece and Rome would never have gained momentum. Any such "free market" avoiding mutual aid and permitting a wealthy class to emerge and enslave the bulk of the population by getting it into debt and taking its land would have shrunk, or been conquered from without or by revolution from within. That's why the revolutions of the 7 th century BC, led to reformers subsequently called "tyrants" in Greece (and "kings" in Rome) were necessary to attract populations rather than reduce them to bondage.

So of course it is hard for mainstream economists to acknowledge that Classical Antiquity fell because it failed to regulate and tax the wealthy financial and landowning classes, and failed to respond to popular demands to cancel personal debts and redistribute the land that had been monopolized by the wealthy.

The wealth of the Greek and Roman oligarchies was the ancient counterpart to today's Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, and their extractive and predatory behavior is what destroyed Antiquity. The perpetuation of this problem even today, two thousand years later, should establish that the debt/credit dynamic and polarization of wealth is a central problem of Western civilization.

JS : So what were -- and are -- the political and social dynamic at work?

MH : The key is the concept of wealth addiction and how it leads to hubris -- arrogance that seeks to increase power in ways that hurt other people. Hubris is not merely over-reaching; it is socially injurious. The wealthy or power injure other people knowingly, to establish their power and status.

That is what Aristophanes meant when his characters say that wealth is not like bananas or lentil soup. Wealth has no object but itself . Wealth is status -- and also political control. The creditor's wealth is the debtor's liability. The key to its dynamic is not production and consumption, but assets and liabilities -- the economy's balance sheet. Wealth and status in the sense of who/whom. It seeks to increase without limit, and Socrates and Aristotle found the major example to be creditors charging interest for lending "barren" money. Interest had to be paid out of the debtor's own product, income or finally, forfeiture of property; creditors did not provide means of making interest to pay off the loan.

This is the opposite of Austrian School theories that interest is a bargain to share the gains to be made from the loan "fairly" between creditor and debtor. It also is the opposite of neoclassical price theory. The economics taught in universities today is based on a price theory that does not even touch on this point. The liberty that oligarchs claim is the right to indebt the rest of society and then demand full payment or forfeiture of the debtor's collateral. This leads to massive expropriations, as did the Junk Mortgage foreclosures after 2008 when President Obama failed to write down debts to realistic market values for real estate financed on loans far beyond the buyer's ability to pay. The result was 10 million foreclosures.

Yet today's mainstream economics treats the normal tendency to polarize between creditors and debtors, the wealthy and the have-nots, as an anomaly. It has been the norm for the last five thousand years, but economics sidesteps actual empirical history as if it is an anomaly in the fictional parallel universe created by the mainstream's unrealistic assumptions. Instead of being a science, such economics is science fiction.It trains students in cognitive dissonance that distracts them from understanding Classical Antiquity and the driving dynamics of Western civilization.

JS: This gets us back to the question of whether universities should just be shut down and started up all over again.

MH: You don't shut them down, you create a new group of universities with a different curriculum. The path of least resistance is to house this more functional curriculum in new institutions. That's what America's Republican and pro-industrial leaders recognized after the Civil War ended in 1865. They didn't shut down Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the Christian free-trade Anglophile colleges. They created state colleges funded by land grants, such as Cornell in upstate New York, and business schools such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, endowed by industrialists to providing an economic logic for the state's steel-making and related industrial protectionism. The result was an alternative economics to describe how America should develop as what they saw as a new civilization, free of the vestiges of Europe's feudal privileges, absentee ownership and colonialist mentality.

The Republicans and industrialists saw that America's prestige colleges had been founded long before the Civil War, basically as religious colleges to train the clergy. They taught British free trade theory, serving the New England commercial and banking interests and Southern plantation owners. But free trade kept the United States dependent on England. My book America's Protectionist Takeoff describes how the American School of Political Economy, led by Henry Carey and E. Peshine Smith (William Seward's law partner), developed an alternative to what was being taught in the religious colleges.

This led to a new view of the history of Western civilization and America's role in fighting against entrenched privilege. William Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe , and Andrew Dixon White's History of the Warfare of Science with Theology saw the United States as breaking free from the feudal aristocracies that were a product of the way in which antiquity collapsed, economically and culturally.

JS : So business schools were originally progressive!

MH : Surprising as it may seem, the answer is Yes, to the extent that they described the global economy as tending to polarize under free trade and an absence of government protectionism, not to become more equal. They incorporated technology, energy-use and the environmental consequences of trade patterns into economic theory, such as soil depletion resulting from plantation monocultures. Mainstream economics fought against such analysis because it advocated markets "free" for polluters, "free" for nations to pursue policies that made them poorer and dependent on foreign credit.

JS : So this is how the Wharton School's first professor of economics, Simon Patten, one of the founders of American sociology, fits into this anti- rentier tradition! That is such a revelation to me! They developed an analysis of technology's effects on the economy, of monopoly pricing and economic rent as unearned income that increases the cost of living and cost of production. They explained the benefits of public infrastructure investment. Today that is called "socialism," but it was industrial capitalists who took the lead in urging such public investment, so as to lower their cost of doing business.

MH : The first U.S. business schools in the late 19 th century described rentiers as unproductive. That is why today's neoliberals are trying to rewrite the history of Institutionalism in a way that expurgates the Americans who wanted the government to provide public infrastructure to make America a low-cost economy, undersell England and other countries, and evolve into the industrial giant it became by the 1920s.

JS : That was Simon Patten's teaching at the Wharton School -- government-subsidized public infrastructure as the fourth factor of production.

MH : Yes. America's ruling political class tried to make the United States a dominant economy instead of a rentier economy of landlords and financial manipulators.

JS : How did the robber barons fit into this story?

MH : Not as industrialists or manufacturers, but as monopolists opposed by the industrial interests. It was Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting and the Republicans that enacted the Sherman antitrust act. Its spirit was continued by Franklin Roosevelt.

JS :Is today's economy a second age of robber barons?

MH : It's becoming a second Gilded Age. An abrupt change of direction in economic trends occurred after Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were elected in 1979/80. The result has been to invert what the 19 th -century economists understood to be a free market -- that is, a market free from a privileged hereditary class living on unearned income in the form of land rent, monopoly rent and financial extraction.

JS : I was in my first few years of college when Thatcher came in in 1979, and when Reagan was elected in 1980. I asked my economics professors what was going on, but I could not find a single professor to coherently describe the U-turn that was occurring. It certainly wasn't in Paul Samuelson's textbook that we were given.

MH : There's little logic for neoliberalism beyond a faith that short-term greed is the best way to optimize long-term growth. It is natural for the wealthiest classes to have this faith. Neoliberalism doesn't look at the economy as a social system, and it excludes as "externalities" concerns with the environment, debt dependency and economic polarization. It only asks how to make a short-term hit-and-run gain, regardless of whether this is done in a way that has a positive or negative overall social effect. Realistic economic logic is social in scope, and distinguishes between earned and unearned income. That is why economists such as Simon Patten and Thorstein Veblen decided to start afresh and create the discipline of sociology, to go beyond narrow individualistic economics being taught.

Today's mathematical economics is based on circular reasoning that treats all that has happened as having been inevitable. It is all survival of the fittest, so it seems that there is no alternative. This policy conclusion is built into economic methodology. If we weren't the fittest, we wouldn't have survived, so by definition (that is, circular reasoning), any alternative is less than fit.

Regarding the fact that you had to read Samuelson when you were in college, he was famous for his Factor Price Equalization Theorem claiming to prove mathematically that everybody and every nation tends naturally to become more and more equal (if government stands aside). He denied that the tendency of the global economy is to polarize, not equalize. The political essence of this equilibrium theory is its claim that economies tend to settle in a stable balance. In reality they polarize and then collapse if they do not reverse their polarizing financial and productivity and wealth dynamics are.

The starting point of economic theorizing should explain the dynamic that lead economics to polarize and collapse. That is the lesson of studying antiquity that we have discussed in our earlier talks. Writers in classical antiquity, like Bronze Age Near Eastern rulers before them and the Biblical prophets, recognized that a rentier economy tends to destroy the economy's productivity and widespread prosperity, and ultimately its survival. In today's world the Finance, Insurance,and Real Estate [FIRE] sector and monopolies are destroying the rest of the economy, using financial wealth to take over the government and disable its ability to prevent their operating in corrosive and predatory ways.

JS : Why aren't more people up in arms?

MH : They're only up in arms if they believe that there is an alternative. As long as the vested interests can suppress any idea that there is an alternative, that matters don't have to be this way, people just get depressed. In our third interview you spoke about Socrates and the Stoics producing a philosophy of lamentation and resignation. By his day there seemed no solution except to denounce wealth. When matters got much worse in the Roman Empire, wealth was abhorred. That became the message of Christianity.

What is needed is to define the scope of the alternative that you want. How can the economy grow when households, business, and government have to pay more and more of their revenue to the financial sector, which then turns around and lends its interest and related income out to indebt the economy even more? The effect is to extract even more income. Rising government debt and tax cuts for the rentiers lead to the privatization of public infrastructure and natural monopolies. Higher prices are charged for tolls to pay for public healthcare, education, roads and other services that were expected to be provided for free a century ago. Financialized privatization thus creates a high-rent, high-cost economy -- the opposite of industrial capitalism evolving into socialism to finally free society from rentier income.

JS: Wouldn't that be based on the insatiable desire [ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for money and the super-rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi ] oligarchs in Book 8 of Plato's Republic ? So we get back to my question: Is the behavior of the super-rich a constant in human nature?

MH: Money-love [φιλοχρηματία, philochrêmatia ] has always been extreme because wealth is addictive. But their dynamic of credit -- other peoples' debts -- increasing at compound interest is mathematized and the economy is put on automatic pilot to self-destruct. Its business plan to "create wealth" by making financial gains at somebody else's expense, without limit. This kind of financial wealth is a zero-sum activity. The wealth of the creditor class, the One Percent, is achieved by indebting the 99 Percent.

JS: Why is it a zero-sum activity?

MH: A zero-sum activity is when one party's gain is another's loss. Instead of income paid to creditors being reinvested in means of production to help the economy grow, it's spent on buying more assets. The most wasteful examples are corporate stock buyback programs and financial raids. And the largest effect of financialization occurs as loans and Quantitative Easing simply bid up the price of real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets. The effect is to put housing and a retirement income further out of range of people who have to live by working for wages and salaries instead of living off absentee ownership, interest and financial asset-price gains.

JS: Why is this being done instead of investing in the economy to help the population live a better and more prosperous life?

MH: The tax and regulatory system is set up to make financial gains or create monopoly privileges. That is quicker and more certain, especially in an economy shrinking as a result of financialization and the austerity it imposes. It's hard to make profits by investing in a shrinking economy suffering from debt deflation and a squeeze on family budgets to pay for health care, education and other basic needs.

JS: So it becomes more about extraction. Let's come back to Global Climate Change and rising sea levels as a foundation of American foreign policy.

MH: Since the 19th century, American policy has been based on the recognition that GDP growth reflects rising energy use per capita. Rising productivity is almost identical with the curve of energy use per worker. That was the basic premise of E. Peshine Smith in 1853, and subsequent writers, whom I describe in America's Protectionist Takeoff: 1918-1914 . The policy conclusion is that if you can control the source of energy -- which remains mainly oil and coal -- then you can control global GDP growth. That is why Dick Cheney invaded Iraq: to grab its oil. It is why Trump announced his intention to topple Venezuela and take its oil.

If other nations are obliged to buy their oil from the United States or its companies, then it's in a monopoly position to turn off their electricity (like the United States did to Venezuela) and hurt their economies if they don't acquiesce in a world system that lets American financial firms come in and buy out their most productive monopolies and privatize theirpublic domain. That's why America's foreign policy is to monopolize the world's oil, gas and coal in order to have a stranglehold on the rate of growth of other countries by being able to deny them energy. It's like denying countries food in order to starve them out. The aim isto exploit Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America what Rome exploited its Empire.

JS: Would you be comfortable using words like evil to describe what's going on now?

MH : Evil essentially is predatory and destructive behavior. Socrates said that it ultimately is ignorance, because nobody would set out intentionally to do it. But in that case, evil would be an educational system that imposes ignorance and tunnel vision, distracting attention from understanding how economic society actually works in destructive ways. On that logic, post-classical neoliberal economics and the Chicago Boys are evil because their ideology breeds ignorance and leads its believers to act in ways that are injurious to society, preventing personal fulfillment through economic growth. Evil is a policy that makes most of society poorer, simply in order to enrich an increasingly wealth-addictive rentier layer at the top. Werner Sombart described the bourgeoisie as floating like a globules of fat on top of a soup.

JS: This is now happening on a path that follows an exponential extreme. I guess global warming makes it particularly evil. We're not simply talking about taking advantage of other people within a society, we're talking about destruction of the planet and its environment.

MH: Economists dismiss this as an "externality," that is, outside the scope of their models. So these models are deliberately ignorant. You could say that this makes them evil.

JS: That is what I've suspected since we started the Iraq War in 2003.

MH: America's military buildup, its anti-environmental policy and global wars are part of the same symbiotic strategy. The reason why America will not be part of a real effort to mitigate global warming is that its policy is still based on grabbing the oil resources of the Near East, Venezuela, and everywhere else that it can. Also, the oil industry is the most tax-exempt and politically powerful sector. If it also happens to be the primary cause of global warming, that is viewed as just collateral damage to America's attempt to control the world by controlling the oil supply. In that sense the environmental impasse is a byproduct of American imperialism.

JS: What's hopeful in the United States right now? What is a possible good outcome?

MH: T he precondition would be for people to realize that there is an alternative. Starting with wiping out of student debts, they can realize that the overall debt overhead can be wiped out without hurting the economy -- and indeed, rescuing it from the financial rentier class inasmuch as all debts on the liabilities side of the balance sheet have their counterpart on the asset side as the savings of today's financial oligarchy, which is doing to the U.S. economy what Rome's Senate did to the ancient world.

JS: How can people proceed from here?

MH: Understanding must come first. Once you have to have a sense of history, you realize that there is an alternative. You also see what happens when a creditor oligarchy gets strong enough to prevent any public power from writing down debts and to prevent attempts to tax it.

You have to do to America today what the Republicans did after the Civil War: You have to have a new university curriculum dealing with economic history, the history of economic thought and the real world's long-term development.

JS: And what would be the premise for such economic history?

MH: T he starting point is to realize that civilization began in the ancient Near East, and made a turn to oppose a strong public regulatory sector in Classical Greece and Rome. The long-term tension is the eternal fight by the oligarchy of creditors and large land owners to reduce the rest of society to serfdom, and to oppose strong rulers empowered to act in the economy's long-term interest by creating checks against this polarization.

JS : So how much longer does this go on -- for months, for years, for decades?

MH : It always goes on longer than you think it will. Inertia has a great elastic self-reinforcing power. Polarization will widen until people believe that there is an alternative and decide to fight for it. Two things are required for this to happen: First, a large proportion of people need to see that the economy is impoverishing them, and that the existing picture of what is happening is misleading. Instead of wealth trickling down, it is defying gravity and sucking income up from the base of the economic pyramid. People are having to work harder just to stay in place, until their life style breaks down.

Second, people must realize that it doesn't have to be this way. There is an alternative

JS : Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation will make things worse, and that the wealthy are job creators, not job destroyers. They think that the system needs to be bolstered, not replaced, because the alternative is "socialism" -- that is, what the Soviets did, not what Franklin Roosevelt was doing. But today bailing out the banks and giving subsidies to new employers is said to be for our own good.

MH : That's what the Romans told their provinces. Everything they did was always to preserve "good order," meaning open opportunities for their own wealth grabbing. They never said they were out to destroy and loot other societies. Madeline Albright followed this rhetorical pattern in describing as being, like the Romans and France's brutal mission civilisatrice , a program to uplift the world free-market efficiency. For performing this service, the imperial power takes all the money that its colonies, provinces and allies can generate. That's why the U.S. meddles in foreign politics, as we have just seen in Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

JS : You've described the greatest meddling as distorting the narrative of history to depict creditor and rentier drives toward oligarchy as being democratic and helping to raise living standards and culture. Your books show just the opposite.

MH : Thank you. (Republished from Naked Capitalism by permission of author or representative)


Dutch Boy , says: April 6, 2019 at 7:07 pm GMT

Questions for Dr. Hudson: Why should a public banking system charge interest at all on loans? Could they not merely charge a one-time service fee to cover the cost of loan administration and a one-time insurance fee to cover the costs of defaulting on the loan? After all, they are not actually loaning money – they are creating money at minimal risk to the bank. Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.
obwandiyag , says: April 7, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT
But, you see, Michael Hudson is a liberal, and so you can't listen to him. Even if you understood what he was saying.
wayfarer , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:58 am GMT
Abrahamism, the red herring du jour, for humanity.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:14 am GMT
@Dutch Boy

Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.

The school of Salamanca is where this idea of interest on money was codified, where the Jesuit priests proclaimed it as a loss of wants. That is, since people loaned out their money, they didn't get use of it, so they should be paid for their loss.

If you examine how banking works, banks hypothecate new money the moment you sign a debt instrument. Both the new bank credit and debt instrument pop into being simultaneously.

To ask for compounding interest on this simple legerdemain is an outrageous abuse, so you are right it is theft.

There are situations where it is not usurious. For example, Schacht's MefoBills scheme, the interest fluxed outward from Reichsbank to the bill holder. A bill would be presented to industry, and said industry would then start work making goods. Bill would then be presented for discount, which is fancy way of saying paid for, or paid off. Upon discount, bill would be examined to see if goods were produced. Then the bill would be paid its full face value AND the interest it accrued.

Reichsmarks flowed from Reichsbank to the bill holder, who was paid interest. The bill holder then spent his new Reichsmarks into the money supply.

Benjamin Franklin's public bank spent into the commons the extra money necessary for debtors to pay interest on their loans. The commons were improved, so one could view this as non usurious, even though it was positive interest. For the most part, FEES are all that should accompany new loans, not compounding interest.

Canada had a quasi sovereign economy 1938 to 1974 and spent debt free into the commons and on public infrastructure, their economy did not polarize toward creditors. The Ministry of Finance owned all the common shares of Bank of Canada. BOC was a crown bank.

Note in all the "good" examples, interest flowed outward from an exogenous creator toward the population. In bad examples of interest, it drains purchasing power from the population.

By the way, a MEFOBILL scheme today could be used to release debts. The bill is created exogenously by Treasury or even a shell company. The bill has a drawer, payee and drawee. It is like a check. It channels toward a specific goal. For example, if you wanted to pay off student debts, then the bill would aim at the student, who then presents bill to bank holding student's debt instrument. Bill would eventually make its way to the FED through bank reserve loops, and FED would expand their ledger. FED would use their keyboard to make new dollars, which flow back into private bank system to pay off the students debt instrument. So double entry mechanic laws are not abrogated. Student's debt disappeared, and Mefobill stays on FED ledger forever, not accruing interest. Or, you could specify a small amount of interest to the bank as a fee for their operations.

U.S. could use Mefobill scheme to lure industry back to the U.S. as it specifically channels toward a goal.

The money system is something we humans created, it can be used for good or ill. To paraphrase Michael, we need good civil law that codes for morality.

Max , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:42 am GMT
That was a soul-transforming read. It put into words what I could never put into words, but on an instinctive level I have always felt these things. I have always had this irrational hatred of bankers, landlords, capitalists, and any one else who dances to that faggy Gordon Gekko tune. But I could never figure out why, let alone explain it clearly. This article has done that for me right here and right now today. I am so grateful. This one is a keeper, now I finally understand my hate. And I am proud of it. This is why Hitler was a good person, he made these little bitch finance fags squeal and screech like the untermenschen they really are.

It is interesting to note that the facts explored in this article corroborate and synchronize with the facts explored in an amateur work titled "The Sumerian Swindle: How the Jews Betrayed Mankind." If you look you can print the book free off the internet somewhere.

From now on I only see humans in two distinct groups: productive people who work for a living, and parasitic leeches who exploit the former. Twas ever thus. Let us successfully genocide the latter in the near future.

Heil Hitler!

Sean , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:49 am GMT
The book sounds extremely interesting. I will probably get it, but that thing about the Kaiser is a bad mistake. The German nation had been subjected to France and its proxies marching across it for centuries. As always happens it unified in the face of threat, but financially the structure was still harking back to the Holy Roman Empire. Being decentralised as far as raising revenues was concerned, the Kaiser was unable to exert the full strength of Germany. The Weimar government instituted reforms were intended to remedy that for defensive purposes, but unfortunately Hitler inherited those reforms and that extra wherewithal was a major reason for the early military successes in WW2 that set the world agog.

Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I. But it had a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural faith in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.

Dubious.France had financed massive military preparation by Russia, and Poincaire (cousin of the brilliant physicist) was fixated with recovering Alsace and Lorraine (where he was born). The military situation was gravely deteriorating for Germany partly because Germany. The Kaiser did not attack France in 1905 when Britain had a tiny army and Russia was in chaos. That was the craziest thing he did as leader.

G. Poulin , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine Kingship without having Divine Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad distribution of wealth. But he also says that the oligarchy makes the laws and appoints the "elected" lawmakers. So he's engaged in an exercise in wishful thinking. There is no democratic path to his desired result.
jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 12:16 pm GMT
An excellent tour de force completely relevant to the major problems we face today, so thank you , Ron Unz!

and turn the government into a vehicle to help them exploit the rest of society.

It's extremely obvious that's is exactly what our "constitution" was designed to do. Hudson's insistence that debt must be government controlled runs into the problem consistently, which both he and the interviewer discuss.

Essentially, the problem is that whoever gets the power will abuse it. "The government" is no more a disinterested group of parties than the oligarchs or the plutocrats. The best answer is to have a noble ruling class, but good luck with that; it will never happen at least on a permanent basis.

So what's the answer? I wish I knew

The best [the Greek philosophers] could do was to inspire and educate individuals

I highly doubt anyone can do much more, but the last thing to do is to hope for some Messiah, especially a rich one. Are you tRumpeteers listening?

PS: I liked the mention of Aristophanes. All of his plays are as instructive as they are amusing and should be read by all. Same with Lucian of Samosata and Juvenal to mention just a few.

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 12:39 pm GMT
JS said: "Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation will make things worse,"

Er, no, most people do not "think" that [ if they "think" at all].

They mostly "think" the exact opposite.

Due to their public [ie government funded] er,"education" [ie brainwashing], they are actually dumb enough to believe that more government, and more regulations will make things better for them, despite the fact that more than any other factor, it is the size and scope of government that has directly caused the financial problems most of them are now experiencing. "Stupid is a stupid does".

In fact, more, bigger government and more regulations will only further increase poverty and make things even worse for them all than they are today.

This just in:

"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree

Government doesn't work" Harry Browne

"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock

"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

Regards, onebornfree

Externality Combustion , says: April 7, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
Regarding global warming: Given that " just five to six degrees in average global warming would be enough to wipe out most life on the planet ," and realizing that the Trump Administration's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has already acquiesced to 4°C by 2100 , it is apparent that by 2125 to 2150 or soon thereafter, humanity will be over, guaranteed. Probably much sooner. Even completely destroying industrial civilization right now won't stop the 6th Mass Extinction, because of McPherson's Paradox .
David , says: April 7, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT

There was no concept of linear progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only one way to do things, so any reform must be the way the world was meant to be in the very beginning.

The Hebrews had their liberation from captivity, Hesiod had his three prior ages "before there was iron," Odysseus travels the world observing the various ways of men, Plato envisions a radical transformation of human society, Aristotle compares the constitutions of various Greek city-states, Thucydides resorts to archaeology to show that the Athenians were not the original inhabitants of the Attic Peninsula.

It's not difficult to come up with what seem to be counter examples to Hudson's assertion that there was no "linear progress" and no vision of other ways of doing things in Antiquity. Ancient Mediterranean societies did see humanity as moving in a direction, evolving by discovery and by making new institutions to address novel problems.

jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 1:09 pm GMT
@Sean

but that thing about the Kaiser is a bad mistake.

I found that peculiar as well. Another thing that was out of place was the "deification" of Teddy Roosevelt and his so called trust busting as well as FDR's continuously "evolving" New Deals. Both Roosevelts and their programs were tRump-like frauds whose main interest was self aggrandizement at whatever cost.

Like tRump, the rhetoric was grand but the motive and execution left much to be desired. While I get what Hudson is saying when he sez "there oughta be a law," I think history has proven, repeatedly, that while there's a possibility that there ought to be one, it's not likely it'll do much good, and certainly no permanent good.

Great article nevertheless.

DESERT FOX , says: April 7, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
The greatest debt creator in the history of America is the zionists privately owned FED and the zionist owned central banks in every country in the world that create money out of thin air and charge the goyim/proles for the use of this zionist created charade, which started in 1913 here in the zio/US with the diabolical draconian demonic FED.

Free America, abolish the FED and return to government created , debt free money as was the case prior to December 23, 1913!

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 1:22 pm GMT
@Externality Combustion Externality Combustion says: "it is apparent that by 2125 to 2150 or soon thereafter, humanity will be over, guaranteed."

Hmm .Unless we all vote for . who exactly[who promises to do what, exactly]?

Who's gonna be our saviour, according to you, pray tell ?

Regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 2:39 pm GMT
@G. Poulin G. Poulin says: "Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine Kingship without having Divine Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad distribution of wealth. "

Yup. The whole, as per usual, "benevolent dictator" fantasy writ large, yet once again. It never stops.

You'd think that by now, this late in the game, and given history, that most people would have finally figured out that government "solutions" never worked , and never can, or will.

But no, luckily for governments, there's always a plentiful supply of new, brainwashed dreamer/fantasists [or "suckers" as P.T Barnum reportedly called them], who are ever more eager for a government that does what they think it should do, and who "think" that it/they actually will, despite all the historical evidence directly contradicting their inane fantasies.

See: "Why Government Doesn't Work" by Harry Browne:
https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Why_Government_Doesn%27t_Work

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the
government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of
kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

–Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.

" idealists and realists begin to get on each other's nerves. But the real difference is in the capacity for appreciating the immense gap of blue inane which separates earth from heaven, and in the realist's unwillingness to assume that men have angels' wings. "

– Walter Lippman, Angels to the Rescue, The New Republic, January 1, 1916, p. 221 –

Human nature is still human nature. The angels haven't started breeding yet.

– William Allen White, Graft and Human Nature, review of Public Plunder, by David G. Loth, The Saturday Review, October 1, 1938, p. 6

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:24 pm GMT
@onebornfree oneborn free, your screed is you projecting fears about abusive government.

Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly constructed government that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize toward creditors if certain safeguards are not put in place.

So, you will have to come to grips with your cognitive dissonance.

Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role." Anything outside of that role is government overstepping its bounds.

By providing the framework, Hudson is doing the world a tremendous service, and as such he will go down as one of the great men of history.

New glasses are being put on your nose, but you prefer to wear your old glasses that make you see improperly?

It reminds me of all the wishful thinking about China, how their ghost cities are going to do them in, and their economy cannot keep doing so well, and so on. It is people not believing what is right in front of their eyes, or their inability to see outside of their brainwashed mentality.

Wally , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:44 pm GMT
@obwandiyag No, Hudson is a Communist.
MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT
Hudson says that public banks are an option for erasing debts.

China does this now with their state banks, which is one of their secret weapons.

In the mid 90's China swept all of their old communist era debt into the trash can. This then made their "books" look good to Western Finance standards, and China was essentially given MFN status.

Then it was game on! Wall Street soon greenmailed American industry to leave for China, to then get some of that wage arbitrage. We are living in the aftermath of this civilization destroying decision making by our ruling finance class.

China has helped the wall street finance class loot America, as China creates new Yuans from their state banks to match their countries growth rate. These new Yuans have to be there in order to swap for dollars won in trade. The dollars end up in China's state banks, and are recycled back to the U.S. to buy TBills instead of buying goods from mainstreet.

Today and reality is staring you in the face. Look at it. America's finance class did indeed export jobs and our patrimony, and china did indeed use their public banking system. China is working for their people's benefit, while a traitor class of finance oligarchy is working against the public interest in America.

Those of you who are against Public banks need to get real and look at actual data. For example, the bank of North Dakota is a public bank and has a good track record. Please, use data and think for yourself rather than being a brainwashed dupe.

Another way is to continue to use PRIVATE BANKS, and have public money. The money supply is nationalized, not the bank. All new money comes into being from a monetary authority or Treasury as per the constitution. Banks then become gyro, which is a fancy word for inter-mediation. Banks stop making money with a new debt instrument, but instead only match up new creditors and debtors with existing money.

Within each private bank are two piles of numbers: 1) Pile A is people's savings, which preferably was debt free at inception 2) Pile B is government credit, or national credit.

National Credit can be channeled toward specific goals that the country has agreed is in its interests.

You as a debtor can borrow from either pile. The national credit creates a debt instrument that can be easily jubileed in the same easy way as could a debt instrument hypothecated at a public bank.

Public banks to my mind are a little too close to government even though they have a good history. Nationalizing the money supply instead is better. Why? A good percentage of supply becomes floating money (debt free) and this component becomes a permanent inheritance to the people, giving them freedom to do commerce. An economically free people are also politically free.

Externality Combustion , says: April 7, 2019 at 3:56 pm GMT
@onebornfree Savior? Nothing can stop what has been set in motion, namely, Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction, as the climate shifts rapidly to a New Cretaceous "hothouse" climate. Neither voting nor your anarchism can invalidate scientific evidence. Apparently, you can't read, because McPherson's Paradox explains humanity's conundrum in plain terms: (a) continuing to evaporate Earth's coal beds and oil fields into the atmosphere ensures our quick extinction from global warming, and (b) stopping fossil fuel use only hastens our demise, because of "global masking effect" or " global dimming ." Do you really think that evaporating coal beds and oil fields into the atmosphere has no consequences?

"[T]heir complete extinction (in the co-extinction scenario) was abrupt, and happened far from their tolerance limits, and close to global diversity collapse ( around 5 °C of heating )"

Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change (Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 16724, published 13 November 2018) http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1

Remember, Trump has already promised 4 °C of heating is baked into the cake, and stopping fossil fuel use would remove the "global dimming" effect of air pollution and lead to a near instantaneous rise of 2°C. A true paradox has no solution.

Biff , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
@onebornfree You're a broken record that needs to be tossed up in the air in front of a twelve gauge.
flashlight joe , says: April 7, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS @MEFOBILLS

Very good and well thought out reply.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
@onebornfree Young man (I'm guessing):

1. Please use your commenting privilege to address the substance of the articles. The sentence that you first quote is ancillary to this one, but you've plucked it out as a wedge for your umpteenth anarchic strut.

2. Why so frequently insulting? I happen to share your general perspective, but if you're prosletyzing your style stinks.

3. If nothing else, please realize that you only need to piss once on each hydrant to leave your mark.

Stern , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
Sorry for my English. Could anyone write about whether or not there is a consolidated influence of the Zionist Jewish community within China?
strikelawyer , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMT
Can't we just solve our problems with a constitutional amendment?

https://strikelawyer.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/homestead-amendment-just-the-text/

niteranger , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:17 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The Control of Economies by the Magic Jews." The Jews control all pathways including media, social and economic which they will never relinquish because with the money they make they control the world's politicians by using the greed of mankind against them.

The Jews use the Holocaust to intimidate stupid whites in Western Civilization with guilt and control everything including our foreign policy to immigration. Civilization will not survive as long as the power of the Jews continue to rule mankind.

tz1 , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy Consider that a 10 year loan at 4% now would then have a fee (simple, not even compound interest) of 40% of the principle.

It defeats the purpose of a loan paying over time. Even the 20% down is for equity, not prepayment of interest.

Or you could simply roll the fees in. There is a House for sale for $200,000. The bank buys it but then to get ownership with lein, and you have to pay the bank $300,000 to cover everything (do you get any equity before going positive?).

How about just saving money including gold in your mattress until you can afford something?

tz1 , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:22 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost their homes
jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@Stern

Sorry for my English. Could anyone write about whether or not there is a consolidated influence of the Zionist Jewish community within China?

Your English is fine, and your question excellent.

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:28 pm GMT
@niteranger

Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The Control of Economies by the Magic Jews."

Hudson does but in a peripheral way. See below. Our (((friends))) like to use their capital rather than labor. They use usury as a weapon, and tend to be among the Oligarch class. Why? Because their religion gives cover and sanction for predatory behavior. Note that our friends adore Hillel. Jewish religion went off the rails after Hillel, and is now an apologist for the creditor class, and hence against a balanced logos type world.

Hudson cannot go after the Jews, but I can and so can you. It is ok to point out where Jewish ideology becomes "Crime Inc." In fact, I find the most moral people to be anti-semites, so Hudson who obviously has a strong moral basis, is smart enough to NOT touch the Jewish third rail, or he would become persona non-grata.

There is no question Hudson possesses a first class mind, and by not touching the third rail he is preserving his career. It is up to us to decode what he is saying and we can be more blunt about things.

You don't have to be Jewish to be a predator, and by association most of us can decode what he is saying.

MH: Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign this clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and the rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about

Sean , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
@jacques sheete He also seems very keen on China's policy. From what I can make out this is because the government loans the money and can cancel the debt. So China being locked into growth by massively Keynesian policies that cannot be haltet for fear of global economic collapse is a good thing it seems. Hmmm.
jacques sheete , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:34 pm GMT
@flashlight joe Yes it is. I prefer his second option.
MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT
@tz1 Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost their homes

______________________________________________________

Yes of course. It would have been much better to take over the banks and give the "bond holders" a haircut.

What the haircut means is that the debt instrument cannot make claims on the future. The amount it can claim is written down to what the real economy can pay.

Our financial oligarchy did not want to take a haircut, and since they own the government, they made their politician puppets dance.

We cannot see what is in the bill till we pass the bill.

Some here have pointed out that democracy is a joke. Yes it is. Universal Suffrage democracy, where any rube can vote is especially bad.

You do need a ruling class which looks like the people it rules over. This ruling class also has to be servants of their people.

China's ruling class is constantly polling their people to get data on how they are doing. If a politician is found to be corrupt, they are killed or ejected. Think of it like your body, bad elements and parasites are attacked by the immune system, otherwise you (the host) will die.

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Biff "You're a broken record that needs to be tossed up in the air in front of a twelve gauge."

Seem like a lot of trouble to go to – especially as I might be carrying a 12 gauge, or similar, myself

This just in:
there's an "ignore" button – I suggest you learn how to use it.

No regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 8:52 pm GMT
@anonymous anonymous[340] • Disclaimer says: " your style stinks. "

I happen to like to "stink". Get used to it, get over it, or use the "ignore" button.

No regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
@Wally Wally says: "No, Hudson is a Communist."

Yes, that appears to be the case.

But regardless of whether the "commniunist" label is completely accurate or not, he's just yet another in a long line of naive intellectuals who thinks that the government can solve problems, problems it alone created.

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

Regards, onebornfree

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 8:59 pm GMT
@tz1 Fee's on a loan should cover the bank's cost, which is a tiny fraction of what they take now in the form of usury.

Think closely on this, the bank makes a loan, and it is only a matter of typing of a debt instrument. Today with computers that amounts to a few minutes of work. They then on-sale the debt instrument to another, usually TBTF bank, and get rid of any risk.

The better way is for people to pool their savings, and the bank is gyro. Debtor then buys a house borrowing your savings. The old savings and loan system worked like this.

In Canada, when they had a sovereign banking system (1938 to 1974) they used trusts. Banks were not allowed to hypothecate new housing loans. Trusts and savings and loans both pool existing money and loan it out.

It was a beneficial cycle where the young borrowed from the old, and the old benefited from some interest income, to then buy goods and services produced by the young.

Interest isn't always bad, but you have to look at it in context. About 70% of debt instruments resident at banks are hypothecated against land. This is so finance oligarchy can GRAB THE LAND in a depression via swaps or other schemes. Depressions are inevitable when M2 is always draining to pay debts at interest.

In the case of Canada's trust system, the interest was cycling back to the young (interest was pointing outward to the population) to buy goods and services they produced.

onebornfree , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:18 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly constructed government that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize toward creditors if certain safeguards are not put in place.So, you will have to come to grips with your cognitive dissonance. Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role." Anything outside of that role is government overstepping its bounds."

Short answer: "The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role.""

This just in: it's "proper role" [ in the US] was already [supposedly ]"set" via the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and more famously via a coup d'etat which resulted in the scam called "The Constitution and Bill of Rights" .

Although the Constitution remains a scam to this day, a return to its supposed limits would, at least temporarily, drastically downsize the federal government, which would be step in the right direction.

For government is the problem, never the solution.

But of course, yourself [and most others here] remain too brainwashed [by the government, and with your money] to ever understand that

regards, onebornfree

onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 9:23 pm GMT
@onebornfree Correction: "communist" , not "commniunist". My bad.
Sollipsist , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:37 pm GMT
Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations (which were impressive) as an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a gateway to hell on earth).
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:38 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy As a matter of logic aren't those creators of money reducing the value of the money held by those who have saved to get it? So doesn't fairness require that they use interest rates to maimtain the stability of the currency's value?
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:49 pm GMT
@Max So you advocate euthanasia (when you are feeling nice rather than cruel and vengeful) of the rapidly increasing retired population? Understood that you need to support the infant generation but Hitler had the answer for that one didn't he: euthanasia of those who wouldn't be able to contribute. How long do we indulge people with an unemployment benefit?
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Sean Thank you. Even if I conclude the BS component is high, you have given me thoughts to follow up
Wizard of Oz , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Which US subsidy programs might be regarded as proleptic jubilees? And writeoffs like that massive solar energy disaster under Obama are surely equivalent to the jubilees. And welfare payments are surely jubilees in advance.
anon [420] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:06 pm GMT
@niteranger The Control of Economies by the Magic Jews? But do we Gentiles not owe our material wealth to the Jews for the blessing they've provided us ? Whites are utterly incapable of providing their own salvation .
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:32 pm GMT
Yup! kings forgave debts.
.
When they needed suckers to fight and die for them.
onebornfree , says: Website April 7, 2019 at 10:34 pm GMT
@Sollipsist Sollipsist says: "Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations (which were impressive) as an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a gateway to hell on earth)."

Wrongo. Marx's economic theories were as as idiotic as his social prescriptions- in fact, his "social prescriptions" were directly derived from his idiotic economic theories, which is exactly why such "social prescriptions" are, as you say, "a gateway to hell on earth".

As for the author of this article , pure Marxist or not, his own "social prescriptions" are, like Marx's , the mere pontifications of a pseudo-intellectual statist, fantasizing about solving social problems via that which he worships and adores , that is , yet more government [of the "right" kind, mind you, and despite its obvious failure to do any such thing to date].

Another case of "the blind leading the blind", I'm afraid, just more of the same old hackneyed "government should do this- government can solve this " claptrap .

.and so it goes.

Regards, onebornfree

republic , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:43 pm GMT
@Max https://archive.org/details/TheSumerianSwindle/page/n1
MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@Wally

No, Hudson is a Communist.

Hudson spent half the article talking about mixed economies being the best and only type to work.

Also, it was the JEWISH CREDITOR CLASS, that funded Bolshevism. Wall Street Jews and some London money funded the Bolsheviks.

Bolshevism in turn was not what Marx had intended.

Marx thought that industrial capitalism, especially that of the type he witnessed in Germany, would evolve into an advanced form of socialism mixed economy. It would evolve after industrial capitalism failed, or industrial capitalism would have evolved.

Instead, finance capitalism, that of the rentier credit class won out .

When Marx died, he said "I am a most unhappy man."

Instead of getting caught up in labels, look at the data or what they actually believe in. It takes a little bit more energy and effort, rather than falling for simple platitudes.

Hudson's childhood background was Bolshevik, but he didn't pick his parents. If you look at his actual body of work, he is analyzing where all economic systems fail.

Russian and Chinese communism failed because markets are not purely inelastic. You cannot pretend that every market type needs government control, especially when pricing signals will work. Systems that are predicated on lies, will not survive in the long term.

MEFOBILLS , says: April 7, 2019 at 10:57 pm GMT
@onebornfree

For government is the problem, never the solution.

Simple minded platitudes.

ALL COMPLEX SYSTEMS HAVE HIERARCHY!

All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.

There has to be a "brain" for any complex organization, it will not self organize.

This whole market is your god, or gold is your god is the rentier class duping you with hypnosis.

Funny thing about Libertarian-tards and their junk economics, the very thing they want they cannot have because their ideology brings about what they don't want – economic slavery.

Free markets are free for the rentier to take his gains on your life energy and turn you into his debt slave.

OH BUT MY FREE-DUMB.

Anonymous [184] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
@onebornfree Your LoLbertarianism has the same stupid goal as Marxism, i.e., achieving glorious stateless society.

• "Withering away of the state" is a Marxist concept
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state

• Both anarchists and Marxists seek a stateless society
http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/06/marxist-view-of-the-state

• This is the "anarchy" of the future stateless society which Marx and Engels had accepted in 1872. Man becomes "his own master – free". The first condition for this full-fledged freedom is: freedom from the state, not of the state, nor merely in the state. As far as Marx's eye could see, the state is not the guarantor of freedom
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1970/xx/state.html

You and Marx are cut from the same cloth.

Sam J. , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:08 pm GMT
This is one the most brilliant things I've ever read here. I've read a great deal about the various facts and events Mr. Hudson talks about but I've never been able to put them together like Mr. Hudson. He's provided a framework for realizing how all these seemingly disparate events fit together. I'm very grateful.
Anon [277] Disclaimer , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:26 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz Retirees weren't regarded as parasites by National Socialism, Schlomo. Your parasitic ilk, however, were.

"The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance , rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes the NSV often refused to provide aid to Jews " – National Socialist People's Welfare

Alfred , says: April 7, 2019 at 11:32 pm GMT
return from Babylon

This is fake history. Mythology becoming history. A Jewish speciality.

1- The Jews were never in Ancient Egypt – or the Egyptians would have documented it.

2- There is absolutely no archeological artifact from the Palestine region that show that they were there before their exile. Plenty of proof that the Egyptians had been there earlier on.

3- Palestine was desert at that time and had been abandoned by the Egyptians as it was infertile – not a land of milk and honey. Yemen was agricultural and prosperous.

4- The Jews were exiled from Yemen – because they and non-Jewish Arabs (the Jews and Arabs were the same people at that time), continued to raid the caravans bringing goods from Yemen to Petra. The Babylonians punished them by taking them back to Babylon. After the Persians liberated them, some went back to Yemen and some went to Palestine.

5- Locations in the Old Testament correspond to places in Yemen and Hejaz. Even their names.

lysias , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:06 am GMT
The best counter to Robert Michels's iron law of oligarchy (whatever the ostensible form of government, it turns out in practice to be oligarchic rule by the group that has the real power) was devised by Cleisthenes in Athens shortly before 500 B.C.: give power to average citizens by appointing to offices ordinary citizens randomly chosen. It worked, as is shown by how deeply resented it was by oligarchs like Plato.
lysias , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:08 am GMT
@Alfred Mythical history can have a profound effect on the people who believe in the myth.
lysias , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:13 am GMT
@MEFOBILLS Doctrinaire idolators of the laissez-faire mythology have a habit of calling anyone who disagrees with their dogmas Communist.
wayfarer , says: April 8, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT

Executive Order 6102

Is a U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 , by President Franklin D. Roosevelt forbidding the hoarding of gold within the continental United States .

It required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve , in exchange for $20.67 (consumer price index, adjusted value of $400 today) per troy ounce. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the recently passed Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 (equivalent to $193,548 today) or up to ten years in prison, or both .

Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art", a provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins (a face value equivalent to 5 troy ounces (160 g) of gold valued at about $6,339 in 2016).

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

onebornfree , says: Website April 8, 2019 at 1:38 am GMT
@MEFOBILLS MEFOBILLS says: "All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.There has to be a "brain" for any complex organization, it will not self organize. "

So presumably, a half wit such as yourself knows exactly what that hierarchy should be, who the "brain" "should" be and exactly what and where everyone's "correct" place within it "should" be, because people cannot self organize.

Sieg Heil, mein fuhrer! You're an even dumber sheep than I had initially suspected!

"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree

"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock

"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken

No regards, onebornfree

mcohen , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@Alfred Alfie.

5th century bc jewish settlement.Common knowledge amongst the Chosen.This where we learnt the secrets of the gateways to the soul.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:45 am GMT
There are several problems with Dr. Hudson's views here. Some have referenced some. I would point out that we already have laws and practices to restrict the use of wealth from impoverishing the population. But you have to have a leadership willing to enforce or apply them. We have had no less than three major financial bailouts of the financial class in the US. And at no time was the bailout extended to the industries consumers. I am unclear what the prescription is to divorce the political class from the financial class.

The only new law that would make sense are laws that bar legislators from owning, stocks, sitting on the boards of stocks or any financial institution they manage. And that would have to extend to all immediate family members. Further, one has to completely cut off funds from lobbyists, activists and the corporate class entities.

The economy is already comprised of mixed practices: private ownership and wealth creation, government employment, non-profit entities and taxation and other programs that assist citizens, i.e. welfare

EliteCommInc. , says: April 8, 2019 at 1:53 am GMT
The one over riding observation I would make about the economy is that we continue to have a trade imbalance, which according to an old rule of thumb suggests that economy is not really growing.
annamaria , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:08 am GMT
@G. Poulin Mr. Hudson makes his contribution towards the greater good by educating the populace. What's your problem? -- He is not a fairy. He is a knowledgeable and honest person; the former requires a lot of willpower, the second requires courage.
utu , says: April 8, 2019 at 2:45 am GMT
@MEFOBILLS Libertarians were invented and constructed on purpose to serve as the useful idiots of oligarchs whom they worship and do everything to protect their right to be oligarchs while at the same time being sodomized by them.
Anonymous [570] Disclaimer , says: April 8, 2019 at 3:56 am GMT
@onebornfree The Government of the State is people self-organizing. Who else organized it, the dogs?
restless94110 , says: April 8, 2019 at 4:24 am GMT
I am very happy to read this interview, because for me, this is the first time that I have completely understood Michael Hudson's work. And I say this after watching countless of his interviews over the past 8 years.

Before this interview here, I had always wanted to ask him if the Clean Slate policies disappeared over 3000 years ago, then what was he saying in his books and lectures? If the entirety of Western Civilization is based on oligarchy, rentiers, then what hope is there for anything? I mean the Romans lasted a thousand years doing this rentier stuff. That's a long time for misery.

Now, with this interview I understand more fully the period after the Civil War and into the FDR Presidency as a partially-successful attempt to make things in the country different, more egalitarian, more correct. And after this interview, I understand Hudson's main point: the road to change lies in understanding the failures of antiquity.

Looking at things through the rentier oligarchy lens has been the revelation in my life in the past 10 years. I never undeststood Chile & Allende until then. Likewise with antiquity and likewise with the history of the United States. But those of us who do understand these things, thanks in great part to Michael Hudson, are few.

As part of a very late stage college degree I earned 4 years ago, I took an Econ class in my last semester. The class featured certain films as it related to economics and that was indeed very interesting (I had never seen Coppola's "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" before so that was "entertaining"), but the text book for the class was Friedman. I read it and could not believe how dunderheaded, how wrong it was. And I realized from communication with the professor that he believed all of it. His attitude seemed to be: who are you to question economics orthodoxy, you uppity undergrad.

This interview above was both enlightening and depressing. How many decades longer do we have to go before things change?

[Apr 07, 2019] The rejection of the USSA version of neoliberalism with its rampant deregulation and corruption has already started

Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

To Hell In A Handbasket , 2 hours ago link

Too many hooray, we are the USSA, America is the best cheerleaders, have no idea of the gravity of the situation they will face, when the dollar and by extension the Petrodollar implodes.

The rejection of the USSA has already started, but the average Yank hasn't noticed. When Ethiopia, can reject a direct request from Uncle Scam and send the Black-Boxes to Europe, because the USSA cannot be trusted, says it all. It is the little things we miss, things that seem small and insignificant, that actually reveals a lot and the Ethiopian rejection was one.

The world has simply had enough of USSA diktats and subsidising them. The USSA is merely 4% of the worlds population, that consumes 24.8% of the worlds resources and this situation is totally untenable. A nation of exceptionalists. 5%? Yes. The rest? lol

[Apr 07, 2019] Was Ending The Draft A Grave Mistake Zero Hedge

Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via TruthDig.com,

I spent last week at Angelo State University in remote central Texas as a panelist for the annual All-Volunteer Force (AVF) Forum . It was a strange forum in many ways, but nonetheless instructive. I was the youngest (and most progressive) member, as well as the lowest-ranking veteran among a group of leaders and speakers that included two retired generals, the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a few former colonels and several academics. Despite having remarkably diverse life experiences and political opinions, all concluded that America's all-volunteer military is not equitable, efficient or sustainable. The inconvenient truth each of the panel participants had the courage to identify is that the end of the draft in the U.S. had many unintended -- and ultimately tragic -- consequences for the republic.

... ... ...

Wildly Inefficient

Contrary to early optimistic promises, the U.S. military since 1973 sports a poor efficiency record . Especially since 9/11 -- the real first test of the new system -- American armed forces have produced exactly zero victories. Prior to the World Trade Center attack, it can be argued that a much larger AVF crushed Saddam Hussein's poorly led and equipped Iraqi army in 1991, but it's important to remember that that war was an anomaly -- Saddam's troops fought us in an open desert, without any air support, and according to the conventional tactics the U.S. military had been training against for years. I also refuse to count the imperial punishments inflicted on Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983) as victories, because neither was a necessary or even a fair fight. Besides, the invasion of the tiny island of Grenada was more fiasco than triumph .

Worst of all, the AVF is inefficient because it enables the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, ensuring high costs and much wear and tear on equipment and personnel. The lack of a draft means the loss of what the co-founder of the AVF Forum, retired Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich, calls "skin in the game." When the citizenry isn't subjected to the possibility of military service, it becomes apathetic, ignores foreign affairs and fails to pressure Congress to check presidential war powers. Without this check, president after president -- Democrats and Republicans -- have centralized control of foreign affairs in what has resulted in increasingly imperial presidencies . With its huge budget, professional flexibility and can-do attitude, the military has become the primary -- in some ways, the only -- tool in America's arsenal as presidents move living, breathing soldiers around the world like so many toy soldiers.

Completely Unsustainable

The AVF could also bankrupt us, or, at the very least, crash the economy. Thanks to the influence of the military-industrial complex and the militarization of foreign policy, U.S. defense budgets have soared into the stratosphere. At present, America spends more than $700 billion on defense -- a figure greater than all domestic discretionary spending and larger than the combined budgets of the next seven largest militaries . As the Vietnam War should have taught us, skyrocketing military spending without concurrent tax increases often results in not only massive debt but crippling inflation. After 18 years of forever global war without any meaningful increase in taxation on the nation's top earners, get ready for the next crash. Trying to stay a hegemon (a dubious proposition in the first place) with rising deficits and a paralyzing national debt is a recipe for failure and, ultimately, disaster.

As recent recruitment shortfalls show, getting volunteers may not be a sustainable certainty either. This also increases costs -- the military has had to train more full-time recruiters, pay cash bonuses for enlistment and retention, and hire extremely expensive civilian contractors to fill in operational gaps overseas. Nor can the AVF count on getting the best and brightest Americans in the long term. With elites opting out completely and fewer Americans possessing the combination of capacity -- only 30 percent of the populace is physically/mentally qualified for the military -- and propensity to serve, where will the military find the foot soldiers and cyberwarriors it needs in the 21st century?

In sum, throughout this century the U.S. military has won zero wars, achieved few, if any, "national goals" and cost Americans $5.9 trillion tax dollars, more than 7,000 troop deaths, and tens of thousands more wounded soldiers. It has cost the world 480,000 direct war-related deaths , including 244,000 civilians, and created 21 million refugees. Talk about unsustainable.

An Unpopular Proposal

At the recent forum, Laich proposed an alternative to the current volunteer system. To ensure fairness, efficiency and sustainability, the U.S. could create a lottery system (with no college or other elite deferments) that gives draftees three options :

Additionally, this lottery would apply to both men and women, and would require only one combat deployment from each reservist. Whether or not one agrees with this idea, it would create a more egalitarian, representative, affordable and sustainable national defense tool. Furthermore, with the children of bankers, doctors, lawyers and members of Congress subject to service, the government might think twice before embarking on the next foolish, unwinnable military venture.

Few Americans, however, are likely to be comfortable delegating the power of conscription to a federal government they inherently distrust. Still, paradoxically, the move toward a no-deferment, equitable lottery draft might result in a nation less prone to militarism and adventurism than the optional AVF has. Parents whose children are subject to military service, as well as young adults themselves, might prove to be canny students of foreign policy who would actively oppose the next American war. Imagine that: an engaged citizenry that holds its legislators accountable and subsequently hits the streets to oppose unnecessary and unethical war. Ironic as it may seem, more military service may actually be the only workable formula for less war. Too bad returning to a citizens' military is as unpopular as it is unlikely.

[Apr 06, 2019] Trump is for socialism but only when it comes to funding US military industry Tulsi Gabbard

Highly recommended!
Tulsi is a really great polemist with a very sharp mind and ability to find weak points in the opponent platform/argumentation and withstand pressure. In the debate she will probably will wipe the floor with Trump. IMHO he stands no chances against her in the open debate
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers. The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country's infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity. ..."
"... While the paper hailed the fact that the Pentagon's budget increase allowed local workers to keep their jobs and encouraged a skilled workforce to move to a small town in rural Ohio, Gabbard apparently hinted that the whole story in fact described what amounted to re-distribution of money from taxpayers to a de-facto depressed area to save some jobs – a social-democratic if not outright socialist move indeed. ..."
"... In her post, Gabbard also added that the US might have had a better use for a $160 billion boost in defense spending over two years. “The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity,” she wrote. ..."
Apr 05, 2019 | www.rt.com

US President Donald Trump, who has been relentlessly bashing everything linked to what he sees as 'socialism,' is himself no stranger to using socialist principles to support the US arms industry, Tulsi Gabbard has claimed. One could hardly suspect Trump of being a socialist in disguise.

After all, the US president has emerged as one of the most ardent critics of the leftist ideological platform. Just recently, he announced he would "go into the war with some socialists," while apparently referring to his political opponents from the Democratic Party.

But the president also seems to be quite keen on borrowing some socialist ideas when it fits his agenda, at least, according to the congresswoman from Hawaii and Democratic presidential candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, who recently wrote in a tweet that "Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers."

Trump is for socialism when it comes to taxpayers underwriting military contractors and arms manufacturers. The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country's infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity. https://t.co/tcNqsNQVbN

-- Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 5, 2019

She was referring to a piece in The Los Angeles Times, which cheerfully reported that Trump's whopping military budget helps to breathe some new life into a Pentagon-owned tank manufacturing plant somewhere in northwestern Ohio that was once on the verge of a shutdown.

While the paper hailed the fact that the Pentagon's budget increase allowed local workers to keep their jobs and encouraged a skilled workforce to move to a small town in rural Ohio, Gabbard apparently hinted that the whole story in fact described what amounted to re-distribution of money from taxpayers to a de-facto depressed area to save some jobs – a social-democratic if not outright socialist move indeed.

It is very much unclear if Trump had this Ohio plant or any other factories like it in mind when he supported the record Pentagon budget. After all, redistributing large sums of public money in favor of the booming US military industrial complex does not look very much like socialism.

In her post, Gabbard also added that the US might have had a better use for a $160 billion boost in defense spending over two years. “The same money would create more jobs used for rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and green economy, and it would be better for humanity,” she wrote.

Trump, meanwhile, seems to be pretty confident that his policies indeed “make America great again” while it is those pesky socialists that threaten to ruin everything he has achieved. “I love the idea of 'Keep America Great' because you know what it says is we've made it great now we're going to keep it great because the socialists will destroy it,” he told an audience of Republican congress members this week, while talking about the forthcoming presidential campaign.

[Apr 06, 2019] The US guy was treated in Iranian hospital. When it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, he learned the claim was refused because such transaction would violate US economic sanctions!

Look like US bureaucracy stupidity and rigidity exceeds the USSR bureaucracy, which until recently was unsurpassed.
Apr 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

ChuckOrloski , says: April 6, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez Buenos dias, Señor J. Gutierrez!

Am grateful for your noble stand and having written: " and we know who US support, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, etc."

For your information, come Monday, PreZident t-Rump plans to lie & dangerously declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. (Zigh) Doing so, no doubt, will provoke NSA Director Boltom to experience an orgasm in his Wall Mart suit pants.

Nonetheless, linked below is a Counterpunch article where William Collins described going to Iran along with colleagues on a peace mission. A fellow suffered a heart problem, and entered an Iranian hospital where he was treated successfully. Nonetheless, when it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, Mr. Collins learned the claim was refused because such transaction (obligation) would violate ZUS economic sanctions!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/05/what-i-learned-in-iran/

Post scriptum: Suppose you're in the process of deciding if & when to schedule a ranch-job interview with me? Am patient, thank you!

[Apr 06, 2019] MAXimized danger Are 200+ new Boeing 737s plagued with glitch that led to crash in Indonesia -- RT World News

Apr 06, 2019 | www.rt.com

A technical issue that Boeing flagged in a safety warning after the deadly 737 MAX 8 crash in Indonesia could happen to any other aircraft, and it's "not unlikely" that the manufacturer knew about it, aviation experts told RT. Earlier this week, Boeing issued a safety update to pilots flying its newest 737 MAX airliner, warning of a possible fault in a sensor that could send the aircraft into a violent nosedive.

That sensor measures air flow over a plane's wings, but its failure can lead to an aerodynamic stall.

Boeing's new 737 MAX may 'abruptly dive' due to errors – media Boeing's new 737 MAX may 'abruptly dive' due to errors – media

International aviation experts told RT that a problem of this kind could doom aircraft of any type. The tragedy that happened to Lion Air's Boeing 737 MAX is not the first of its kind to involve a faulty

"Pitot tube" – a critical air-speed sensor that measures the flow velocity – explained Elmar Giemulla, a leading German expert in air and traffic law.

"This is not unusual in the way it happened before," he noted, mentioning incidents similar to the Lion Air crash. Back in 1996, a Boeing 757 operated by Turkey's Birgenair stalled and crashed in the Caribbean because of a blocked pitot tube. Likewise, erroneous air-speed indications, coupled with pilot errors, led to the crash of an Air France Airbus A330 over the Atlantic in 2009.

While the problem is not entirely new, it is unclear how Boeing had tackled it, according to Giemulla. "It is not very unlikely" that Boeing knew about the problem, he said, warning that "more than 200 planes are concerned and this could happen tomorrow again."

There is so much experience with [using Pitot tubes] that it surprises me very much that this could happen to a newly developed plane.

However, the expert doubted that there has been any cover-up of the issue, instead suggesting that "obviously gross negligence" had been involved.

A 737 MAX 8 servicing Lion Air flight 610 last week ploughed into the waters of the Java Sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Investigators say there is a possibility that inaccurate readings fed into the MAX's computer could have sent the plane into a sudden descent.

#FAA statement on the Emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) for all @Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The AD can be found at https://t.co/FoRI5vOeby . pic.twitter.com/JDGdPfos6g

-- The FAA (@FAANews) November 7, 2018

[Apr 06, 2019] The MC-21 will safely handle passengers in the 140 to 160 passengers and is a mid range plane that can go as far as 4,000 miles.

Apr 06, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

Hightrekker x Ignored says: 04/06/2019 at 9:27 am

If markets were truly free and there was real capitalism then airlines would be looking at the new and excellent Russian MC-21 which does what Boeing was trying to do with the 737 Max. The MC-21 will safely handle passengers in the 140 to 160 passengers and is a mid range plane that can go as far as 4,000 miles.

Instead – Boeing lobbies the corrupt U.S. AIPAC Congress to keep a Boeing monopoly of death traps like the 737 Max allowing some Airbus sales. They also blocked a nice Bombardier mid range jet from Canada.

I've flown in the Bombardier in South America– it is a fine aircraft.

[Apr 06, 2019] 'Blinded by its greed' Boeing sued by family of passenger in Ethiopian Air 737 crash

Notable quotes:
"... "Sadly, these two entirely preventable airline crashes demonstrate that the FAA is ill-equipped to oversee the aerospace industry and will downplay serious hazards and safety risks to the public rather than sound the alarm about safety concerns, problems, issues and hazards that pose substantial, probable, and/or foreseeable risks to human life," attorneys for Stumo said in the lawsuit. ..."
"... "Boeing, and the regulators that enabled it, must be held accountable for their reckless actions." The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee said this week that whistleblowers have come forward to report that FAA safety inspectors, including those involved with approvals for the 737 Max, lacked proper training and certifications. ..."
"... But legal experts have said the second disaster could prove even more damaging for the company. That's because plaintiffs will argue the manufacturer was put on notice by the earlier tragedy that there was something dangerously wrong with its planes that should have been fixed. ..."
Apr 06, 2019 | smh.com.au

The parents of Samya Stumo, 24, alleged Boeing was "blinded by its greed" and rushed the 737 Max 8 to market with the "knowledge and tacit approval" of the FAA, while hiding defects in its automated flight-control system. The suit also cites a similar flaw in the Lion Air flight of a 737 Max 8 jet that crashed into the Java Sea on October 29 , killing 189.

Earlier on Thursday, the Ethiopian transport minister called on Boeing to review the 737 Max flight-control system before allowing planes to be used, after a preliminary government report showing the doomed jetliner couldn't recover from an uncommanded and persistent nose dive shortly after takeoff.

The complaint alleges that decisions by Boeing leaders contributed to the crash and "demonstrate Boeing's conscious disregard for the lives of others," including designing an aircraft with a flight-control system that is "susceptible to catastrophic failure" in the event of a single defective sensor made by Rosemount Aerospace.

'Ill-equipped'

"Sadly, these two entirely preventable airline crashes demonstrate that the FAA is ill-equipped to oversee the aerospace industry and will downplay serious hazards and safety risks to the public rather than sound the alarm about safety concerns, problems, issues and hazards that pose substantial, probable, and/or foreseeable risks to human life," attorneys for Stumo said in the lawsuit.

"Boeing, and the regulators that enabled it, must be held accountable for their reckless actions." The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee said this week that whistleblowers have come forward to report that FAA safety inspectors, including those involved with approvals for the 737 Max, lacked proper training and certifications.

Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said those claims prompted him to investigate potential connections between training and certification shortcomings and the FAA's evaluation of the airliner.

The Senate panel's probe is the latest in a string of investigations by US officials and lawmakers into how the FAA cleared the 737 Max as safe to fly. The Transportation Department's inspector general is reviewing the FAA's process for approving the airworthiness of new jets and aiding a Justice Department criminal probe.

Criminal probe

A grand jury convened by US prosecutors last month subpoenaed a former Boeing engineer demanding he provide testimony and documents related to the 737 Max.

FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell has said the agency "welcomes external review of our systems, processes and recommendations." Boeing faces the prospect of substantial payouts to the families of passengers if it's found responsible for both the Ethiopia Air and Lion Air crashes.

But legal experts have said the second disaster could prove even more damaging for the company. That's because plaintiffs will argue the manufacturer was put on notice by the earlier tragedy that there was something dangerously wrong with its planes that should have been fixed.

[Apr 06, 2019] Ethiopian Airlines Abandons Boeing Orders Due To Stigma From 737 Max Crash

Apr 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Posa , 2 hours ago link

The company failed itself by replacing engineers with Wall Street accountants.... typical US corporation destroyed from withing by asset strippers, chiselers, deregulators... the complete gamut of "free enterprise" vampires leaving the US economy in shambles.

Shockwave , 5 minutes ago link

Agree with that, theres been a serious drive to focus on bean-counting and bringing in "mainstream" business leadership from companies like GE/Toyota/3m (think outsourcing/stock buybacks/automate/layoff type)

Its one of the few companies that has a real hard time getting rid of skilled labor, because building an aircraft is an incredibly huge undertaking, with lots of hand fitting and a wide array of technical skills, so getting rid of the labor hasnt worked to this point.

But they're trying hard to get inline with the typical "modern" business model, and it hasnt been great for morale.

[Apr 06, 2019] When Will The Boeing 737 MAX Fly Again - Simple Flying

Apr 06, 2019 | simpleflying.com

Boeing has been working on a fix to the anti-stall software for some time now. However, Reuters today reported that regulators including EASA knew that the MAX's trim control was confusing.

[Apr 06, 2019] Boeing Will Face A Skeptical Flying Public When It Fixes the 737 Max Jets OvationMR

Apr 06, 2019 | www.ovationmr.com
How much do you trust each of the following to determine whether the fixes to the Boeing 737 Max make it safe to fly? The pilot's union The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airlines (e.g. American, United, Southwest) The Trump Administration Boeing Congress
Completely trust 33% 32% 30% 29% 25% 22% 21%
Mostly trust 34% 33% 30% 36% 22% 30% 23%
Somewhat trust 22% 26% 29% 26% 16% 28% 28%
Do not trust 11% 9% 10% 9% 37% 20% 28%

[Apr 06, 2019] Would you fly Boeing 737 Max 8 ever again - Quora

Notable quotes:
"... No. Possibly Boeing & the FAA will solve the immediate issue, but they have destroyed Trust. ..."
"... It has emerged on the 737MAX that larger LEAP-1B engines were unsuited to the airframe and there is no way now to alter the airframe to balance the aircraft. ..."
"... Boeing failed to provide training or training material to pilots or even advise them the existence of MCAS. There was a complex two step process required of pilots in ET302 and JT610 crashes and their QRH handbook did not explain this: ..."
Apr 06, 2019 | www.quora.com

Would you fly Boeing 737 Max 8 ever again? Update Cancel

Simon Gunson , PPL aviation enthusiast Answered Mar 25, 2019 · Author has 141 answers and 981.7k answer views

No. Possibly Boeing & the FAA will solve the immediate issue, but they have destroyed Trust.

Other brands of aircraft like Airbus with AF447 established trust after their A330 aircraft plunged into the Atlantic in a mysterious accident.

With Airbus everyone saw transparency & integrity in how their accidents were investigated. How Boeing & FAA approached accident investigation destroyed public Trust.

By direct contrast in the mysterious disappearance of MH370, Boeing contributed nothing to the search effort and tried to blame the pilot or hijackers.

With the 737MAX in Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes Boeing again tried to blame pilots, poor training, poor maintenance and then when mechanical defect was proven, Boeing tried to downplay how serious the issue was and gave false assurances after Lion Air that the plane was still safe. ET302 proved otherwise.

It is no longer possible to trust the aircraft's certification. It is no longer possible to trust that safety was the overriding principle in design of the Boeing 737 MAX nor several other Boeing designs for that matter.

The Public have yet to realize that the Boeing 777 is an all electric design where in certain scenarios like electrical fire in the avionics bay, an MEC override vent opens allowing cabin air pressure to push out smoke. This silences the cabin depressurization alarms.

As an electrical failure worsens, in that scenario another system called ELMS turns off electrical power to the Air Cycle Machine which pumps pressurized air into the cabin. The result of ELMS cutting power means the override vent fails to close again and no new pressurized air maintains pressure in the cabin. Pilots get no warning.

An incident in 2007 is cited as AD 2007–07–05 by the FAA in which part but not all of this scenario played out in a B777 at altitude.

MH370 may have been the incident in which the full scenario played out, but of course Boeing is not keen for MH370 to be found and unlike Airbus which funded the search for AF447, Boeing contributed nothing to finding MH370.

It has emerged on the 737MAX that larger LEAP-1B engines were unsuited to the airframe and there is no way now to alter the airframe to balance the aircraft.

It also emerged that the choice to fit engines to this airframe have origins in a commercial decision to please Southwest Airlines and cancel the Boeing 757.

Boeing failed to provide training or training material to pilots or even advise them the existence of MCAS. There was a complex two step process required of pilots in ET302 and JT610 crashes and their QRH handbook did not explain this:

Boeing pilots had less than 40 SECONDS to over-ride automated system

The MAX is an aerodynamically unbalanced aircraft vulnerable to any sort of disruption, ranging from electrical failure, out of phase generator, faulty AOA sensor, faulty PCU failure alert, digital encoding error in the DFDAU.

Jason Eaton Former Service Manager Studied at University of Life Lives in Sydney, Australia 564k answer views 50.7k this month Answered Mar 24, 2019 ·

No I wouldn't. I'm not a pilot or an aerospace technician but I am a mechanical engineer, so I know a little bit about physics and stuff.

The 737–8 is carrying engines it was never designed for, that cause it to become inherently unstable. So unstable in fact, that it can't be controlled by humans and instead relies on computer aided control to maintain the correct attitude, particularly during ascent and descent.

The MCAS system is, effectively, a band aid to fix a problem brought about by poor design philosophy. Boeing should have designed a new airframe that complements the new engines, instead of ruining a perfectly good aircraft by bolting on power units it's not designed to carry, and then trying to solve the resulting instability with software. And if that isn't bad enough, the system relies on data from just the one sensor which if it doesn't agree with, it'll force the aircraft nose down regardless of the pilots' better judgement.

That might be ok for the Eurofighter Typhoon but it's definitely not ok for fare paying passengers on a commercial jetliner.

So, no. I won't be flying on a 737–8 until it's been redesigned to fly safely. You know, like a properly designed aeroplane should. 4.8k Views · View 36 Upvoters

[Apr 06, 2019] Boeing's effort to get the 737 Max approved to fly again, explained - 3420634 Promediapost

Notable quotes:
"... Under the circumstances, Boeing's best option was to just take the hit for a few years and accept that it was going to have to start selling 737s at a discount price while it designed a whole new airplane. That would, of course, be time-consuming and expensive, and during the interim, it would probably lose a bunch of narrow-body sales to Airbus. ..."
"... As late as February 2011, Boeing chair and CEO James McNerney was sticking to the plan to design a totally new aircraft. ..."
"... Committing to putting a new engine that didn't fit on the plane was the corporate version of the Fyre Festival's "let's just do it and be legends, man" moment, and it unsurprisingly wound up leading to a slew of engineering and regulatory problems. ..."
"... The problem is that an airplane is a big, complicated network of interconnected parts. To get the engine under the 737 wing, engineers had to mount the engine nacelle higher and more forward on the plane. But moving the engine nacelle (and a related change to the nose of the plane) changed the aerodynamics of the plane, such that the plane did not handle properly at a high angle of attack ..."
"... But note that the underlying problem isn't really software; it's with the effort to use software to get around a whole host of other problems. ..."
"... Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the "build a new plane" plan and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in the current situation. Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal -- a software update here, a new warning light there, etc. -- in hopes of persuading global regulatory agencies to let its planes fly again. ..."
"... That said, on March 27, FAA officials faced the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation and Space at a hearing called by subcommittee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX). Regulators committed at the hearing to revamp the way they certify new planes , in light of the flaws that were revealed in the previous certification process. ..."
"... a central element of this story is the credibility of the FAA's process ..."
Apr 06, 2019 | www.promediapost.com

Claiming responsibility was part of an attempt to get the planes approved to fly again. Boeing was trying to say that it now understands why the planes crashes -- flawed software -- and has a plan in place to replace it with new software that will eliminate the problem and persuade regulators to get the planes off the ground. But then Friday morning, the company announced that it had found a second, unrelated software flaw that it also needs to fix and will somewhat delay the process of getting the planes cleared to fly again.

All of which, of course, raises the question of why such flawed systems were allowed to fly in the first place.

And that story begins nine years ago when Boeing was faced with a major threat to its bottom line, spurring the airline to rush a series of kludges through the certification process -- with an underresourced Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) seemingly all too eager to help an American company threatened by a foreign competitor, rather than to ask tough questions about the project.

The specifics of what happened in the regulatory system are still emerging (and despite executives' assurances, we don't even really know what happened on the flights yet). But the big picture is coming into view: A major employer faced a major financial threat, and short-term politics and greed won out over the integrity of the regulatory system. It's a scandal. The A320neo was trouble for Boeing

Jet fuel is a major cost for airlines. With labor costs largely driven by collective bargaining agreements and regulations that require minimum ratios of flight attendants per passenger, fuel is the cost center airlines have the most capacity to do something about. Consequently, improving fuel efficiency has emerged as one of the major bases of competition between airline manufacturers.

If you roll back to 2010, it began to look like Boeing had a real problem in this regard.

Airbus was coming out with an updated version of the A320 family that it called the A320neo , with "neo" meaning "new engine option." The new engines were going to be more fuel-efficient, with a larger diameter than previous A320 engines, that could nonetheless be mounted on what was basically the same airframe. This was a nontrivial engineering undertaking both in designing the new engines and in figuring out how to make them work with the old airframe, but even though it cost a bunch of money, it basically worked. And it raised the question of whether Boeing would respond.

Initial word was that it wouldn't. As CBS Moneywatch's Brett Snyder wrote in December 2010 , the basic problem was that you couldn't slap the new generation of more efficient, larger-diameter engines onto the 737:

One of the issues for Boeing is that it takes more work to put new engines on the 737 than on the A320. The 737 is lower to the ground than the A320, and the new engines have a larger diameter . So while both manufacturers would have to do work, the Boeing guys would have more work to do to jack the airplane up. That will cost more while reducing commonality with the current fleet. As we know from last week, reduced commonality means higher costs for the airlines as well.

Under the circumstances, Boeing's best option was to just take the hit for a few years and accept that it was going to have to start selling 737s at a discount price while it designed a whole new airplane. That would, of course, be time-consuming and expensive, and during the interim, it would probably lose a bunch of narrow-body sales to Airbus.

The original version of the 737 first flew in 1967, and a decades-old decision about how much height to leave between the wing and the runway left them boxed out of 21st-century engine technology -- and there was simply nothing to be done about it.

Unless there was.

Boeing decided to put on the too-big engines anyway

As late as February 2011, Boeing chair and CEO James McNerney was sticking to the plan to design a totally new aircraft.

"We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet," he said on an analyst call , "but our current bias is to move to a newer airplane, an all-new airplane, at the end of the decade, beginning of the next decade. It's our judgment that our customers will wait for us."

But in August 2011, Boeing announced that it had lined up orders for 496 re-engined Boeing 737 aircraft from five airlines .

It's not entirely clear what happened, but, reading between the lines, it seems that in talking to its customers Boeing reached the conclusion that airlines would not wait for them. Some critical mass of carriers (American Airlines seems to have been particularly influential) was credible enough in its threat to switch to Airbus equipment that Boeing decided it needed to offer 737 buyers a Boeing solution sooner rather than later.

Committing to putting a new engine that didn't fit on the plane was the corporate version of the Fyre Festival's "let's just do it and be legends, man" moment, and it unsurprisingly wound up leading to a slew of engineering and regulatory problems.

New engines on an old plane

As the industry trade publication Leeham News and Analysis explained earlier in March, Boeing engineers had been working on the concept that became the 737 Max even back when the company's plan was still not to build it. In a March 2011 interview with Aircraft Technology, Mike Bair, then the head of 737 product development, said that reengineering was possible. "There's been fairly extensive engineering work on it," he said. "We figured out a way to get a big enough engine under the wing."

The problem is that an airplane is a big, complicated network of interconnected parts. To get the engine under the 737 wing, engineers had to mount the engine nacelle higher and more forward on the plane. But moving the engine nacelle (and a related change to the nose of the plane) changed the aerodynamics of the plane, such that the plane did not handle properly at a high angle of attack . That, in turn, led to the creation of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). It fixed the angle-of-attack problem in most situations, but it created new problems in other situations when it made it difficult for pilots to directly control the plane without being overridden by the MCAS.

On Wednesday, Boeing rolled out a software patch that it says corrects the problem, and it hopes to persuade the FAA to agree.

But note that the underlying problem isn't really software; it's with the effort to use software to get around a whole host of other problems.

1of x: BEST analysis of what really is happening on the #Boeing737Max issue from my brother in law @davekammeyer , who's a pilot, software engineer & deep thinker. Bottom line don't blame software that's the band aid for many other engineering and economic forces in effect.

-- Trevor Sumner (@trevorsumner) March 16, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Recall, after all, that the whole point of the 737 Max project was to be able to say that the new plane was the same as the old plane. From an engineering perspective, the preferred solution was to actually build a new plane. But for business reasons, Boeing didn't want a "new plane" that would require a lengthy certification process and extensive (and expensive) new pilot training for its customers. The demand was for a plane that was simultaneously new and not new.

But because the new engines wouldn't fit under the old wings, the new plane wound up having different aerodynamic properties than the old plane. And because the aerodynamics were different, the flight control systems were also different. But treating the whole thing as a fundamentally different plane would have undermined the whole point. So the FAA and Boeing agreed to sort of fudge it.

The new planes are pretty different

As far as we can tell, the 737 Max is a perfectly airworthy plane in the sense that error-free piloting allows it to be operated safely.

But pilots of planes that didn't crash kept noticing the same basic pattern of behavior that is suspected to have been behind the two crashes, according to a Dallas Morning News review of voluntary aircraft incident reports to a NASA database:

The disclosures found by the News reference problems with an autopilot system, and they all occurred during the ascent after takeoff. Many mentioned the plane suddenly nosing down. While records show these flights occurred in October and November, the airlines the pilots were flying for is redacted from the database.

These pilots all safely disabled the MCAS and kept their planes in the air. But one of the pilots reported to the database that it was "unconscionable that a manufacturer, the FAA, and the airlines would have pilots flying an airplane without adequately training, or even providing available resources and sufficient documentation to understand the highly complex systems that differentiate this aircraft from prior models."

The training piece is important because a key selling feature of the 737 Max was the idea that since it wasn't really a new plane, pilots didn't really need to be retrained for the new equipment. As the New York Times reported, "For many new airplane models, pilots train for hours on giant, multimillion-dollar machines, on-the-ground versions of cockpits that mimic the flying experience and teach them new features" while the experienced 737 Max pilots were allowed light refresher courses that you could do on an iPad.

That let Boeing get the planes into customers' hands quickly and cheaply, but evidently at the cost of increasing the possibility of pilots not really knowing how to handle the planes, with dire consequences for everyone involved.

The FAA put a lot of faith in Boeing

In a blockbuster March 17 report for the Seattle Times, the newspaper's aerospace reporter Dominic Gates details the extent to which the FAA delegated crucial evaluations of the 737's safety to Boeing itself . The delegation, Gates explains, is in part a story of a years-long process during which the FAA, "citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes."

But there are indications of failures that were specific to the 737 Max timeline. In particular, Gates reports that "as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process" and that "when time was too short for FAA technical staff to complete a review, sometimes managers either signed off on the documents themselves or delegated their review back to Boeing."

Most of all, decisions about what could and could not be delegated were being made by managers concerned about the timeline, rather than by the agency's technical experts.

It's not entirely clear at this point why the FAA was so determined to get the 737 cleared quickly (there will be more investigations), but if you recall the political circumstances of this period in Barack Obama's presidency, you can quickly get a general sense of the issue.

Boeing is not just a big company with a significant lobbying presence in Washington; it's a major manufacturing company with a strong global export presence and a source of many good-paying union jobs. In short, it was exactly the kind of company the powers that be were eager to promote -- with the Obama White House, for example, proudly going to bat for the Export-Import Bank as a key way to sustain America's aerospace industry.

A story about overweening regulators delaying an iconic American company's product launch and costing good jobs compared to the European competition would have looked very bad. And the fact that the whole purpose of the plane was to be more fuel-efficient only made getting it off the ground a bigger priority. But the incentives really were reasonably aligned, and Boeing has only caused problems for itself by cutting corners.

Boeing is now in a bad situation

One emblem of the whole situation is that as the 737 Max engineering team piled kludge on top of kludge, they came up with a cockpit warning light that would alert the pilots if the plane's two angle-of-attack sensors disagreed.

But then, as Jon Ostrower reported for the Air Current , Boeing's team decided to make the warning light an optional add-on, like how car companies will upcharge you for a moon roof.

The light cost $80,000 extra per plane and neither Lion Air nor Ethiopian chose to buy it, perhaps figuring that Boeing would not sell a plane (nor would the FAA allow it to) that was not basically safe to fly. In the wake of the crashes, Boeing has decided to revisit this decision and make the light standard on all aircraft.

Now, to be clear, Boeing has lost about $40 billion in stock market valuation since the crash, so it's not like cheating out on the warning light turned out to have been a brilliant business decision or anything.

This, fundamentally, is one reason the FAA has become comfortable working so closely with Boeing on safety regulations: The nature of the airline industry is such that there's no real money to be made selling airplanes that have a poor safety track record. One could even imagine sketching out a utopian libertarian argument to the effect that there's no real need for a government role in certifying new airplanes at all, precisely because there's no reason to think it's profitable to make unsafe ones.

The real world, of course, is quite a bit different from that, and different individuals and institutions face particular pressures that can lead them to take actions that don't collectively make sense. Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the "build a new plane" plan and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in the current situation. Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal -- a software update here, a new warning light there, etc. -- in hopes of persuading global regulatory agencies to let its planes fly again.

But even once that's done, Boeing faces the task of convincing airlines to actually buy its planes. An informative David Ljunggren article for Reuters reminds us that a somewhat comparable situation arose in 1965 when three then-new Boeing 727 jetliners crashed.

There wasn't really anything unsound about the 727 planes, but many pilots didn't fully understand how to operate the new flaps -- arguably a parallel to the MCAS situation with the 737 Max -- which spurred some additional training and changes to the operation manual. Passengers avoided the planes for months, but eventually came back as there were no more crashes, and the 727 went on to fly safely for decades. Boeing hopes to have a similar happy ending to this saga, but so far it seems to be a long way from that point. And the immediate future likely involves more tough questions.

A political scandal on slow burn

The 737 Max was briefly a topic of political controversy in the United States as foreign regulators grounded the planes, but President Donald Trump -- after speaking personally to Boeing's CEO -- declined to follow. Many members of Congress (from both parties) called on him to reconsider, which he rather quickly did, pushing the whole topic off Washington's front burner.

But Trump is generally friendly to Boeing (he even has a former Boeing executive, Patrick Shanahan, serving as acting defense secretary, despite an ongoing ethics inquiry into charges that Shanahan unfairly favors his former employer), and Republicans are generally averse to harsh regulatory crackdowns. The most important decisions in the mix appear to have been made back during the Obama administration, so it's also difficult for Democrats to go after this issue. Meanwhile, Washington has been embroiled in wrangling over special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, and a new health care battlefield opened up as well.

That said, on March 27, FAA officials faced the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation and Space at a hearing called by subcommittee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX). Regulators committed at the hearing to revamp the way they certify new planes , in light of the flaws that were revealed in the previous certification process.

The questions at stake, however, are now much bigger than one subcommittee. Billions of dollars are on the line for Boeing, the airlines that fly 737s, and the workers who build the planes. And since a central element of this story is the credibility of the FAA's process -- in the eyes of the American people and of foreign regulatory agencies -- it almost certainly won't get sorted out without more involvement from the actual decision-makers in the US government.

This article was originally published by Vox. Read the original article here .

[Apr 06, 2019] Ralph Nader Boeing 737 Max 'should never fly again' - Chicago Tribune

Apr 06, 2019 | www.chicagotribune.com

Ralph Nader, the noted consumer rights advocate, called for a recall and consumer boycott of the Boeing jet grounded by regulators across the globe after two deadly crashes.

His niece, 24-year-old Samya Stumo, was among the 157 victims of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash last month, less than six months after a flight on the same aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed in Indonesia.

"Those planes should never fly again," said Nader, speaking by phone at a news conference after Stumo's family filed a lawsuit against Chicago-based Boeing, one of its suppliers and Ethiopian Airlines. The family also filed a claim against the Federal Aviation Administration .

Stumo's family's lawsuit is one of several filed by relatives of passengers killed in the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes. All those families have "such huge holes" because of the aircraft's problems, said Nadia Milleron, Stumo's mother, who said she had met others who lost loved ones in Ethiopia.

"As someone who's lost the dearest person in my life, I want her death not to be in vain. I don't want anybody else to die," she said at the news conference in Chicago.

"Those in charge of creating and selling this plane did not treat Samya as they would their own daughters," said Milleron, who was visibly emotional as she spoke about her daughter.

"This could have been prevented, and that's what makes me cry," she said.

Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed" helped bring about a series of auto safety laws , including the creation the federal agency that became the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which oversees the auto industry. He later turned his attention to various consumer protection efforts related to food, drug and workplace safety and clean air and water.

On Thursday, he took aim at Boeing, blaming the crashes on design problems that he argued were the result of the company's focus on getting the plane on the market quickly to compete with its rival manufacturer Airbus.

He also criticized the relationship between Boeing and the federal agency tasked with overseeing aviation industry safety.

"If we don't end the cozy relationship between the patsy FAA and the Boeing company, 5,000 of these fatally flawed planes will be in the air all over the world with millions of passengers," Nader said.

Boeing said Thursday it is reviewing a preliminary report on last month's crash from Ethiopian authorities that said the same anti-stall system that came under scrutiny in the Lion Air crash was activated on the Ethiopian Airlines flight.

Most accidents are the result of a chain of events, but when that system is activated in error, it adds to "what is already a high-workload environment," Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a video released by the company on Thursday.

"It's our responsibility to eliminate this risk. We own it, and we know how to do it," he said.

Boeing said it is still working with the FAA and regulatory agencies to develop and certify a software update designed to keep the system from being activated unintentionally, along with additional training for pilots.

Nader said he doesn't think the software fix is enough to make the plane safe since it can't predict all potential problems with a plane that is "prone to stall."

While Boeing has worked to show it is taking steps to address safety concerns, the FAA is planning changes to its oversight of airplane development, which delegates some authority for certifying new aircraft to their manufacturers, the Associated Press reported .

[email protected]

Twitter @laurenzumbach

Copyright © 2019, Chicago Tribune

[Apr 06, 2019] Ethiopian Airline Crash - Boeing Advice To 737 MAX Pilots Was Flawed

Notable quotes:
"... [We] can now reveal how it's possible the aircraft can crash despite using the Cut-Out switches. To verify, we ran it all in a simulator together with MentourPilot Youtube channel over the last days. ..."
"... Nowhere is it described the trim could be impossible to move if the Cut-Out switches were cut at the slightest miss-trim at the speeds flown. And there is no warning on when to move the Cut-Out switches, the checklist says "Cut, then trim manually." This is not the whole truth . ..."
"... The high speed of 340kts indicated airspeed and the trim at 2.3 units causes the Stabilator manual trim to jam, one can't move it by hand. The crew is busy trying to hand trim the next two minutes but no trim change is achieved. ..."
"... It's easy to say "Why didn't they trim then?". Because they are going down at 20 degrees nose down (which is a lot, a normal landing approach is 3°) and at 400kts. Then you just pull for all you have. And the aircraft is not reacting to the largest Control Column displacement since takeoff. This makes them pull even harder, the aircraft is unresponsive and they are fighting for theirs and all the passenger lives. ..."
"... Moreover their description of the MCAS was incomplete . It is only now known that the MCAS trims the stabilizer at a speeed of 0.27 units (degrees) per second while the pilots electric trim moves the stabilizer at only 0.18 units per second: ..."
"... If MCAS keeps tripping, and if pilots do not shut off electric trim entirely, the result is what Tajer describes as a two-steps-back, one-step-forward scenario, with MCAS maintaining an edge. ..."
"... "The MCAS knows but one speed, which is 0.27, which is the most-aggressive speed," Tajer says. "If you look at the balance sheet on it, MCAS is winning, and you are losing." ..."
"... That additional problem pertains to software affecting flaps and other flight-control hardware and is therefore classified as critical to flight safety, said two officials with knowledge of the investigation. ..."
"... This is not about sensor failure. It is about the profit of cheap parts and greed. The insiders at Boeing tipped off the Big Boys that they needed more than the gizmos installed on export versions if they were going to survive. ..."
"... Engineering Manufacturing company with a sales division works alright. But a Sales Company with a manufacturing subsidiary does not, as we see. Boeing is typical for end-stage Imperial Corporations - all show, no go, and get the money quick... ..."
"... A mistake is one or two errors. This was one horrible string of deliberate corner cutting, about 7-8 totally disastrous decisions by the management, that could have only led to deaths of people uninformed enough to purchase the travel risk from this plane supplier. ..."
Apr 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
< to include the new system into training material for the pilots which Boeing, for commercial reasons, did not do.>

After the Lion Air crash the Federal Aviation Administration issued an Airworthiness Directive 2018-23-51 which adviced 737 MAX pilots how to handle an MCAS failure.


full picture

The FAA told 737 MAX pilots to use the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff switches to interupt the power supply for the system's actuator, a motor driven jackscrew in the back of the airplane. The pilots should then use the manual trim wheels in the cockpit, which move the jackscrew and stabilizer via steel cables, to righten the aircraft.

On March 10 a 737 MAX flown by Ethiopian Airline crashed shortly after take off. 157 people died. Radar data and debris found showed that the cause was likely a similar MCAS failure as had happened on the Indonesian Lion Air flight.

All 737 MAX planes were grounded with the U.S. being the last country to order it.

Some U.S. pilots, as well as some commentators here, publicly blamed the darker skin pilots for not using the simple procedure the FAA had put out: "Why didn't they just flip the switches? Stupid undertrained third-world dudes."

It now turns out that the well trained and experienced pilots on the Ethiopian Airline flight did exactly what Boeing and the FAA told them to do. From the Ethiopean Airlines press release (pdf):

The preliminary report clearly showed that the Ethiopian Airlines pilots who were commanding Flight ET 302/10 March have followed the Boeing recommended and FAA approved emergency procedures to handle the most difficult emergency situation created on the airplane. Despite their hard work and full compliance with the emergency procedures, it was very unfortunate that they could not recover the airplane from the persistence of nose diving.

The procedure Boeing and the FAA advised to use was insufficient to bring the aircraft back under control. It was in fact impossible to recover the plane. The possibility of this to happen was discussed in pilot fora and on specialized websites for some time.

The MCAS system moves the front of the stablizer up to turn the nose of the airplane down. The plane then decends very fast. The aerodynamic forces (the "wind") pushing against the stabilizer gets so strong that a manual counter-trim becomes impossible.

Avionics engineer Peter Lemme details the physics involved in this.


via Seattle Times - full picture

Lemme concludes:

With the 737MAX cutout switches, MCAS runaway is stopped by throwing both switches, losing electric trim altogether. In this case, the flight crew must rely on manual trim via turning the trim wheel/crank. As discussed above, the manual crank can bind up , making flying much more difficult.

Bjorn Fehrm, a senior engineeer and pilot now writing at Leeham News , came to a similar conclusion :

[We] can now reveal how it's possible the aircraft can crash despite using the Cut-Out switches. To verify, we ran it all in a simulator together with MentourPilot Youtube channel over the last days.
...
At a miss-trimmed Stabilator, you either have to re-engage Electric trim or off-load the Stabilator jackscrew by stick forward, creating a nose-down bunt maneuver, followed by trim.

Stick forward to trim was not an option for ET302, they were at 1,000ft above ground. According to The Wall Street Journal, the ET302 crew re-engaged electrical trim to save the situation, to get the nose up. It was their only chance. But too late. The aggressive MCAS kicked in and worsened the situation before they could counter it.

On the FAA's Airworthiness Directive Fehrm writes:

Nowhere is it described the trim could be impossible to move if the Cut-Out switches were cut at the slightest miss-trim at the speeds flown. And there is no warning on when to move the Cut-Out switches, the checklist says "Cut, then trim manually." This is not the whole truth .

An detailed analysis of the flight recorder data as documented in the preliminary crash report confirms the conclusions :

The high speed of 340kts indicated airspeed and the trim at 2.3 units causes the Stabilator manual trim to jam, one can't move it by hand. The crew is busy trying to hand trim the next two minutes but no trim change is achieved.

via Leeham News - bigger

The pilots then do the only thing possible. They reengage the electric stabilizer trim to righten the aircraft.

But the aggressive MCAS, trimming with a speed 50% higher than the pilot and for a full nine seconds, kicks in at 8 with a force they didn't expect. Speed is now at 375kts and MCAS was never designed to trim at these Speed/Altitude combinations. Dynamic pressures, which governs how the aircraft reacts to control surface movements, is now almost double it was when last MCAS trimmed (Dynamic pressure increases with Speed squared).

The Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof. Look at the Pitch Attitude Disp trace and the Accel Vert trace. These are on the way to Zero G and we can see how PF loses stick pull in the process (Ctrl Column Pos L). He can barely hold on to the Yoke, let alone pull or trim against.

His reduced pull increases the pitch down further, which increases the speed even more. At 05.45.30 the Pilots have hit the seats again (Accel Vert trace and Ctrl Columns force trace) and can start pulling in a desperate last move. But it's too late. Despite them creating the largest Control Column movement ever, pitch down attitude is only marginally affected.

The pilots and their passengers lose the fight:

It's easy to say "Why didn't they trim then?". Because they are going down at 20 degrees nose down (which is a lot, a normal landing approach is 3°) and at 400kts. Then you just pull for all you have. And the aircraft is not reacting to the largest Control Column displacement since takeoff. This makes them pull even harder, the aircraft is unresponsive and they are fighting for theirs and all the passenger lives.

A diligent safety anlysis would have predicted this outcome. Neither Boeing nor the FAA seems to have done such after the first 737 MAX crashed. They provided an Airworthiness Directive with procedures that were insufficiant to correct the system induce misbehavior.

Moreover their description of the MCAS was incomplete . It is only now known that the MCAS trims the stabilizer at a speeed of 0.27 units (degrees) per second while the pilots electric trim moves the stabilizer at only 0.18 units per second:

"It's like a Tasmanian devil in there," says Dennis Tajer, a 737 pilot and communications chair for Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines' pilots.
...
If MCAS keeps tripping, and if pilots do not shut off electric trim entirely, the result is what Tajer describes as a two-steps-back, one-step-forward scenario, with MCAS maintaining an edge.

"The MCAS knows but one speed, which is 0.27, which is the most-aggressive speed," Tajer says. "If you look at the balance sheet on it, MCAS is winning, and you are losing."

The insufficient advice to pilots given after the first crash only adds to the long list of criminal mistakes Boeing made and which the FAA allowed to pass.

Today the Washington Post reports of another software defect which the FAA demands to have fixed:

Boeing confirmed to The Washington Post that it had found a second software problem that the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered fixed -- separate from the anti-stall system that is under investigation in the two crashes and is involved in the worldwide grounding of the aircraft.

That additional problem pertains to software affecting flaps and other flight-control hardware and is therefore classified as critical to flight safety, said two officials with knowledge of the investigation.

The criminals at Boeing again offer no explanation and play down the issue:

In a statement, Boeing called the additional problem "relatively minor" but did not offer details of how it affects the plane's flight-control system. "We are taking steps to thoroughly address this relatively minor issue and already have the solution in work to do that," it said.

What other 'features' were secretly implemented into the 737 MAX without sufficiant analysis about their side effects and consequences?

---
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the 737 MAX crashes:

Posted by b on April 5, 2019 at 05:53 AM | Permalink

Jen , Apr 5, 2019 6:27:26 AM | link

"... The Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof ..."

I should think that at that point in the narrative, one of the flight crew must either have fallen unconscious or ended up too injured to be able to do anything, let alone fight a rogue MCAS system.

I presume the pilots would still have their seatbelts on, unless the forces generated by the constant battle to stabilise the aircraft while fighting the MCAS system were too strong and broke the seatbelts or dislocated the seats themselves.

As for other "features" that were secretly placed into the 737 MAX jets that Boeing "neglected" to tell FAA or its clients about, what about the "features" that should have been made compulsory but which Boeing decided were optional at the clients' own expense?


jared , Apr 5, 2019 6:42:51 AM | link

I imagine Boing would be worried if they were not prime military contractor. They will be protected.
Tom Welsh , Apr 5, 2019 6:57:06 AM | link
As a layman, my main question at this stage is: "Who is going to prison and for how long?" Everyone involved in the decision to sell those flying death traps should be tried for manslaughter at the least. The guilty ones should serve prison sentences appropriate for criminals who caused hundreds of people to die for their own profit.

How long a sentence does a poor man get, who kills a well-off tourist for the money in his wallet - or even for his shoes?

Now multiply that by several hundred - adding on, of course, extra years to allow for the Boeing executives' privileged lives, top-flight education, and (above all) the generous sufficiency they already enjoy.

In China such people are routinely shot, which seems the right course. In the USA, while poor people are executed all the time, apparently the wealthy and privileged get a free pass.

b , Apr 5, 2019 6:59:17 AM | link
@Jen - I don't read that "hitting the cokpit roof" as literal description.

@all - I have added a new Washington Post report of an additional software defect at the end of the above piece.

jared , Apr 5, 2019 7:01:57 AM | link
Is a direct result of Boing monopoly - they are division of the military. And why did european agency roll-over? Will this warrant cancellation of orders?
Tom Welsh , Apr 5, 2019 7:09:05 AM | link
Oh, and the people at the FAA need to be tried in a criminal court too. Not only were they criminally negligent - they did it while being generously remunerated by the taxpayer. Perhaps a few years as galley slaves would be appropriate punishment - to teach them not to be lazy.
Ger , Apr 5, 2019 7:34:32 AM | link
This cheap seat Boeing export death trap was doomed from the beginning. Once these planes nose 'up' it is heading to a crash. Any engineer with a basic understanding of aero dynamic/physics knows this. This is not about sensor failure. It is about the profit of cheap parts and greed. The insiders at Boeing tipped off the Big Boys that they needed more than the gizmos installed on export versions if they were going to survive.

Tom @3 makes note the Chinese have a great quality control program. Boeing execs will up their kickback slop to US politicians and the final report will say, 'well accidents will happen'.

Taffyboy , Apr 5, 2019 7:59:26 AM | link
You can be sure that if this was Airbus, and two were crashed in the USA, that there would be hearings, threats, congressional investigations, lawsuits, calls for criminal investigations, Wall Street shorting the company, ...and on and on until the company would be disbanded.

Criminal, well yes but so what! Peons do not matter, right.

Walter , Apr 5, 2019 8:14:29 AM | link
Engineering Manufacturing company with a sales division works alright. But a Sales Company with a manufacturing subsidiary does not, as we see. Boeing is typical for end-stage Imperial Corporations - all show, no go, and get the money quick...

Sorta like GE's BWR's and Fukushima, fake it on the cheap and run with the money to retirement.

b , Apr 5, 2019 8:36:24 AM | link
The full 33 pages Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau Preliminary Report from the Ethiopian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
donkeytale , Apr 5, 2019 8:59:32 AM | link
Now we learn (from Krugman, but still) the American meat industrial complex is also now self-regulating thanks to the Donald.

"Donald Trump Is Trying to Kill You
Trust the pork producers; fear the wind turbines."

I'm reaching for the broccoli...oh wait....the organic broccoli

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 5, 2019 9:01:05 AM | link
The Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof ..."
Posted by: Jen | Apr 5, 2019 6:27:26 AM | 1

My interpretation is the same as yours. It's an incident report which is supposed to be bland statements of fact - neither overstated nor understated. If the report says the pilots hit the roof then that's what happened (airliner cockpits don't have cathedral ceilings so only inches clearance when standing erect).

OTOH I find it hard to believe that the pilots would unbuckle before they had achieved cruise status and given passengers the OK to do the same.

Seat belts can break but not under the relatively mild stresses generated by violent flight maneuvers of an intact aircraft.

Kiza , Apr 5, 2019 9:14:57 AM | link
When I purchase an airline ticket I purchase the risk profile of the airline and the risk profile of the plane manufacturer, because either can kill me.

A mistake is one or two errors. This was one horrible string of deliberate corner cutting, about 7-8 totally disastrous decisions by the management, that could have only led to deaths of people uninformed enough to purchase the travel risk from this plane supplier.

Uninformed just like I was before I recently saw some old investigative footage about Boeing's disregard for elementary quality in the earlier 737 hull manufacturing and the company's treatment of the whistleblowers trying to help the company by exposing such wrong doing: "Just put a coat of paint on it".

Intentionally (spin) or unintentionally, there is too much talk about detail such as software, pilot capability and decisions, training and the lack of it and so on. This only hides the big picture of an utter disregard for the value of human life, traded off for management bonuses and stock holder dividends. It is a complete reversal of the original engineering-focused Boeing which made Boeing an icon that it used to be. Perhaps, somewhere in the Washington lobbying swamp the dividing line between the engineering for killing people and the engineering for transporting people became too blurred. As the profit strategy, on MIC business overcharge, on airliner business underdeliver, and ruthlessly so on both: rip-off money from the tax-payers and lives from the travellers.

Please convince me that this is not a symptom of the rot of the whole society, when an icon such as Boeing sinks deep into nastiest morally debased profiteering. I posit that the society which so easily kills people using bombs, rockets and drones cannot make good quality products any more. This is because killing and destroying is just too easy compared with creating something good . Without the good will of the people in a society to morally rebalance, the societal endeavours for creation can never compete against the endeavours for destruction. In other words, US had become too much about destruction to be still capable of creation.

Finally, there would be one way to get back on the right track - life-in-jail for both Boeing and FAA involved. It is ultimately ironic that in the highly criticised China the shitbags would probably be put in front of a firing squad for corruption. In US, they will receive bonuses and continue on to the next killing enterprise. Until they finally launch nuclear tipped missiles against the creation oriented foreign competitors. Do they still know of any other way to win?

Avid Lurker , Apr 5, 2019 9:33:24 AM | link
Touching and informative press conference with the Stumo family (Ralph Nader's grandniece, Samyo Stumo, was killed on the 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia) and two law firms that filed a lawsuit against Boeing and others. At @ 28 min one lawyer displays an anonymous email from a 737 MAX pilot detailing how the MCAS system can thwart a pilot's ability to recover control of the jet. This email was posted to a pilots' forum/aviation network after the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October.

Attorneys file suit for family of woman killed in Ethiopian plane crash

Ric G , Apr 5, 2019 9:34:15 AM | link
Boeing has solved all their problems with the 737 Maxxx.

They are opening a fast food franchise and bolting the planes to concrete blocks. No problemo!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3781574/Not-usual-plane-meal-look-inside-China-s-4-million-fine-dining-restaurant-converted-retired-Boeing-737.html

Walter , Apr 5, 2019 9:45:44 AM | link
@Steve...if you say it, then it's true. Of course, if you knew more about it, then you would say something else.

But real expert Gundersen says differently. I worked with some of the GE engineers, and I know what they said.

You are 100% incorrect about the diesels, the problem included primary, ultimate heat sink loss due to the elevation of the pumps, and the pressure vessels we know to be unsafe.

GE BWR's designed in the US by US GE engineers, some of whom quit rather than sign off on the design..."fuze was lit for Fukushima in 1965" >see fairewinds, amigo.

b4real , Apr 5, 2019 9:52:06 AM | link
They're in for it now... Remember when GM CEO Maria Barra went to jail for those faulty ignition cylinders ?

/sarc

This is a feature of capitalism. If left unfettered, it will consume itself.

In a just world, Syria would shoot down an F35 with an S300.

b4real

Kiza , Apr 5, 2019 9:57:26 AM | link
@SteveK9 12
As far as I understand, the main Fukushima problem was the concrete reactor encasing design which did not cater for the possibility of excessive hydrogen release from the reactor. It worked well when not in trouble, but in an accident situation (who would have expected an accident) the concrete encasing without a release valve became a pressure cooker filled with flammable hydrogen. What a surprise that it went boom!?

What you write here about the water cooling system generators you probably believe in but it resembles the pilot blaming spin of Boeing. The truth has a nasty tendency to end up owned by those with most money.

I always remember how our old friend pharaoh Ramses paid hundreds of stone masons to go around Egypt and chisel out the achievements of all the previous pharaohs and chisel in his. Then even several thousands of years later, when the archeologists finally learned to read hieroglyphs, they only had propaganda and spin left to read. Thus nothing less than the son of the supreme Egyptian deity the sun god Ra, the propaganda paying Ramses became the greatest pharaoh of all time.

bevin , Apr 5, 2019 9:58:50 AM | link
"As a layman, my main question at this stage is: 'Who is going to prison and for how long?'"
The first to go should obviously be the individuals in charge of the FAA. These people, I imagine, were appointed by Obama. When we look at the regulatory system in the US bear in mind that the current irresponsibility arose in a long descent-since the days of Nixon I suspect-into neo-liberal corporate capture.
Just recently the deceits practised in the fake science which allowed the licensing of Round Up were revealed. The entire system is rotten and nowhere is it more corrupt than in the United States.
Pft , Apr 5, 2019 10:04:18 AM | link
" They reengage the electric stabilizer trim to righten the aircraft"

That's the problem. While the plane may have remained unstable due to the lack of rapid response of the manual trim control and difficulties turning.the wheel at high speed low altitude flight,the planes altitude was still increasing. They should have either returned to the airport or continued ascent in the hope they could restore trim at high altitude and low air pressure.

Altitude immediately plummeted when they rengaged the MCAS and the plane was not recoverable at that point.

Such mistakes should be made in flight simulators . Hence it's lack of training at fault here, and the blame for that is still on Boeing.

Not sure even the flight simulator training will solve this mess
TBH

J Swift , Apr 5, 2019 10:22:12 AM | link
This whole business is sickening and infuriating. What is especially infuriating is that the FAA is extremely onerous in enforcement of ancient regulations with respect to general aviation. The owner of a small plane is actually prohibited from casually upgrading any of the antiquated instruments, even radios, on his Made in 1975 private plane, and must stick with what was originally certified by the manufacturer as originally constructed--unless he is willing to expend huge amounts of money to find an updated, certified (e.g., "safe") upgraded component from someone willing to go the lengthy and expensive process of having the FAA certify that product, then have a certified mechanic install the certified part and certify it was done according to the precise procedures established. In effect, the FAA actively discourages safety improvements of the general aviation fleet by unthinking resistance to technological change.

Unless you're Boeing.

Having experience with the "other" FAA, this is what's especially dumbfounding to me. While there may be some justification in permitting a trusted manufacturer to establish and certify as safe minor details, anything involving the actual flight characteristics of the plane should NEVER be delegated, and doubly so with respect to commercial airliners. And how could any regulator be anything but incredulous if a manufacturer says "Well, we've decided to make this commercial airliner INHERENTLY UNSTABLE, but we have a whole box of bandaids which should do a bang-up job of keeping it in the air!" WTF!! "Fail-safe" isn't actually a fix or a mechanism, the term is supposed to describe a design philosophy, in which if there is a failure, the resulting condition is still safe (well, at least not less safe). Ditto redundancy, which is why it is unheard-of that such an apparently vital bandaid relied on only one sensor.

It's one thing to build a fighter that is inherently unstable (although even that is perhaps questionable), but an airliner filled with passengers? Ludicrous. And the FAA and Boeing both know it, and knew it from the start. In a just world heads would literally roll, but sadly, nothing real is likely to happen.

Piotr Berman , Apr 5, 2019 10:31:04 AM | link
I already thought that the whole setup had faulty logic. If the plane could be adequately controlled by pilots, "manually", then extra training would be cheaper than introducing an automatic system. If the plane could not be adequately controlled by the pilots, "switching to manual" is futile.

I have a minor experience with "automatic control" when the chip of my car went wrong. In old, old times one has to add a bit of extra gas to start the car engine, and as a result one could flood the engine, then wait a few minutes for the gasoline to evaporate and try again. In contemporary cars you do not press gas at all when you start, and the chip regulates how much gasoline should be injected to the engine based on its temperature. Then after 10 years of happy use the chip "noticed" that the engine is cold when it is actually hot. So I am driving on a windy narrow road and the car accelerates going 40 mph without pressing the gas (65 kmh), 15 mhp above the legal speed limit, and did I mention that the road had curves? Frankly, it happened few times before that, but on a straight road you just get the feel of cruise control. Anyway, brakes remedied the situation, luckily, they could overcome the engine and the chip was replaced for mere 800 dollars.

Here it seems that Boeing designers entered the kludge road and kept compensating for this or that and lost the total picture. Isn't it suspicious that the automatic trim was so aggressive? I also do not understand at all what "manual" means, seem impossible that actual muscle force of the pilot was applied to the tail? Should there be an emergence procedure in which a cabin steward under voice control of the captain adjusts the tail with a crank, or perhaps something like a capstan that could be moved by the entire cabin crew? That would be a true manual system.

My conclusion is that once you rely on automatic solutions because the crew cannot do it in some situations, you must crank up the reliability to something "average million years without failure or more". It is not a ship that can drop anchors, giving a few days to figure out the problem etc. (although this is something that should be avoided too). Boeing setup was something that should flunk students in Industrial Engineering (they have courses on control systems). For example, an internal device with a gyroscope could track the speed and its three-dimensional angle, so if one of external sensors malfunction the system can automatically decide which reading makes more sense. External sensor measure speed in respect to air which is important too, but if the plane approaches the ground, that should be noted to,. With few gismos you could get sufficient redundancy with some "voting scheme" or a "decision tree".

J Swift , Apr 5, 2019 10:41:56 AM | link
Just use logic for a moment. Boeing: We're presenting this new (redesigned) plane for certification, and it comes with it's very own MCRASH system. FAA: MCRASH system...what's that? Boeing: Well, the plane has a pronounced tendency to go into stalls and fall out of the sky. FAA: That's an interesting feature. Are pilots going to be able to handle these aggravated power-on stalls (the worst kind, incidentally)? Boeing: Oh, no. There's no way pilots would be able to detect the condition and react quickly enough to save the plane, so we've devised an automated system that is faster than a human can react to save the day. We present MCRASH.

I mean, seriously!

Piotr Berman , Apr 5, 2019 10:43:43 AM | link
From annals of idiocy in design. Some time in the 1st decade of this century the Polish state rail road decided to embrace modernity and introduced automatic ticketing system. It would fabulously till the end of that year when it shut down. Apparently, there was a "sanity check" disallowing tickets to have arrival before the departure, someone forgot about the pesky case of arrival after New Year following departure in December, and the system could not cope with a wave of "illegal requests". Luckily, because the system did not operate that long prior to collapse, there were still people who could manually write the tickets until the bug was removed.
Piotr Berman , Apr 5, 2019 10:46:06 AM | link
would -> work, I must say that the setup not allowing to correct the post after it is made is also an example of a "suboptimal" design, many sites give you 10-15 minutes with a permission to edit or delete.
Uncoy , Apr 5, 2019 10:57:41 AM | link
Berman, you wrote:
would -> work, I must say that the setup not allowing to correct the post after it is made is also an example of a "suboptimal" design, many sites give you 10-15 minutes with a permission to edit or delete.

B hosts Moon of Alabama on Typepad. Typepad costs $15/month, including hosting and support (best value in web hosting for a busy weblog). Typepad apparently doesn't have a post-comment grace period editing option or B would have added it.

I used to be an advocate of MoA moving over to WordPress (I'm a full time software architect/designer who builds WordPress driven web application and a pro video player). There's lots of nice bells and whistles which could be added including comment editing and a much more attractive and innovative design.

Having seen the endless security issues and silly site breaking updates which Matt Mullenweg and Automattic have pushed out over the last four years, B would be wise to stay put on Typepad. Typepad is clunky, it's a bit ugly but it works reliably and is inexpensive. Maintaining and updating a WordPress site costs either lots of man hours or lots of money (good IT help is not cheap).

terrorist lieberal , Apr 5, 2019 11:37:47 AM | link
Tom @ 5,

Obviously you know no one will ever be prosecuted or lose anything. This country is in the hands of the rich and powerful, just note how the great Obama couldn't jail one crooked banker and they all got to keep everything they stole at the expense of millions and millions of people, lives ruined, and they live the high life as some exceptional people, yeah right, God Bless America, home of the biggest terrorist organization the world has known.

terrorist lieberal , Apr 5, 2019 11:39:09 AM | link
Sorry, meant for Tom at comment 3
james , Apr 5, 2019 11:54:53 AM | link
thank you b! who is going to be held accountable? i say no one...

@13 donkeytale.. that sounds about right... i imagine it's happening in any industry where money is involved in the usa - which is basically every industry.. get rid of the mechanisms for protecting people and just make sure to protect the moneyed interests..

capitalism devoid of morals and ethics is just peachy..

Pnyx , Apr 5, 2019 12:02:42 PM | link
Thanks for the comprehensive account of what happened. I really hope this will result in a hefty judicial price tag for the cynicals and greedies at Boeing.
b , Apr 5, 2019 12:33:03 PM | link
@taffyboy

You can be sure that if this was Airbus, and two were crashed in the USA, that there would be hearings, threats, congressional investigations, lawsuits, calls for criminal investigations, Wall Street shorting the company, ...and on and on until the company would be disbanded.

There were two Boeing MAX crashes outside of the U.S. and there ARE now hearings, threats, congressional investigations, lawsuits and even a criminal investigation. Boeing's stock price fell by some 10% since the second crash.
-
@Hoarsewhisperer @14

It's an incident report which is supposed to be bland statements of fact - neither overstated nor understated. If the report says the pilots hit the roof then that's what happened (airliner cockpits don't have cathedral ceilings so only inches clearance when standing erect).

The phrase "the Pilots are thrown off their seats, hitting the cockpit roof" is not from the incident report but from an interpretation at the Leeham News site. It is not meant literally.

It is based on a suddden change on g-force in the plane which goes from around 1g to 0g when MCAS again kicks in. This has the effect that the pilots are suddenly weightless and no longer have power to pull the yoke back.

Source and effect of this are visible in the diagram.
-

Peter AU 1 , Apr 5, 2019 1:14:13 PM | link
Do airline pilots wear seatbelts on take off. I take it there would be some rules and regulations on this. I have always taken it for granted the pilots would be wearing seatbelt on take off and landing, also if expecting turbulence during a flight.
Impossible to control anything if you're getting tossed around.
ritzl , Apr 5, 2019 1:26:26 PM | link
Unless the EU and other governing bodies divorce themselves from our seemingly privatized FAA, expect more of this. Unless, of course, ALL flight safety orgs, globally, are equally corrupted.

I have no idea if global corruption is the case/or worse, but there is now pretty strong evidence that the US FAA is not the unassailable leader in certification protocols that the whole planet has depended upon - up to now.

karlof1 , Apr 5, 2019 1:29:56 PM | link
Hmmm.... Proper retribution. Load Boeing's Board of Directors, senior engineers that signed off on the entire MAX project, senior accountants, any others tied to the entire boondoggle, all FAA "regulators" who approved boondoggle, and all others who helped cause the fatalities into several MAX airplanes designed to fail just as the ill-fated jets did manned by the Boeing pilots who approved the faulty design and force them to takeoff with flight paths over water. Yes, proper retribution for the crime. Cruel and unusual objections? No. Proper retribution.

The entire Neoliberal philosophy must suffer a similar fate along with its promoters and their Neocon allies. The Class War has always been deadly. It's high time elites began taking casualties. Too radical? Take a good look at the world and the circumstances of those besieged by Neoliberals and Neocons and try to argue against.

ritzl , Apr 5, 2019 1:31:55 PM | link
And, Jeez, if you want to get into the whole "death of empire" thingy, this FAA failure would be among the top tier of exhibits.

Thanks b, and all posters here. This is a truly GREAT site. I recommend it whenever I talk politics in personL

Meshpal , Apr 5, 2019 1:41:34 PM | link
Zerohedge has an article that says the pilots should have reduced engine power.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-05/experts-say-ethiopian-air-pilots-failed-do-one-thing-could-have-prevented-deadly

That is a true statement, but with so many things going wrong – you need to understand that it is a basic instinct of pilots to keep engine power up so you can climb and get out of trouble.

Very basic: Power = Good and No-Power = Bad.

So they should have reduced power and done a slight nose down to unload the jack screw and re-trimmed manually. The problem was they had no altitude to work with, just 1000 ft or so.

So the end story is that not only did the pilot do well, but the low-hour co-pilot was also surprising competent. It was team work all the way.

So the bottom line is that our Western system has become so corrupt that it is no longer even safe to fly. And this is just the beginning. It is all downhill from now on. More gender studies and who needs engineers anyway?

deal with it , Apr 5, 2019 2:41:14 PM | link
Boeing Max 8 was a flying design mistake.
Boeing, You Ain't no Airbus!
You can' t just slap some heavier bulkiet engines on a tinny single body crap that barely flew straight at the first time and expect everything to be right, slapping some hiden software autocorrections on just in case.. and sell this crap all over the world. Enjoy the torrent of lawsuits now!
You ain't no European aircraft maker. They tend to think 2 to 3 design steps ahead in to the future.
You guys at the US cant even barrely ellect a pres. who is right in the head.
SteveK9 , Apr 5, 2019 3:26:36 PM | link
Apologies to everyone for the thread hijack, but nuclear power nonsense annoys me.
@Walter 18

Gundersen is a very well-known anti-nuke fanatic and a liar. His qualifications are BS. At this point I think you and I can leave it and either of us can read more if we are so inclined.

@Kiza 20

Hydrogen release was an effect from the overheating and meltdown, caused by the lack of emergency cooling. There were no hydrogen recombiners present in these reactors, although they had been installed in every BWR in the US long before.

As I mentioned the reactor nearest the quake suffered no damage, because its emergency generators continued to operate, as they were not flooded. I forgot the plant name ... you could look it up ... it actually served as a shelter during the flood. As a consequence there was no release of hydrogen there (this happens when the zirconium cladding on the fuel reacts with water at high temperature to release hydrogen).

I'm not an expert in reactor design (although I have a PhD in Chemical Physics). I reached my own conclusions a very long time ago, and am not really interested in digging up evidence or providing explanations. There is a mountain of information out there if one wants to look ... and I don't mean Greenpeace (although the founder, Patrick Moore is currently a supporter of nuclear power).

deal with it , Apr 5, 2019 3:34:13 PM | link
Oh and btw, about United States aviation related products leading the race in global aviation...

Struggling to produce an effective design for an airframe for the Martian atmosphere (planet Mars) back in the earlier decade, using the top of the line comercial aviation simulation products with aircraft design options bundled in, as a way of researching a NASA info web campaign about flying vehicles on Mars, managed after much trying to produce a somehow reliable generic airframe for that very thin atmosphere and low gravity environments, which it would generaly resemble a mix of U2's and Predator drones frames (twice large than a U2 wing span) but with major tail wings modifications and you would get adequate performance if you flew it inside the enormous Martian cannyons which have a higher atmosphere pessure than rest of Martian surface. Mil air force drones were generally non existant as information back then. The software was the only product FAA approved a license for actual comercial aviation simulation training hours for training of real pilots...End of story, this design came third ...and the actual algorithms in the software decided that an actual UFO shaped craft would be behaving much better in Martian wind/atmosphere... We incorporated the solution of small rockets for generating initial lift for take off and emergency altitude.
FAA and the leading edge researchers decided that the ALIENS WOULD WIN!
I was almost sure that even Nasa people (which names was on the program approval credits) used same software without noticing anything strange before the Aliens stole the win...

Bart Hansen , Apr 5, 2019 3:51:35 PM | link
So the jack screw that manually controls the stabilizer did not work due to high speed. Isn't that what hydraulics are for?

After all, Slim Pickens managed to kick that bombay door open in Strangelove

Hoarse, I also was confused by the reasoning in the Seattle paper. But then again, I learned all I know about the affect of air flowing over a surface in flight by sticking my hand out the car window as a kid.

تابلو چلنیوم , Apr 5, 2019 4:32:53 PM | link
To avoid such crashes, training is needed more professionally and, in addition, the worn-out parts of the planes should be removed and replaced with new ones. In the vast majority of aircraft, due to high costs, little importance is given to worn parts, which causes people to fall and get dead.
Scotch Bingeington , Apr 5, 2019 4:44:34 PM | link
@ Meshpal | 38
More gender studies and who needs engineers anyway?

I think you're barking up the wrong tree there. I wholeheartedly agree with the second (sarcastic) bit, no doubt about that. But the guy who had overall responsibility for the 737 MAX desaster holds a "degree" in "Business Administration". James McNerney, B.A. from Yale, MBA from Harvard, member of Delta Kappa Epsilon - Chairman, President and CEO of The Boeing Company 2005-2016. I have a strong feeling that gender studies wouldn't exactly be his cup of tea. Just an ordinary, boring, utterly predictable, Pavlovian, run-of-the-mill business tosser. He thought he could do it all, and so off he went, again and again. From British United Provident Association (healthcare) to G.D. Searle (pharmaceuticals) to Procter & Gamble to McKinsey to General Electric to 3M. And what the heck, let's add Boeing into the mix with a pay of 30 million USD in 2014 alone. What a spec-taaaa-cular career!

jayc , Apr 5, 2019 5:29:21 PM | link
Easy to anticipate a consumer boycott of this plane. I wouldn't buy a ticket on a Max 8 flight, and began double-checking the airliner after the crash last October.
bbbar , Apr 5, 2019 6:04:28 PM | link
Horsewhisperer @ 7

In horizontal flight the stabilizer exerts a moderate amount of downward force to keep the tail level (so as to balance the torques on the airplane). When the infographic says "a small downward force pushes the nose down" it is merely saying the downward force on the tail was now less than that required to keep the plane level, so the tail rose and the nose fell.

S , Apr 5, 2019 6:33:36 PM | link
@تابلو چلنیوم : I suggest you read the article first, then comment.
Kiza , Apr 5, 2019 6:41:32 PM | link
@SteveK9 40

With respect for your PhD in Chemistry Physics, you are obviously not an engineer. In most societies, it is around the third year of study that engineers learn about redundancy and contingency planning. Therefore, not thinking trough all the possible disaster scenarios when designing life-critical contraptions is simply criminal: Fukushima nuclear power plants.

Perhaps Boeing should have hired a couple of engineering interns to tell them that they must not:
1) slap unsuitable new engines on an obsolete old air frame,
2) try to fix a serious hardware problem using software,
3) override pilots with their lives on the line by the decisions of some software cretin paid by the hour with no skin in the game,
4) hang lives of 180 people on a single sensor unavailable for replacement on an airport in Timbuktu,
5) play the no-training-needed tune when the structure of the product was substantially changed and operator training was essential and so on.

The engineers are blue collar workers, the more so the closer they are to the assembly floor. They have no decision power, they do what they are told. Yet, it is a society in deep moral crisis when the engineers keep silent whilst virtually all basic tenants of the proper design are broken by the profiteers managing them. Doing all the wrong things and expecting the right result? No, not really, just grab the money and run. Après nous le déluge.

BTW, I heard from a Lockheed lobbyist that Lockheed would never do something like this. They only rip off the US tax payers for godzillion of dollars whilst making the best killing machines that money can buy.

ken , Apr 5, 2019 6:50:29 PM | link
God,,, What humans will do to save little pieces of paper loosely called money. This is criminal. The entire board should be charged with murder or at least manslaughter. But it won't happen. Corpgov will step in to save them as they're to big to jail.
S , Apr 5, 2019 7:01:44 PM | link
Absolutely heartbreaking.

It is my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the only thing the pilots could have done was to realize -- by a pure miracle -- that the captain's AoA sensor has failed and switch to the first officer's flight computer, which was connected to another, working AoA sensor. Of course, if Boeing had installed their "mismatching AoA data" indicator as a standard feature, the pilots wouldn't really need a miracle.

VietnamVet , Apr 5, 2019 7:38:26 PM | link
Boeing is slowing the production rate of 737 Max by 20%. Another chicken has come home to roost. To safely fly the aircraft with passengers, a new flight control system is required with multiple sensors including gyroscopes plus triple redundant electronics. Not just two position sensors as proposed by Boeing which is the pilot flipping a coin in the chaotic 40 seconds to do the right thing while the plane is trying to kill you. Pilot and co-pilot training on flight simulators is also required. If the FAA approves anything less, sooner or later, another 737 Max will crash. Similarly, the Trump Administration is turning over pork inspection to the slaughter houses. A million Chinese pigs were culled to attempt to stop the spread of African Swine Fever but the deadly pig disease continues to spread through Asia. One day soon the contagion will be fatal to humans. Climate change is here. The forever wars continue. The bottom line is that public safety which is the basic function of government is collapsing. Oligarchs are getting rich on the bodies of the dead.
Yeah, Right , Apr 5, 2019 8:00:58 PM | link
@38 Meshpal "Zerohedge has an article that says the pilots should have reduced engine power."

From the report: "At 05:39:42, Level Change mode was engaged. The selected altitude was 32000 ft. Shortly after the mode change, the selected airspeed was set to 238 kt."

Then a minute later: "From 05:40:42 to 05:43:11 (about two and a half minutes), the stabilizer position gradually moved in the AND direction from 2.3 units to 2.1 units. During this time, aft force was applied to the control columns which remained aft of neutral position. The left indicated airspeed increased from approximately 305 kt to approximately 340 kt (VMO). The right indicated airspeed was approximately 20-25 kt higher than the left."

Note that the pilots were getting conflicting airspeed readings (the difference would eventually grow to around 50 kt).

There is nothing in the report that suggests that either of the pilots opened the throttles, and by the time the "overspeed clacker" started its warning the pilots had rather more pressing problems to deal with.

I don't quite understand why this isn't addressed in the report: the pilots set the speed to 238 kt, and if they then opened the throttles the report should have said so (it doesn't). But if they didn't touch the throttle then what accounts for the speed being at 305 kt (rather than 238 kt) when the plane started its first dive?

Ghost Ship , Apr 5, 2019 8:07:11 PM | link
>>>> SteveK9 | Apr 5, 2019 3:26:36 PM | 40
There is a mountain of information out there if one wants to look ... and I don't mean Greenpeace (although the founder, Patrick Moore is currently a supporter of nuclear power).

No, Patrick Moore was not the founder of Greenpeace :

Patrick Moore Did Not Found Greenpeace
Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and many news outlets have repeated this characterization. Although Mr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace. Phil Cote, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen founded Greenpeace in 1970. Patrick Moore applied for a berth on the Phyllis Cormack in March, 1971 after the organization had already been in existence for a year.
karlof1 , Apr 5, 2019 8:07:43 PM | link
Vietnam Vet #@51--

Thanks for confirming that the retribution I prescribe @36 is right and proper as is what must follow. Only one quibble with your comment, the death trap MAXs should never, ever again be certified as airworthy as they clearly are not .

UnionHorse , Apr 5, 2019 8:12:05 PM | link
Meme Change, consider speaking of the

Pentagon Complex.

MIC is unknown. Link to Ike's Farewell early and often.

Speak the names of every contractor, not just Lockheed, etc... Get the list out of them...

Cheers to naming the Pentagon Complex

My very best regards to all,

Arioch , Apr 5, 2019 8:27:33 PM | link
> I forgot the plant name ... you could look it up

@SteveK9 | Apr 5, 2019 3:26:36 PM | 40

It was all the same. Fukushima Dai-Ichi (Number One) was the Nuclear Power Plant consisting of 6 "Reactor Buildings"

#1 was relatively small, US-designed US-built one. It had passive residual cooling - gravity-powered water flow from the tank.

#2 was larger reactor in the same Mark-1 containment, US-designed and US-buit. The residual cooling though could not be gravity-driven. It required the pump (or maybe there was a way to set temperature-driven convection, if valves could be put right - i heard it but did not dig into it)

Obviously, USA does not care about tsunami-driven floods: USA has enough soil to build NPPs away from sea shores.

#3 and #4 were those larger reactors in more modern containment, US-designed but build by Japanese companies. Japanese did know what tsunami is, but they dared not to deviate from USA designs until they make succesfulyl working verbatim coopies.

#5 and #6 were Japanese-built after they got experience with #3 and #4 and proived they can do verbatim copies. Those latter blocks were altered: for #1 to #4 shore ground was removed to almost ocean sea levelm as close to the shorelines earth was considered wet and unreliable, but #5 and #6 were instead moved away from the sea enough to earth be stable even on elevation.

When the wave came, blocks #1 to $4 were flooded (with their electric circuits probably located in basements a la Americana, thus immediately got short-circuited with salted sea water), and diesels were located immediately at water edge with all the consequences for the communications. Blocks #5 and #6, located away from the sea shopre and on elevated grounds, and their diesels located near them, were not reached by the tsunami.

P.S. but people still repeat old propaganda about Chernobyl being sabotaged by suicidal operating crew, what do you want... When people read MSM they do not care much what exactly happened, so they just swallow it without labour of critical acclaim. If much later they suddenly grow interested in some issues - their "point of view" is already long internalized, so they do search relentlessly now - but for ideas supporting their pre-formed cognitive bias.

P.P.S. I agree though that hi-jacking Boeing-related thread for in-depth discussion of NP issues would be not proper to do.

Arioch , Apr 5, 2019 8:33:40 PM | link
> it is merely saying the downward force on the tail was now less than that required

Posted by: bbbar | Apr 5, 2019 6:04:28 PM | 46

That was what i settled upon too, in the end.
But the way infographics worded it was baflfing at least.

They probably simplified words to keep the mdigestible for laymen? But well, they overdid, greatly.

karlof1 , Apr 5, 2019 8:39:49 PM | link
Ralph Nader on "Boeing's Homicides . Why is it that only he and I seem to understand:

"THE BOEING 737 MAX MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO FLY AGAIN." {Emphasis original]

The discussion here resembles that being conducted by Boeing to exonerate itself. The MAX was purposely designed to be unsafe. Nader puts it thusly:

" The overriding problem is the basic unstable design of the 737 Max. An aircraft has to be stall proof not stall prone . An aircraft manufacturer like Boeing, notwithstanding its past safety record, is not entitled to more aircraft disasters that are preventable by following long-established aeronautical engineering practices and standards." [My Emphasis]

Trying to fix something so fundamentally broken that people with priceless lives are jeopardized if the fix(es) fail is so utterly immoral words fail to detail just how deep that immorality is. It's not just Righteous Indignation or even Righteous Indignation on Steroids--it goes well beyond that to the utterly dysfunctional immorality of placing profit over the safety of something money cannot buy or replace-- PEOPLE'S LIVES .

james , Apr 5, 2019 8:55:15 PM | link
i agree with nader.... thanks karlof1..
psychohistorian , Apr 5, 2019 9:15:44 PM | link
@ karlof1 with the Nader quote

You know that I and others agree as well with your strong sentiments.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out as a telltale of empire's demise or resilience.

It is not just the 737 Max that I would stay off. Think about the profit mentality that built/allowed the Max to go forward and extrapolate that to the replacement parts for all the other Boeing planes. Do people not understand that the same mentality of profit over safety that brought down the 737 Max is putting other, considered more reliable, Boeing planes at risk....for a few pennies more

Americans are brainwashed into believing that profit belongs between them and good health care so it could be described as a slippery slope to write of 99% of humans not valuing their lives very highly......because brainwashed by TV is my observation

So , Apr 5, 2019 9:26:33 PM | link
There are people in Boeing that need to see the inside of a prison cell forever.
I remember in 2008 during the recession depression seeing an idiot at the beach wearing a Goldman Sachs t shirt. I looked at the idiot in disbelief saying nothing. The next time I see an idiot in SC/Georgia I will not be holding my tongue. "Relentlessly focused on safety" my ass. The crapification continues.
So , Apr 5, 2019 9:31:35 PM | link
Their money and profits are more important than our lives. That's where we are and its all we need to know
S , Apr 5, 2019 9:31:37 PM | link
And the "AoA Disagree" indicator is not even a physical light indicator, as I initially thought, but a purely software feature for the primary flight display ! Unbelievable! 346 people had to die because someone decided to charge an exorbitant fee for a few lines of code that basically consist of two conditionals, a timer variable, and a bitmap blit call.
dh-mtl , Apr 5, 2019 9:35:14 PM | link
On March 12, in a comment posted on MOA, I wrote:

'It looks like the 55 year old 737 air-frame design, which is very low to the ground when compared to more modern designs, is incompatible with the bigger engines required for fuel efficiency.

Being very low to the ground, Boeing was forced to put the engines out in front, which upset the airplane's balance, making the plane essentially unstable. To counter the instability they added the 'MCAS?' control system.

This solution violates a fundamental tenant of design for safety-critical systems. The tenant of 'fail-safe'. If something goes wrong the system is supposed to fail in a manner that preserves safety. For the 737 Max, when the this stability control system fails, the plane is fundamentally unstable. For this system it is not 'fail-safe'. It is 'fail-crash'.'

This is pretty much in agreement with (Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 5, 2019 8:39:49 PM | 58).

I fully agree with the sentiment that this plane should never fly again. I can't imagine any thinking person volunteering to get on to such a fundamentally flawed aircraft.

Zachary Smith , Apr 5, 2019 9:57:18 PM | link
@ Meshpal #38
That is a true statement, but with so many things going wrong – you need to understand that it is a basic instinct of pilots to keep engine power up so you can climb and get out of trouble.

Very basic: Power = Good and No-Power = Bad.

This is what I've heard for as long as I've been reading about airplanes. A search turned up some "sayings" popular with pilots.

It's best to keep the pointed end going forward as much as possible.

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Speed is life, altitude is life insurance. No one has ever collided with the sky.

If you're gonna fly low, do not fly slow! ASW pilots know this only too well.

I've just visited a West Australian newspaper - the one where the brand spanking new Aviation Editor spoke of stupid pilots and unbearably wonderful Boeing. They have a new essay about the Report, but 1) the jackass troll for Boeing has been given a minder in the form of a co-author, and 2) the article plays it straight this time.

Boeing admits 737 software was factor in crashes

The Ethiopian crew performed all of the procedures provided by Boeing but was unable to control the aircraft.

ben , Apr 5, 2019 10:02:06 PM | link
Just more death by deregulation. What's a few hundred deaths compared to Trillions in profits?

This equation extends through most of the U$A's corporate mindset...

Bob , Apr 5, 2019 11:03:17 PM | link
Now with Ralph Nader aboard lets hope that Boeing will have to pay a very high fine https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.5084648/ralph-nader-lost-his-grandniece-in-the-ethiopian-airlines-crash-now-he-s-taking-on-boeing-1.5084655

In case nobody came up with this information up to now, also the US Military doesn't let their pilots fly the new delivered KC-46 tankers https://www.stripes.com/news/loose-tools-and-debris-left-during-manufacturing-led-to-grounding-of-kc-46-tankers-1.570889

The problems of the B737 Max are not a disaster for Boeing, but for the over 300 fatalities.
They lost no shareholder value or return, they lost their lives.
They are also certainly not represented by expensive top lawyers like Boeing itself, who can then mitigate, delay or even completely avert the consequences of Boeing's decisions.
They, the people (who had confidence in American technology/products), crashed on the ground, burned or plunged into the sea without ever having had the slightest chance of averting the disaster.

Grieved , Apr 6, 2019 12:01:45 AM | link
@66 ben

"death by deregulation"

Perfect description.

~~

@67 Bob

Interesting story you linked on the Boeing KC-46. The Air Force pilots won't fly it because the loose tools and debris they found in the planes raised doubts about the planes manufacturing integrity. The crisis was/is one degree (of four graduated degrees of seriousness) away from shutting down the production line completely.

What's key is how Boeing proceeded to address the problem: by taking employee time away from production in order to perform final inspection, i.e. quality control. Which makes it clear where the original quality control was lost, by being absorbed into production, to make more product per employee hour.

And this is just one, visible part of the process, where we can observe concrete examples of inadequate QC.

Commenters here who point to these plane crashes as a failure in the integrity of Boeing itself are exactly correct. The flawed plane built by the flawed company was an inevitable fruit of the poisoned tree.

And I agree that one would be mad to trust anything bearing Boeing's name ever again. One would be wise also to look for similar poisoned trees in all fields, and thread one's way cautiously though this perilous, neoliberalized world.

stuart dodd , Apr 6, 2019 12:25:48 AM | link
Posted by: Bart Hansen | Apr 5, 2019 3:51:35 PM | 42

So the jack screw that manually controls the stabilizer did not work due to high speed. Isn't that what hydraulics are for?

By design.

The screw is designed to work within certain criteria.
1.Load,caused by thick or thin air pressure depending on altitude, on the moving part.
2. Speed, which again increases the load depending on the planes speed through the air, on the moving part.

The speed and altitude are known from the panes onboard sensors.

Great load will possibly damage or break away the moving part, leading to an uncontrollable crash.

Hence use of the jack screw adjustment, by the hydraulic system, will only be available within its design envelope of load and speed.

james , Apr 6, 2019 12:53:13 AM | link
yeah ben... perfect description as grieved notes...

"@66 ben

"death by deregulation"

Perfect description."

no one will be held accountable...

[Apr 05, 2019] Ilargi Meijer Boeing's Problem Is Not Software

Apr 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Ilargi Meijer: Boeing's Problem Is Not Software

by Tyler Durden Thu, 04/04/2019 - 20:45 65 SHARES Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

We had already been told that in the Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crash which killed all 157 people on board, the 4-month old 737 MAX 8's anti-stall software reengaged itself four times in 6 minutes as the pilots struggled to straighten the plane post-takeoff. In the end, the anti-stall software won and pushed the plane nose-down towards the earth. Now, Ethiopia -finally?!- released its report in the March 10 crash:

Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges said that the crew of the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on 10 March "performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but were not able to control the aircraft." As result, investigations have concluded that Boeing should be required to review the so-called manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system on its 737 Max aircraft before the jets are permitted to fly again, she said.

The results of the preliminary investigation led by Ethiopia's Accident Investigation Bureau and supported by European investigators were presented by Ms Moges at a press conference in Addis Ababa on Thursday morning.

Ethiopia is being kind to Boeing. However, though the anti-stall software played a big role in what happened, Boeing's assertion (hope?!) that a software fix is all that is needed to get the 737MAX's back in the air around the globe rests on very shaky ground (no pun intended whatsoever).

737 MAX 8. The angle-of- attack (AOA) sensor is the lower device below the cockpit windshield on both sides of the fuselage. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times)

The Seattle Times did an article on March 26 that explains a lot more than all other articles on the topic combined. The paper of course resides in Boeing's backyard, but can that be the reason we haven't seen the article quoted all over?

If the assertions in the article are correct, it would appear that a software fix is the least of Boeing's problems. For one thing, it needs to address serious hardware, not software, issues with its planes. For another, the company better hire a thousand of the world's best lawyers for all the lawsuits that will be filed against it.

Its cost-cutting endeavors may well be responsible for killing a combined 346 people in the October 29 Lion Air crash and the Ethiopian Airlines one. Get a class-action suit filed in the US and Boeing could be fighting for survival.

Here's what the Seattle Times wrote 9 days ago:

Lack Of Redundancies On Boeing 737 MAX System Baffles Some Involved In Developing The Jet

Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. Its most advanced planes, for instance, have three flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different processors manufactured by different companies . So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing's new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor -- a type of sensor that was known to fail.

That one paragraph alone is so potentially damaging it's hard to fathom why everyone's still discussing a software glitch.

Boeing's rival, Airbus, has typically depended on three such sensors. "A single point of failure is an absolute no-no," said one former Boeing engineer who worked on the MAX, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the program in an interview with The Seattle Times. "That is just a huge system engineering oversight. To just have missed it, I can't imagine how." Boeing's design made the flight crew the fail-safe backup to the safety system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. The Times has interviewed eight people in recent days who were involved in developing the MAX, which remains grounded around the globe in the wake of two crashes that killed a total of 346 people.

The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was already a late addition that Boeing had not planned for initially. They wanted a plane that was so like older ones that no training would be needed, but did put a much heavier engine in it, which was why MCAS was needed. As I wrote earlier today, they cut corners until there was no corner left. On hardware, on software, on pilot training (simulator), everything was done to be cheaper than Airbus.

The angle-of-attack (AOA) sensor of the 737 MAX is the bottom piece of equipment below just below the cockpit windshield. (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)

A faulty reading from an angle-of-attack sensor (AOA) -- used to assess whether the plane is angled up so much that it is at risk of stalling -- is now suspected in the October crash of a 737 MAX in Indonesia, with data suggesting that MCAS pushed the aircraft's nose toward Earth to avoid a stall that wasn't happening. Investigators have said another crash in Ethiopia this month has parallels to the first.

Boeing has been working to rejigger its MAX software in recent months, and that includes a plan to have MCAS consider input from both of the plane's angle-of-attack sensors, according to officials familiar with the new design. "Our proposed software update incorporates additional limits and safeguards to the system and reduces crew workload," Boeing said in a statement. But one problem with two-point redundancies is that if one sensor goes haywire, the plane may not be able to automatically determine which of the two readings is correct , so Boeing has indicated that the MCAS safety system will not function when the sensors record substantial disagreement.

The underlying idea is so basic and simple it hurts: safety come in groups of three: three flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different processors manufactured by different companies , and three sensors. The logic behind this is so overwhelming it's hard to see how anyone but a sociopathic accountant can even ponder ditching it.

And then here come the clinchers:

Some observers, including the former Boeing engineer, think the safest option would be for Boeing to have a third sensor to help ferret out an erroneous reading, much like the three-sensor systems on the airplanes at rival Airbus. Adding that option, however, could require a physical retrofit of the MAX.

See? It's not a software issue. It's hardware, and in all likelihood not just computer hardware either.

Clincher no. 2:

Andrew Kornecki, a former professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who has studied redundancy systems in Airbus and Boeing planes, said operating the automated system with one or two sensors would be fine if all the pilots were sufficiently trained in how to assess and handle the plane in the event of a problem. But, he said, if he were designing the system from scratch, he would emphasize the training while also building the plane with three sensors.

The professor is not 100% honest, I would think. There is zero reason to opt for a two-sensor system, and 1001 reasons not to. It's all just about cost being more important than people. That last bit explains why Boeing went there against better judgment:

[..] Boeing had been exploring the construction of an all-new airplane earlier this decade. But after American Airlines began discussing orders for a new plane from Airbus in 2011, Boeing abruptly changed course , settling on the faster alternative of modifying its popular 737 into a new MAX model. Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked on designing the interfaces on the MAX's flight deck, said managers mandated that any differences from the previous 737 had to be small enough that they wouldn't trigger the need for pilots to undergo new simulator training.

That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community that was increasingly expecting automation. "It's become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX," Ludtke said. Ludtke didn't work directly on the MCAS, but he worked with those who did. He said that if the group had built the MCAS in a way that would depend on two sensors, and would shut the system off if one fails, he thinks the company would have needed to install an alert in the cockpit to make the pilots aware that the safety system was off.

There you go: A two-sensor system is fundamentally unsound, and it's therefore bonkers to even discuss, let alone contemplate it.

And if that happens, Ludtke said, the pilots would potentially need training on the new alert and the underlying system. That could mean simulator time, which was off the table. "The decision path they made with MCAS is probably the wrong one," Ludtke said. "It shows how the airplane is a bridge too far."

Kudos to the Seattle Times for their research. And yeah, we get it, at over 5000 orders for the plane, which costs $121 million each, there's big money involved. Here's hoping that Boeing will find out in the courts just how much.

[Apr 05, 2019] Additional Software Issue Discovered In Boeing 737 MAX

Apr 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The preliminary report contains flight data recorder information indicating the airplane had an erroneous angle of attack sensor input that activated the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) function during the flight, as it had during the Lion Air 610 flight.

To ensure unintended MCAS activation will not occur again, Boeing has developed and is planning to release a software update to MCAS and an associated comprehensive pilot training and supplementary education program for the 737 MAX.

As previously announced, the update adds additional layers of protection and will prevent erroneous data from causing MCAS activation. Flight crews will always have the ability to override MCAS and manually control the airplane.

Boeing continues to work with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other regulatory agencies worldwide on the development and certification of the software update and training program.

Boeing also is continuing to work closely with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as technical advisors in support of the AIB investigation. As a party providing technical assistance under the direction of investigating authorities, Boeing is prevented by international protocol and NTSB regulations from disclosing any information relating to the investigation. In accordance with international protocol, information about the investigation is provided only by investigating authorities in charge.

* * *

Update (1100ET) : Ethiopian investigators have called on Boeing to carry out a full review of the anti-stall system on its 737 Max aircraft after finding pilots of a plane that crashed near Addis Ababa last month had followed the stipulated emergency procedures but were unable to save the aircraft.

Key highlights from the report make it very clear this is Boeing's problem...

As The FT reports, Ethiopian minister of transport Dagmawit Moges called on the embattled aircraft manufacturer to carry out a full review of the anti-stall system on its 737 Max aircraft before they are allowed to fly again , after finding that the pilots were not to blame for the crash last month.

Boeing stock is higher somehow on the back of all this??

Presumably trade hype/hope trumps crash liabilities.

Read the Full Report here...

[Apr 05, 2019] U.S. lawsuit filed against Boeing over Ethiopian Airlines crash - Reuters

Apr 05, 2019 | www.reuters.com

A lawsuit against Boeing Co was filed in U.S. federal court on Thursday in what appeared to be the first suit over a March 10 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash that killed 157 people.

The lawsuit was filed in Chicago federal court by the family of Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda, and alleges that Boeing, which manufactures the 737 MAX, had defectively designed the automated flight control system.

Boeing said it could not comment on the lawsuit.

"Boeing ... is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available," it said, adding all inquiries about the ongoing accident investigation must be directed to the investigating authorities.

The 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide following the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, which came five months after a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people.

Boeing said on Wednesday it had reprogrammed software on its 737 MAX to prevent erroneous data from triggering an anti-stall system that is facing mounting scrutiny in the wake of two deadly nose-down crashes in the past five months.

The planemaker said the anti-stall system, which is believed to have repeatedly forced the nose lower in at least one of the accidents, in Indonesia last October, would only do so once per event after sensing a problem, giving pilots more control.

The crash of Boeing's passenger jet in Ethiopia raised the chances that families of the victims, even non-U.S. residents, will be able to sue in U.S. courts, where payouts are much larger than in other countries, some legal experts have said.

Wednesday's complaint was filed by Musoni's three minor children, who are Dutch citizens residing in Belgium.

The lawsuit says Boeing failed to warn the public, airlines and pilots of the airplane's allegedly erroneous sensors, causing the aircraft to dive automatically and uncontrollably.

Ethiopian officials and some analysts have said the Ethiopian Airlines jet behaved in a similar pattern as the 737 MAX involved in October's Lion Air disaster. The investigation into the March crash, which is being led by the Ethiopian Transport Ministry, is still at an early stage.

[Apr 04, 2019] How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as European. That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as 'the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot toward the 'New Asia.'" Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012

The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.

Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin "to sow discord and division" in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington. That's what Russiagate is really all about.

US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious "pivot" to Asia plan. This new regional strategy focuses on "strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence." In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington's plan to rule the world, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here's how Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. . About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." ("The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives", Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, page 31, 1997)

14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America's military footprint in Asia. It was Clinton who first coined the term "pivot" in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt from the speech:

"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region

Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology ..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."

("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century "Great Game" promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy theorists. It is Washington's premier foreign policy doctrine, a 'rebalancing' theory that focuses on increasing US military and diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO's ominous troop movements on Russia's western flank and Washington's provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao summed it up like this:

"The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on us from the east, south, and west."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington's erratic behavior. NATO's eastward expansion has convinced Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington's relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.

Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war era when the world's industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.

Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia's intervention in Syria has rolled back Washington's plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a "great power competition" which acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America's dominance are emerging everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.

This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It's a desperate "Hail Mary" attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.

What does that mean in practical terms?

It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community (The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces. Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington's proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to "create a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Putin)

Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia's ability to thwart Washington's grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.

As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document's main focus is Russia and China. Here's an excerpt:

"China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence." (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity." They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories, employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)

Here's more: "Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world." (This is a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black.')

"Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data." (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don't hold a candle to the ginormous MSM 'Wurlitzer' that controls the cable news stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)

The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:

"Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners . We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political and security institutions, demonstrating Russia's ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin's domestic legitimacy.

We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime's territorial control in Syria, ·Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas mediate conflicts, including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation .

Russia will continue pressing Central Asia's leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement with Washington. Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests " ("The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community", USG )

Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given Putin's determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here's Putin:

"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."

The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate. This is Washington's greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012, Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as "a move to re-Sovietize the region." . "We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it," she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe."

"Slow down or prevent it"?

Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin's economic integration plan?

Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.

But Russia shouldn't be blamed for Washington's profligate behavior, that's not Putin's fault. Moscow is merely using the free market system more effectively that the US.

Now consider the Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.

"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security."

(Naturally, the "security environment" is going to be more challenging when 'regime change' is the cornerstone of one's foreign policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here's more:)

"Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors ..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here's more:

"China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model

"China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system .

"China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department because of the magnitude of the threats they pose to U.S. security." ( National Defense Strategy of the United States of America )

Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.

Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions and corporations. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the "rules-based system", is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That's why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line, because it's not a fair system.

These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington's provocative plan for military and economic expansion, the threat that Russia and China pose to America's tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.

And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations (PSYOP) is to selectively use information on "audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals."

The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the


Beckow , says: April 4, 2019 at 1:02 am GMT

The emerging Euro-Asian power block is very heterogeneous. Russia, China, and the smaller affiliated players like Central Asia, Iran, Syria, Turkey don't agree on almost anything. They have different cultures, religions, economies, demographic profiles, even writing systems. The most rational strategy to prevent the Euro-Asian block from consolidating would be to get them to fight each other. Alternatively, find the weakest link and attack it in an area where its reluctant allies don't share its interests.

Exactly the opposite has happened in the last 5-10 years: US has seemingly worked overtime to get China-Russia alliance of the ground. They used to distrust each other, today, after Ukraine, South China See, etc they have become close allies. Same with Iran and Syria: instead of letting them stew in their own internal problems – mostly religious and having a nepotistic elite – US has managed to turn the fight into an external geo-political struggle, literally invited Russia to join in, and ended up losing.

Bush turned Iraq from a fanatically anti-Iran bastion to a reliable ally of Iran and started an un-winnable land war in Afghanistan (incredible!). Obama turned Libya, the richest and most stable African country that threatened no-one and kept African migrants far away, into a chaotic hellhole where slave trade flourishes and millions of Sub-Saharan Africans can use it to move on to Europe.

Then Obama tried to coup-de-etat Erdogan in Turkey, and – even worse – failed miserably. This gang can't shoot straight – whatever they put in their position papers is meaningless drivel because they are too stupid to think. They have no patience to wait for the right time to move, no ability to manage on the ground allies, and an aversion to casualties that makes winning a war impossible. Today Trump threatens Germany over its energy security (pipelines), further antagonises Turkey and Erdogan, watches helplessly as EU becomes the next UN (lame and irrelevant), and bets everything on a few small allies like Saudi Arabia and Izrael that are of almost no use in Euro-Asia.

A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that ' maybe I had bad information ' is no master of the universe. And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or ' information warfare ' – is a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.

anon [338] Disclaimer , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:07 am GMT
the russophobia is just drama to keep the MIC spending at $700+ billion per year

there is no way to justify that level of spending and pretend they don't have $25 billion one time to actually help solve the real problem for the U.S.

Krollchem , says: April 4, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
"The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the battlespace" which they must exploit in order to build public support for their vastly unpopular wars and interventions. "

Here is a short guide on how to detect subversion of the mind by the media and their handlers by a former military intelligence officer.

JR , says: April 4, 2019 at 6:00 am GMT
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".

Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".

Recognizing this however one can't escape the conclusion that this "Grand Chessboard" with its consistent 'amoral realist imperatives' is serving up inherently immoral 'imperatives' as inescapable options dressed up in academic language and with absolutely abhorrent arrogance.

Stating that Brennan's Russophobia is somehow a degeneration of Brzezinki's "Grand Chessboard" is completely overlooking how difficult it would be to outdo Brzezinki's own total moral degeneration.

One has to recognize that by now the only bipartisan aspect of US policy can be found in sharing these despicable and immoral 'imperatives' to maintain that "American Primacy" at all cost (of course to the rest of the world).

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
"The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony."

TRUE!

I would suggest that the initials 'US' in the final sentence be changed to: Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:12 pm GMT
"Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end."

Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2, the part where it becomes obvious that it is the Anglo-Zionist Empire, which, like a band of screeching Pharisees standing on the walls of Jerusalem hurling curses at the Romans they inform that Jehovah will soon wipe out all Romans to save His Chosen Race, would choose utter destruction for all over any common sense backing down to prevent mass slaughter.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: April 4, 2019 at 12:43 pm GMT
Nothing harmed US more than Brzezinski's ideology. US did build up far east with their investments, while neglecting their own backyard. US should have build up rather North and South America and make it the envy of the world. Neglecting particularly South America now created Desperate south American people, who have no jobs and no future and these people are now invading US.
Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 4, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT
@Beckow

A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that 'maybe I had bad information' is no master of the universe. And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or 'information warfare' – is a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.

Testosterone plus steady, unrelenting decline and corruption of American "elites" most of who have no background in any fields related to actual effective governance especially in national security (military) and diplomatic fields. Zbig's book is also nothing more than doctrine-mongering based on complete lack of understanding of Russian history.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website April 4, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMT
@JR

Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".

Zbig was a political "scientist" (which is not a science) by education, fact aggravated by his Russophobia, and thus inability to grasp fundamentals of military power and warfare–a defining characteristic of American "elites". He, obviously, missed on the military-technological development of 1970s through 1990s, to arrive to the inevitable conclusion that classic "geopolitics" doesn't apply anymore. Today we all can observe how it doesn't apply and is made obsolete.

Agent76 , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
(Jan.1998) US history – "How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen" – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981

"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a13_1240427874

Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979

In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors). In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.

flashlight joe , says: April 4, 2019 at 2:55 pm GMT
@Jake @Jake

"Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2,"

I call it the Western British Empire.

Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:14 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Why was it that the Brit Empire kept acting throughout the later 18th, the 19th and early 20th centuries to harm Russia, even when it technically was allied with Russia? Why the Crimean War, for example?

Why, for example, was Brit secret service all over the assassination of Rasputin and tied in multiple ways to most non-Marxist revolutionary groups?

mike k , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT
This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else.
Jake , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:26 pm GMT
@anon Like the Ukranians, the 'Balts' virtually always are controlled by somebody else. When Russia does not control the Baltic states, they are controlled by either Poles or Germans. Russians know what that means: the Baltic states are then used as weapons to attack Russia.

The region is much calmer when Russia controls the Baltic states, and that is before taking into consideration how the Polish-Lithuanian Empire turned its Jews lose to terrorize all Orthodox Christians and how Germanic states later used Lutheranism as a force in the Baltics to ignite war with Russia and, under the queer Frederick the Great also used Jewish bankers to finance wars against Russia.

[Apr 04, 2019] People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: April 3, 2019 at 12:24 am GMT

@Johnny Walker Read "People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction."
― Umberto Eco

"What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?"
― Voltaire

"Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it."
― Mercedes

"Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity."
― Robert Graves

[Apr 04, 2019] A>bsolutely matter of fact record about the 1932/1933 famine on the website of the Russian Embassy in Germany.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anja Böttcher , says: April 3, 2019 at 7:07 am GMT

@anon As most aggressive and most rotten player in the most rotten and most massmurderous part of humanity, the Anglosphere, you dare to compare Russian dealing with a Soviet hunger catastrophe, which occured all over the Soviet Union, btw worst in Kazakhstan and western Siberia, and in Ukraine, where consfiscation of grain occured mainly by Ukrainian Soviets, and hunger in Ukraine mostly in eastern Ukraine, where people felt and feel close to Russia, with USAist ongoing practice of aggressive wars, genocidal supremacy and massmurder?

You are a laughing stock, worm.

You can find a carefully source-based and absolutely matter of fact record about the 1932/1933 famine on the website of the Russian Embassy in Germany.
https://russische-botschaft.ru/de/2008/07/18/zur-frage-der-hungersnot-in-der-ukraine-in-den-jahren-1932-1933/

Statements there are completely in accordance with findings of the most accomplished non-Russian expert on Soviet agrarian policies, Philipp Merl.
https://www.amazon.de/Agrarmarkt-Neue-%C3%96konomische-Politik-Landwirtschaft/dp/3515046488/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1542118493&sr=8-7&keywords=stephan+merl
https://www.amazon.de/Sowjetmacht-Bauern-Landwirtschaft-Kriegskommunismus-Wirtschaftsforschung/dp/3428076931/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1513810167&sr=8-2&keywords=stephan+merl

See as well: Philipp Merl : Sowjetisierung in Wirtschaft und Landwirtschaft, EGO (European History Online), pdf.

That solid German historians unanimously revealed propagandistic attempts to sell the 1932/33 famine remotely as equivalent to Anglosaxon hunger genocides, like that of the Irish, Indians and Iranians, has nothing to do with historiography, but with anti-Russian hate propaganda, can be clearly deduced from publications by the German historians Jürgen Zarusky and Jörg Ganzenmüller.

http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Zarusky-reviews-Bloodlands.pdf
https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/sites/default/files/medien/material/2008-3/Ganzenmueller_2012.pdf

And anybody seriously interested in human losses under Stalin finds the best place to learn about it in Moscow.
http://www.moskau-guide.de/moskau/gulag-museum

The best places to learn about Nazi atrocities is btw Berlin.

However, where is the place where the two intertwined most massmurderous nations of the planet openly expose their crimes, which are the most horrendous and giant humanity has committed?

It simply does not exist.

Nobody else has liquidated more than 90% of the indigenous populatio on robbed territory but USAist and Australians, both degenerated Anglosaxons.
Nobody else has robbed as much territory from a neighbour country than the US has done with Mexico.
Nobody committed comparable genocidal losses on Indian ground, Iranian ground, even Chinese
ground – in proportion, Japanese in WW2 could not compete, than Brits. In Africa, British bloodtoll is likewise unequalled – France and Belgium come close behind, but do not match that bloodtoll.

No other nation, not even in Europe and not even Nazi Germany, has committed a genocide of neighbours which resembles what Brits die with their Irish neighbour country, whose population was three times in history reduced by 50% by them.

From the last genocide in the midst of the 19th century, Ireland has not even recovered after 150 years: There population of 12 million Irish then was never achieved again.

In comparison: In the Soviet Union, which btw was not identical with Russia, Ukrainian population was 29.5 million in 1926 and 40.469 million in 1939. This is official Soviet Census, which Ukraine keeps still as their official national census. And you have the cheek to suggest with a solely propagandistic term that Georgian Stalin, whatever his responsibility in the famine was, committed anything comparable with Anglosaxon ongoing slaughtering?

The US started their history with the eracidation of 90% of native Americans.
They have , in their short history, conducted more than a hundred aggressive wars, were in wars, which were never against anybody who had remotely threatened USAists on their ground, 325 years in 349 years of US history and have, since 1949 alone, caused further 30 million causualties minimum.
And in that role, they were since the Round Table of Cecil Rhode the followers of the most genocidal nation of the planet, Brits, whose suprematist colonialism massmurdered more than 100 million people minimum.

This is what even a US-guarded platforrm like Wikipedia admits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

This is a record from India and Ireland about British genocides:
http://worldsworstmassmurderer.blogspot.com/
http://www.irishholocaust.org/officialbritishintent

In the Cold War, btw, the US was most willing to conduct a nuclear Holocaust of 200 million western Europeans, 200 million eastern Europeans, including Russians, and 200 million eastern Asians – if Soviet atomic bombs had not posed the danger that USAists could die a nuclear death in that case as well.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/6/doomsday_machine_daniel_ellsberg_reveals_he

AND YOU HAVE NEVER CEASED TO BE MASSMURDERERS – EVEN WILLING TO COMMIT HUMANOCIDE AS A WHOLE – TO MAINTAIN HEGEMONY OF THE WORLD's CULTURALLY MOST DISTORTED AND DEGENERATED NATION.

And you vermin dare to point with a finger on Russians?

[Apr 04, 2019] It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe.

Notable quotes:
"... the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets. ..."
"... After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and aid. Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders. ..."
"... Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along. ..."
"... It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders. ..."
"... @Asagirian As Lord Ismay once said: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian says: • Website April 4, 2019 at 4:44 pm GMT

It's been our understanding that NATO was necessary because of the Iron Curtain. Soviets took over Eastern Europe and denied it freedom, and there was the danger that Soviets would expand further West.

So, US and Western European nations made a Three Musketeers or Mickey Mouseketeers pact of 'one for all and all for one'.

Now, suppose we do a thought experiment of alternative history: The Soviets withdrew from Eastern Europe, and Eastern European nations like Poland and Hungary became democratic and capitalist soon after WWII. And there is no East and West Germany but just democratic Germany.

Would NATO still have been created? If so, for what? To contain the Soviets? But the Soviets left Eastern Europe in our hypothetical scenario.
If NATO was created even after Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe soon after WWII, there could be only one reason: US hegemony and domination over Western Europe.

Now, there is no way to validate a 'what if' scenario.

However, the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets.

After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and aid. Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders.

Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along.

It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders.

...NATO is even more of a US imperialist project. And this time, the 'new cold war' was entirely the fault of the US.

AnonFromTN , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT

@Mike from Jersey

"we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."

About sums it up nicely.

Digital Samizdat , says: April 4, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
@Asagirian As Lord Ismay once said: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

[Apr 04, 2019] In this interview Cenk asks Tulsi directly if she opposes the Isreal Occupation, she says

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

RobinG says: April 2, 2019 at 11:35 pm GMT 100 Words @Cloak And Dagger What do they say about Tulsi? Please note in this interview when Cenk asks her directly if she opposes the Occupation, she says Yes! A true Zio supporter (as some here have accused her!) would object to even using the word. And she addresses the Adelson question. On the conflict, her answer is pretty pablum, but probably as far as she can go strategically.

Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her. IMO it's a very good interview. Can you picture for a moment, Tulsi in a debate with Trump? What are her boosters doing to prepare her for that? She's handling all the animosity with equanimity, and she'll arrive at the final contest battle-hardened.

Tulsi Gabbard Interview On TYT

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 3, 2019 at 5:56 am GMT

@RobinG

Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her.

It is a good interview and she handles herself very well and her positions are well articulated. I remain wary of her, however, but I will keep an open mind and watch her in the months ahead to see where her funding comes from.

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 3, 2019 at 6:30 am GMT
@RobinG You may also be interested in this interview:

[Apr 04, 2019] If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendj hriges Reich" with "American Primacy"

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Wally , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:43 pm GMT

@JR ssaid:
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".

Except that Germany did not send Germans into the conquered territories during WWII, though they wanted to do so.

[Apr 04, 2019] Both Egypt and Israel claim the other side started it. Israel lied.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: April 2, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT

Because of Trump's recent recognition of Israel's ownership of the Golan Heights, I Googled "Israel six day war," which in turn led me to the page link below. Turns out, Isreal lied about everything.

1) Both Egypt and Israel claim the other side started it. Israel lied.

2) Israel claims Egyptian forces were assembling for an offensive strike. Israel lied.

3) Israel merely initiated a pre-emptive war, rather than because the two stripes on its flag represent the boundaries of its nation as the Nile and the Euphrates. Israel lied.

There are more examples I won't list here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_relating_to_the_Six-Day_War

[Apr 04, 2019] Anybody reading from West Virginia? Our Senator Joe Manchin receives six figures of donations from AIPAC. Don't vote for him.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [244] Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT

@mark green I think a deceptively simple exercise would produce surprising results. We should try to figure out what Anti-Semitism is.

The answer will be that it's a vague concept like 'racism' that is used as a pejorative and slur, and that it would be very hard to find any real, verifiable 'Anti-Semites' or 'racists' who could be shown to hate all members of their chosen enemy group.

Yes, there are people who imagine that they hate all Jews, or all black people, etc. But I doubt that they really know who they hate, and would be surprised to find that they mostly hate a concept, rather than real people.

People who self-identify as 'Jews' are varied, by many different measures, and not all 'semitic', either. And not all people with 'semitic' genes identify as being a 'Jew'.

To those who would say, "well, we still know what we mean by the terms" I would respond, "I think you do, in the very fuzzy, vague, dangerous sense that characterizes your thinking."

That's one point. A second is that it's not a crime to hate anyone or anything. If you hate something or someone, you're within your rights to do so .waste of time and energy that that usually is.

Anonymous [391] Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT
Zionist colonization of America is nearing culmination. Nothing short of a comprehensive anti-colonial resistance movement will rid us of the Zio-cancer that is corroding our national identity, integrity, self determination and independence. The cancer must be extirpated and the time is now.
Anon [300] Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
Anybody reading from West Virginia? Our Senator Joe Manchin receives six figures of donations from AIPAC. Don't vote for him.

AIPAC's February 2019 press release stated, "AIPAC commends Congress for strongly supporting Israeli security and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship in provisions included in the new spending bill. Importantly, the legislation increases security assistance to Israel by $200 million to fully fund the first year of the new 10-year U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). These funds help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge in the region in order to defend itself, by itself, from mounting threats on its borders." This plundering was co-sponsored by the other West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito. So don't vote for her either.

So where does that leave West Virginia voters? Staying home and abstaining from voting, because we never get a good alternative due to the primary election. Which actually solves nothing.

Yep, looking at our options, the only change is going to come from a coup or revolution.

[Apr 04, 2019] Jewish Power Rolls Over Washington by Philip Giraldi

In other words Russiagate was a smoke screen over Isrealgate...
Notable quotes:
"... Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. ..."
"... The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud. ..."
"... Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. ..."
"... Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They are the gravest threat to our national security." ..."
"... Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. ..."
"... There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks. infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any country in the history of the world.

There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby (referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It claims to work to "ensure that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure" through "foreign aid, government partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts ," all of which involve the U.S. as the donor and Israel as the recipient.

Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. No two countries have identical interests, something that is particularly true when one is considering Israel, an ethno-religious autocracy, and the United States, where The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud.

Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. The recent decisions to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights were ill-conceived and have been condemned by the world community, including by nearly all of America's genuine close allies.

The harm done by the Israeli connection to policy formulation in Washington and to U.S. troops based in the Middle East has been noted both by Admiral Thomas Moorer and General David Petraeus, with Moorer decrying how

"If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."

Petraeus complained to a Senate Committee that U.S. favoritism towards Israel puts American soldiers based in the Middle East at risk. He was quickly forced to recant, however.

Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They are the gravest threat to our national security." Inman was referring to American Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard, who stole for Israel an entire roomful of the most highly classified defense information. Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons arsenal. The FBI, for its part, in its annual counterintelligence report, consistently identifies Israel as the "friendly" country that spies most persistently against the U.S. FBI Agents have testified that there are very few prosecutions of the swarms of Israeli spies due to "political pressure."

Third, there is the myth that the United States and Israel have "shared values," which is meant to imply that both are liberal democracies where freedom and human rights prevail, beacons of light offering enlightened leadership in a world where tyranny threatens at every turn. This was stressed in the opening remarks last weekend by AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr, who described Israel as "A nation always striving to be better, more just and true to the message of its founders, a nation dedicated to freedom of religion for people of all faiths. We do our work for all to see. What unites our pro-Israel movement is the passion for bringing American and Israel closer for the benefit of both and the benefit of all. We look like America because we are America."

Kohr is, of course, preaching to an audience that wants desperately to believe what he says in spite of what they have been able to see with their own eyes in the media when it dares to publish a story criticizing Israel. Jewish hypocrisy about one standard for Israel and Jews plus another standard for everyone else operates pretty much out in the open if one knows where to look. Zionist Organization of America's Morton Klein, who once tweeted regarding a "filthy Arab," was interviewed by journalist Nathan Thrall and asked why he believed it was "utterly racist and despicable" to support a "white nationalist" ethnic group but not racist for Israel to do the same. He responded "Israel is a unique situation. This is really a Jewish state given to us by God. God did not create a state for white people or for black people." Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, who calls himself the Senate's "shomer" or guardian for American Jews, had a slightly different take on it: "Of course, we say it's our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace."

But Kohr, Klein and Schumer all know as well as anyone that Israeli Jews, fortified by their conceit of being a "Chosen people," are not interchangeable with contemporary Americans, or at least not "like" the Americans who still care about their country. There are hundreds of mostly Jewish pro-Israel organizations in America, having a combined endowment of $16 billion, that are actively propagandizing and promoting Israeli interests by ignoring or lying about the downside of the relationship. The University of Michigan affiliate of the Hillel International campus organization alone has a multistory headquarters supported by a budget of $2 million and a staff of 15. It hosts an emissary of the Jewish Agency for Israel, an Israeli government supported promotional enterprise.

So, what is the meaning of the "American" in AIPAC? Requiring a religious-ethnic litmus test for full citizenship and rights is Israeli, not American. Having local government admissions committees that can bar Israeli-Palestinian citizens based on "social suitability" would not be acceptable to most Americans. Demanding a unique Israeli right to exist while denying it to Israel's neighbors; demolishing homes while poisoning Palestinian livestock and destroying orchards; shooting children for throwing stones; and inflicting death, terror and deprivation upon the imprisoned people of Gaza are all everyday common practice for the Israeli government.

Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. Israel and friends like Kohr routinely make baseless charges of anti-Semitism against critics while also legislating against free-speech to eliminate any and all criticism. This drive to make Israel uniquely free from any critique has become the norm in the United States, but it is a norm driven by Israeli interests and Israel's friends, most of whom are Jewish billionaires or Jewish organizations that meet regularly and discuss what they might do to benefit the Jewish state.

And the fourth big lie is that the American people support Israel on religious as well as cultural grounds, not because mostly Jewish money has corrupted our political system and media. Indeed, many Christian fundamentalists have various takes on what Israel means, but their influence is limited. The Israel-thing is Jewish in all ways that matter and its sanitized Exodus -version that has been sold to the public is essentially a complete fraud nurtured by the media, also Jewish controlled, by Hollywood, and by the Establishment.

Mondoweiss reported recently that

"This weekend the New York Times breaks one of the biggest taboos , describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party's slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall's groundbreaking piece repeats a lot of data we've reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that's the nut." Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national-security adviser to ex-President Barack Obama recounted in the article how "a more assertive policy toward Israel" never evolved "The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the [Jewish] donor class."

And the support for Israel goes beyond money. The Times article included an October 2018

"Survey of 800 American voters who identify as Jewish, conducted by the Mellman Group on behalf of the Jewish Electoral Institute, 92 percent said that they are 'generally pro-Israel.' In the same poll -- conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut humanitarian aid to Palestinians -- roughly half of American Jews said they approved of President Trump's handling of relations with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a November 2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned with Democrats, found that roughly half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel. According to a 2013 Pew survey , 44 percent of Americans and 40 percent of American Jews believe that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, [a] fact that Jews believe they have rights in historic Palestine that non-Jews do not."

And one only has to listen to the AIPAC speeches made by leading members of the U.S. government establishment to appreciate the essential hypocrisy over the U.S. wag-the-dog relationship with the Jewish state of Israel. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer led the parade of Democrats on the first evening of AIPAC, thundering "When someone accuses American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: Accuse me, I am part of a large, bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel -- an overwhelming majority of the United States Congress. I tell Israel's accusers and detractors: Accuse me."

Well, Steny there is a certain irony in your request and to be sure you should be accused over betrayal of your oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies "domestic and foreign." Hoyer is a product of the heavily Jewish Maryland Democratic Party machine that has also produced Pelosi and Senator Ben Cardin. Pelosi told the AIPAC audience about her father in Baltimore, a so-called Shabbos goy who would perform services for Jews on the sabbath and who would also speak Yiddish while at home with his Italian family. Cardin meanwhile has been the sponsor of legislation to make criticism or boycotting of Israel illegal, up to and including heavy fines and prison time.

Hoyer, widely regarded as one of the most pro-Israel non-Jewish congressman, also boasted to AIPAC about the 15 official trips to Israel he's made in forty years in Congress, accompanied by more than 150 fellow Democrats. "This August, I will travel with what I expect will be our largest delegation ever -- probably more than 30 Democratic members of Congress, including many freshmen."

Steny Hoyer will be on an AIPAC affiliate sponsored trip in which any contact with Palestinians will be both incidental and carefully managed. He also clearly has no problem in spending the taxpayer's dime to go to Israel on additional "codels" to get further propagandized. He is flat out wrong about Israel in general, but don't expect him to be convinced otherwise, which may be somehow related to the $317,525 in pro-Israel PAC contributions he has received.

There was much more at the AIPAC Summit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced "the pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance" while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, fresh from selling out U.S. interests on a visit to Israel, declared that "We live in dangerous times. We have to speak the truth. Anti-Semitism should and must be rejected by all decent people. Anti-Semitism – anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and any nation that espouses anti-Zionism, like Iran, must be confronted. We must defend the rightful homeland of the Jewish people."

Vice President Mike Pence, like Pompeo an evangelical Christian, piled on in his Monday prime time speech, declaring that "Anyone who aspires to the highest office of the land should not be afraid to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel. It is wrong to boycott AIPAC. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Congress of the United States of America. Anyone who slanders this historic alliance between the United States and Israel should never have a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee."

Clearly, there is considerable evidence to support the theory that one has to be completely ignorant to hold high office in the United States. Rejecting Zionism and/or questioning Israeli policies is not anti-Semitism and the Jewish state is in fact no actual ally of the United States. Nor is there any mandate to defend it in its questionable "rightful homeland." Furthermore, dual-loyalty is what the relationship with Israel is all about and it is Jewish money and political power that makes the whole thing work to Israel's benefit.

But the good news is that all the lying blather from the likes of Steny Hoyer and Howard Kohr reveals their desperation. They are running scared because "the times they are a changing." Sure, Congressmen will continue to be bought and sold and Jewish money and the access to power that it buys will be able to prevail in the short term in a conspiratorial fashion. But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will not continue indefinitely. It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


MarkinLA , says: April 2, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT

He was quickly forced to recant, however.

No he chose to. He was a high ranking general nearing retirement. Nobody could touch him if he really was looking out for the country as he took and oath to do.

Cloak And Dagger , says: April 2, 2019 at 4:27 am GMT

It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.

Amen, brother Phil!

We are all suffering from cognitive dissonance where our conflicted minds refuse to force our government to declare AIPAC as an agent of a foreign nation that must be made to register as such.

But, as I said in a previous post, the foxes are guarding the henhouse. We need to take them down by hook or by crook. I have made it a mission in my copious free time to confront every politician that I can and ask them uncomfortable questions about their loyalty to this nation. So far, success has been limited, but if more people would join me, we could make these sniveling cowards fear us more than they fear The Lobby.

We are many and they are few…

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT
Jewish guide to the 2020 presidential challengers

https://www.jta.org/2019/03/06/politics/a-jewish-guide-to-the-2020-presidential-challengers

We have put together a series of articles that explore the candidates’ (and potential candidates’) Jewish connections — from those who identify as Jews, or are married to one, to candidates who are not Jewish but have ties to the community in different ways. We also explore their views on Israel.
Below are links to articles, sorted alphabetically, that our staff has written about some of the political contenders, mostly those seeking the Democratic nomination. This list will be updated as additional candidates join the fray.

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
And you thought Israel only dictated US policy in the ME? Every country knows that to get anything from the US they have to go thru the Jews. The only thing of value Israel has ever had to sell is its control of the US. Lets see how long it takes for Trump and congress to reinstate the aid.

Trump cuts aid to 3 countries with strong relations with Israel

Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, said President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem – but not an embassy.
By OMRI NAHMIAS Jerusalem Post
April 1, 2019 08:47

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump decided to stop programs of foreign aid for three states in the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who are known to have a strong relationship with Israel. Trump is cutting off nearly $500 million to put pressure on the three governments to stop their citizens from trying to cross the Mexican border into the US. However, it could also jeopardize the Israeli efforts to convince Honduras to move its Embassy to Jerusalem.

Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras said that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem – but not an embassy.

Just three months ago, things were moving in a positive direction. A trilateral meeting between Hernández, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Pompeo was followed by an announcement from the government of Honduras, saying it opened a dialogue with Netanyahu to explore the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem.

After the trilateral meeting, Israeli media outlets indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to mediate a deal between Honduras and United States to secure the continuing of foreign aid to the country in exchange for opening a Honduran embassy in Jerusalem.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington, as well Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office did not respond for a comment request from The Jerusalem Post on that matter. Another country that would face a cut in foreign aid is Guatemala – the only country that followed the US and moved the embassy to Jerusalem”

Asagirian , says: • Website April 2, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
Hollywood will never adapt her novels.
Mark James , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT
@MarkinLA

No he chose to

Petraeus is in position to have lucrative –part-time– broadcasting appearances. He would not get those opportunities, if if he espoused that Israeli-bought US favoritism was wrong. Bobby Inman while not caring about the media, would be true to his beliefs.

JFK and LBJ both knew it was wrong three generations ago. The difference was that JFK knew it, complained to his underlings and at least partially did things that rocked the Israelis. LBJ just wanted ‘the Jews off my back’ and acted accordingly with regard to Israel.

Adrian , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:48 am GMT
When will we see a similar performance from a Jewish member of American Congress:
Wally , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:53 am GMT
– ‘Representation without taxation’.

– Jews support strict Israeli immigration laws which specify JEWS ONLY, while they demand massive 3rd world immigration into the US & Europe.

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:56 am GMT

while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving

” In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it.
In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble.
I have seen a lot of things like that”……Col Pat Lang

Israel is a crime that makes me wish I was the US President.

renfro , says: April 2, 2019 at 6:21 am GMT
Razan al-Najjar

Razan al-Najjar died on Friday, June 1st.

She was a 21-year old Palestinian nurse and paramedic. And a mother.

She was killed while running (along with other paramedics) towards the Gaza border fence with Israel.

They were running to treat some Palestinian protesters who had been wounded by shots fired from across the border.

Like the others with her, she was wearing her white paramedic uniform and waving her arms above her head as she ran towards the fence.

An Israeli sniper on the other side of the fence aimed at her, and put a bullet in her chest.

Razan al-Najjar is dead. Like the 120 or so others killed at the fence in the last couple of months.

Razan al-Najjar is dead. The Israeli military says it will investigate.

Razan al-Najjar is dead. Is there anything further to say?

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c72e153ef0224e03edd25200d-800wi

LondonBob , says: April 2, 2019 at 8:20 am GMT
The comment on the stealing of nuclear materials in the sixties reminds that Michael Scheuer’s blog has been pulled, any chance we could have him hosted here?
Ex-Saffer , says: April 2, 2019 at 8:46 am GMT

If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.

and

But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States.

How long is this “long run” when the people who don’t know finally know?

jacques sheete , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:17 am GMT
Thank you, PG, for mentioning this.:

Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons arsenal.

I’ve been bringing that up for years on various platforms and have yet to get any comment on it. Why there isn’t enough outrage to barley even address it is inexplicable to me. Netanyanhoo belongs in solitary for the rest of his miserable days but instead gets treated better than royalty by our butt-kissing politicians. Sick, sick sick.

As far as the Izzies running our military, the Air Force officer Karen Kwiatkowski has written about it in the past, and is hardly ever mentioned.

“My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the [Israeli] generals knew where they were going [in the Pentagon] (most foreign visitors to the five-sided asylum don’t) and how the [Israeli]generals didn’t have to sign in. I felt a bit dirtied by the whole thing and couldn’t stop comparing that experience to the grace and gentility of the Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian ambassadors with whom I worked”.


– KAREN KWIATKOWSKI, Open Door Policy, January 19, 2004

That sort of thing makes my blood boil but most ‘Merkins seem to take it all in stride. Dumbasses!

mark green , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT
Dear Philip-

Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term ‘anti-Semitism’. It’s a tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed criticism and much-needed opposition to the world’s most coddled brand of political extremism.

‘Anti-Semitic theory’ promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.

Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions that are “too critical” of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to explore the destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of political death here in the Land of the Free.

Thou shalt not… say that.

How did this happen?

Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a causality.

People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.

How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.

How did we ever forget it?

(Political necessity?)

Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary ‘American’ leaders embrace (and vote to subsidize) serial Israeli warfare/expansion along with Israeli ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US citizens and political observers get slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of Washington.

How much longer will these strange delusions last?

jacques sheete , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:28 am GMT
@renfro

…and evidently just for the fun of it.

Uri Avnery relates similar outrages that he witnessed as a soldier, in his book, “1948.”

Franz , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT
@Haxo Angmark

actually, there is no “dual-loyalty” here:

Nope, can’t be.

The minute they called themselves “One-issue guys” they made that as clear as fizz.

Johnny Rottenborough , says: • Website April 2, 2019 at 11:03 am GMT
Thank you for a very informative, if thoroughly depressing, article.

we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it

As a first step, stop supporting your two pro-Israel Establishment parties. If you keep voting for them, they will carry on as before, nothing will change. Politicians only ever sit up and take notice when their access to power comes under threat.

geokat62 , says: April 2, 2019 at 11:31 am GMT
Superb article, as usual, Phil.

That said, there is little chance Valerie Plame will be tweeting this one like she previously did two others of yours.

Excerpts from Former Spy Accused Of Anti-Semitism Eyeing Senate Run :

Former CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson is considering a run for the United States Senate in New Mexico, the Washington Examiner reported Friday.

One early obstacle for Plame Wilson, should she choose to run, is an anti-Semitism controversy: She was criticized in September 2017 for tweeting links to anti-Semitic articles, including a column titled “American Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” and another called “The Dancing Israelis” that insinuated the Mossad was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Plame at first defended her sharing of the “Jews drive wars” article, arguing, “many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.” But she eventually apologized and resigned from her position on the board of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear not-for-profit foundation. She has not tweeted since.

Plame Wilson told the Examiner on Friday that she would “like another opportunity to serve my country” and would run as a Democrat. The seat will open up in 2020 after the retirement of incumbent Sen. Tom Udall.

More accurately, she would like to serve those who’ll be funding her campaign.

anarchyst , says: April 2, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks. infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity.

In addition, any American citizen who serves in a foreign military (Israel Defense Forces) should automatically lose their American citizenship.

When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel. It was a scene out of the Soviet Politburo where every jewish or Israel supporter tried to outdo the others with the applause. Just who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the interests of the American people and the United States,they should renounce their United States citizenship and be deported to Israel.

Anon [681] • Disclaimer , says: April 2, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Jake

WASP culture was completed, formed fully, finalized, by Puritans and Puritanism, by Judaizing heresy. WASP culture, therefore, always must gravitate toward Jews, always must be pro-Semitic, always will feature a drive to neutralize, and preferably destroy, that which is aligned toward historic Christianity and Christendom, while promoting endless heretical groups, especially those that reveal a willingness to be subservient to Jews and to WASP Elites who invariably are staunchly pro-Semitic (either pro-Jewish or pro-Arabic/Islamic).

I don’t know about that. The Nazis were WASPs, they clearly didn’t get your memo. The WASPs who are most eager to drink the Jew liberal Kool-aid are all atheists.

Agent76 , says: April 2, 2019 at 2:30 pm GMT
Nov 3, 2018 The Lobby – USA, episode 1

The Covert War. This video is posted here for news reporting purposes.

Sep 18, 2018 Mapping Segregation

7amleh’s research “Mapping Segregation – Google Maps and the Human Rights of Palestinians”

[Apr 04, 2019] Excessive loyalty to Israel contradicts and undermines the loyalty to the United States

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website April 2, 2019 at 7:04 pm GMT

I am not fond of the title given the piece, but Mr Giraldi always has something to say worth listening to.

" But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will not continue indefinitely. "

Well said indeed.

I am generally an optimist for the long term., although forced to be a pessimist for the near future.

Such abuse and oppression just cannot go on forever.

Even the mighty Soviet Union finally collapsed, leaving a peaceful and reasonable Russia in its place.

And, while not generally noticed, there are many parallels between modern Israel and the USSR.

You cannot go on proclaiming democracy when half the people you rule cannot even vote. They could all vote in the USSR, but their votes meant nothing.

You cannot claim to represent our great Western values when oppression is an integral part of your society.

Millions of prisoners cannot be kept without rights indefinitely. Only a tyranny such as the USSR is capable even of attempting it.

But in the meantime, many must suffer terribly while the nightmarish events which represent Israel's behavior play themselves out.

If you are willing to use brutality regularly to get your way, as the USSR did and as Israel does, you can continue for quite a while, but not indefinitely.

[Apr 04, 2019] Does the support of other state qualifies for a person to be considered a potential element of the 5th column

I think this is not true. Only if the person puts interests of the other state above the interests of the home state such behaviour can be qualified as the fifth column mentality.
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ralph B. Seymour , says: April 3, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT

@renfro US Zionists for the most part love and support Israel. This makes them a 5th column.

All roads lead to the City of London. http://www.911nwo.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Anti-Kahanism is not Anti-Semitism'

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

ANONYMOUS [311] Disclaimer says: April 3, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT

'Anti-Kahanism is not Anti-Semitism'

Peter Beinart and the rest of the 'Goldstein-Big Brother' tagteam have a cynical hasbara role to disguise the real fight, which is ending 'Jewish Kahanism'

Screw Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, the 'Zionists' are KAHANISTS

Peter Beinart's shtick of being a 'Liberal Kahanist' is just his way of conning America while appearing respectable rather than being shunned

[Apr 04, 2019] Israel connections to the US MIC

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Wally says: April 3, 2019 at 3:06 am GMT 100 Words @MarkinLA Is that why Israel gets so much free stuff from the MIC?

plus:
Zionists Banks Are Behind the American Industrial Military Complex: http://subversify.com/2014/01/10/zionists-banks-are-behind-the-american-industrial-military-complex/

GENERAL DYNAMICS / ZIONIST ARMS MANUFACTURER IN THE WORLD: https://wideawakegentile.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/general-dynamics-the-largest-zionist-jewish-arms-manufacturer-in-the-world/

The True Cost of Parasite Israel
Forced US taxpayers money to Israel goes far beyond the official numbers.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-true-cost-of-israel/

[Apr 04, 2019] Pollard tried to get asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, but was refused entry. His Israeli handlers in Washington DC all fled the US within 24 hours after his arrest

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

republic , says: April 3, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT

@anon

i've heard that Pollard was one of the worst spies/traitors in U.S. history and should never have been released

very true

republic , says: April 3, 2019 at 1:38 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski

At time of Pollard's release, Fortress America was not completely dominated by Israel

He was released in November, 2015, only 52 months ago. I don't believe that the Israeli lobby was much weaker then.

He was release under parole in accordance with US law.

According to the Tel Aviv edited source, wikipedia, Rumsfeld,Cheney,Tenet,several former sec. of defense, a bi-partisan group of US congressional leaders and members of the US intelligence community, all opposed clemency for Pollard.

He deeply angered many top Americans, so clemency was not possible. Parole, however was.

Pollard, I understand sold much information to other nations. Maybe if he had only stolen information for Israel he could have gotten clemency.

Pollard tried to get asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, but was refused entry. His Israeli handlers in Washington DC all fled the US within 24 hours after his arrest

At the time of his arrest in 1985, Israeli power over Washington was far weaker than it is today. America apparently still had some patriots at high levels at that time.

[Apr 04, 2019] If we assume that in fact Israel is an agent selected by God, it should be the leading actor of responsible behavior. I rest my case.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

EliteCommInc. , says: April 3, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT

"The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these topics."

I am disinclined to relegate but a few to this kind of stricture. The issue not can a Jewish person be reasoned with, but who has the ability to stand on disagreements that might not be in line with the ambitions of the other. And certainly all indications are that Jews can be reasoned with. I don't subscribe to a totalitarian view that this is an impossibility. I will say what I have said since entering these discussions. Despite where one falls on Israel's selection by God, they are still responsible for behaving as members of the larger community and even God says so. In fact Israel should as an agent selected by God, if such be the case, be the leading actor of responsible behavior. I have made that point before and their I rest.

She should be responsible and accountable. In the same manner as Christians are responsible and accountable in the countries in which they live. Those parameters do not in any manner diminish one's special role or character.

In regards to the secular, the elected and appointed members of the the US represent the interests of the US first and foremost – period. And they can certainly support Israel's existence without denying her any sleight of her unique spiritual of scriptural meaning. Her ability to leverage the three variables to her stead is more a reflection on the weakness of US representatives to tackle each of those variables head on in relation to how supports US policy. God is not going to be chagrined about telling Israel, she cannot merely confiscate land as she wants. But that she must obey/abide by the rules that govern sovereign states. The holocaust, real or manufactured does make room for running ruff shod over her neighbors. There are processes by which she could press for more territory that are legal -- she should use that process.

The ability to reason requires the ability to stand against unreason and their in my view is where the US simply fails. Can one reason with Israel, sure as long as one has the backbone to stand.
__________________

My love and support for Israel in no manner condones violations of rules that in no manner contradict spiritual or scriptural truth. And I am confident that includes abiding by the rules of members states of the international community. No one need be a "jew worshiper" or "worshiper of Israel" to support Israel or hold her accountable among the nation-state community.

And no one has to become a Jew to support Israel or be a christian while there are deep roots, the two are not the same by a long shot.

I remain steadfastly in support of her right to exist, self defense and that others have no less a right than she. My original position from start to this moment and unlikely to change.

Anon [447] Disclaimer , says: April 3, 2019 at 5:18 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

That is key. The right of others to co-exist alongside Israel the issue. The state of Israel, regardless of her standing with respect to scripture and christian ethos, as a nation state she is bound by the same rules as other nation states.

The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these topics.

Even if that reason is by way of potential sanctions, boycotts, and other forms of political and economic pressure.

The truth of the matter is that anyone who would theoretically be engaging with Israel, or even the gentile groups that put various forms of pressure on Israel, absolutely has to be well-educated in Judaism.

To know Judaism is to know that its core thesis is that Jews are not bound by the same rules as other peoples and nations. It is to know that Judaism's core tenet is that Israel is the only legitimate nation and therefore the only nation that is destined to survive. It is to know that it is religiously incumbent on the Jews to not make concessions that would allow any other nation to survive in the long term.

To know all of this is to come to the strategic conclusion that attempting to reason with Israel in regard to playing by the rules is a failed effort before it begins. In fact, it would do nothing more than to waste time and allow Israel an opportunity for further deception toward its ultimate nation-destroying goals.

Instead, Israel and the wider Jewish nation must be dealt with on an open foundation of their religiously expressed hostility to all other nations that includes their expressed domination and genocide goals. Anything else allows them a certain degree of cover that allows them to maneuver to our detriment.

[Apr 04, 2019] 'Anti-Semitic theory' promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject Zionism are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

mark green , says: April 2, 2019 at 10:26 am GMT

Dear Philip-

Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term 'anti-Semitism'. It's a tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed criticism and much-needed opposition to the world's most coddled brand of political extremism.

'Anti-Semitic theory' promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.

Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions that are "too critical" of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to explore the destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of political death here in the Land of the Free.

Thou shalt not say that.

How did this happen?

Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a causality.

People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.

How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.

How did we ever forget it?

(Political necessity?)

Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary 'American' leaders embrace (and vot to subsidize) serial Israeli warfare/expansion along with Israeli ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US citizens and political observers get slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of Washington.

How much longer will these strange delusions last?

mark green , says: April 3, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Thank you, Chuck!

The term and multi-tiered concept marketed as 'anti-Semitism' is a deceptive misnomer. This is no accident.

Where's the 'Jew' in 'anti-Semitism'?

It's missing. But why?

After all, 'anti-Semitism' is basically about one thing: anti-Jewishness.

Yet the J-word is missing.

Did someone forget?

Of course not. The Jews have removed 'Jew' from this manipulative term for a strategic purpose.

Keep in mind that 'Semites' are a real (and diverse) collection of peoples. So are Semitic languages which involve millions of mostly-Arab peoples who dwell in different countries, speak various languages, and practice different religions.

Yet, 'anti-Semitism' in the West means only one thing: 'anti-Jewishness'.

And Jews–unlike 'Semites'–are one cohesive people who claim one exclusive country with one supreme religion. And they also happen to play an exceedingly powerful role throughout Europe and America.

So why the linguistic sleight-of-hand with 'anti-Semitism'?

After all, Semitic Arabs get no protection from charges involving 'anti-Semitism'. It's all about Jews.

Why not call 'anti-Semitism' what it actually is?–'Jew hatred or Jews contempt'?

'Jew fatigue', perhaps?

That's because the shomers who safeguard Jewry don't want anti-Jewish sentiment to be simple or comprehensible or (most importantly) made legitimate in any way whatsoever.

After all, hate is a common emotion and it is routinely directed from high above at certain unpopular groups, ideologies and 'bad' countries. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Not so fast.

Jewry has conflated 'anti-Semitism' with 'genocide' and 'white supremacy' (See: Hitler). Very clever. This ramps up gentile guilt and Jewish untouchability.

Anti-Jewishness ('anti-Semitism') is therefore designed to be understood as a unique mental disorder with unique political dangers. This is no small accomplishment, especially when one considers that Jews aren't exactly the 'innocent victims' that they claim to be.

Indeed, if anti-Jewish commentary ('anti-Semitic speech') was brought down to earth and even permitted, this would undermine Israeli power inside America as well as the effectiveness of the taboos and 'red flags' which have elevated 'anti-Semitism' into a rarified class of evil–not to mention 'political tool' for it's handlers.

Indeed, without the special shield that 'anti-Semitic theory' accords Jews, they would be subject to the same harsh criticism often accorded Arabs, Russians, Iranians, Germans or Muslims.

So the Guardians of Zion have cooked up a theoretical framework to pretty-much prevents all that. It serves them quite well.

Thus conceptual 'anti-Semitism' is a self-exonerating paradigm. This also empowers Israel enormously.

Anti-Semitic theory injects voodoo Freudianism and Frankfurt School gobbledegook into all Jewish historiography. In doing so, it establishes two dubious beachheads.

1) 'Anti-Semitism' is not about Jewish behavior, nor is 'anti-Semitism' about everyday political and economic conflicts that involve the collective (and conflicting) interests of Jews and gentiles. No siree. Not that!

Such a bilateral and down-to-earth view is unacceptable. It's far too simple, too accessible– too empowering for the anti-Semitic rabble.

To truly comprehend 'anti-Semitism' requires the expertise of a psychiatrist (preferably Jewish) or qualified 'expert'. Please check with the 'Jewish Studies' Dept. for further information.

These scholars will cleanly explain the dark, hidden forces that drive the periodic eruptions (pograms, genocides) involving political good (the Jew) and evil (the 'anti-Semite').

Thus 'anti-Semitic theory' communicates the view that Jewish power, Jewish abuse of power and Jewish crypsis are 'myths and allegations' and not relevant to understanding anti-Jewish sentiment among the evious goyim.

'Anti-Semitism'? It's all in your head! And those afflicted with it are suffering from hidden conflicts in their hate-filled twisted minds! Hitler!

('Trust me', says the 'expert'. 'Would I lie about such a thing'?)

Once the kosher 'diagnosis' is established, 'Anti-Semitism' becomes a powerful and handy political weapon. And they certainly know how to use it.

'Anti-Semitic theory' even flips overdue criticism of Zio-Israeli power into this:

'You people (goys) who have a grievance against God's chosen people are merely jealous. Jews don't mean any harm. Their violence is all in self-defense.

'You are projecting your own pathetic feelings of inferiority. Your contempt for Jew[ish conduct and beliefs] is a neurotic projection of your own pathologies.

'So don't muddy the waters with irrelevant references to wars in Europe and Russia and now in the Middle East that have killed tens of millions.

'And certainly don't discuss the unimportant Jewish role in banking, finance, immigration policies, education, law, entertainment and the manufacture of 'news'. All that bigoted discourse is anti-Semitic propaganda and is irrelevant.

'We must strive to assure Jewish safety and Jewish survival.'

That's 'anti-Semitic theory' in a nutshell.

It is a toxic scam of epic proportions.

[Apr 04, 2019] Zionist elite in the USA consist mainly of greedy and unscrupulous bottomfeeders

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 3, 2019 at 12:56 am GMT

@Fran Taubman The US has been providing a safe and prosperous home for your ungrateful lot. And yet, the Jews are seemingly not able to be loyal to a country of their dwelling because "next year in Jerusalem" -- even if the majority of the Jews prefer to admire Jerusalem from a distance.

It is not just the Jewish treasonous behavior towards the USA citizenry, which is so repulsive. The problem is the subversive influence of the Lobby towards the western values at large (such as the First Amendment, including the active suppression of factual information that is unpleasant for the tribe) -- all while the holo-biz continues encouraging the whining and wailing about special victimhood of the Jews. This does not work anymore. After converting tens of thousands of Middle Eastern children into the bags of shredded meat in the name of Eretz Israel and after supporting military the Kievan neo-Nazi, the Jewish State's screeching about existential threat and some special dues that western world owes to the Jewish tribe do not have any power anymore. It's over.

In addition, the cynicism, indecency, and the cruelty displayed by the Jews against Palestinians, Arabs, and Russians have made the AIPAC, the ADL, and other mighty Jewish organization into pariahs among decent people.

It has no sense to engage in name-calling ("all the fringe sick people on UNZ"). Look at a mirror. Your tribe has lost the moral fiber. It does not help that the Jewish mythology treats non-Jews as subhumans.

annamaria , says: April 3, 2019 at 1:15 am GMT
@Anja Böttcher

"These imbeciles perceive in US-Jews their own human distortion – and hate themselves in projecting self-hate on a tiny minority within their degenerated population."

-- Anja, why does this article about the pernicious influence of the Lobby made you so hysterical? The "tiny minority" has decided to be loyal to the tribal Jewish interests on its own volition. The tiny minority has a choice to relocate to its "promised land" and thus leave the US alone. The parasitic and disloyal minority is not welcome by the decent Americans, whereas the zionized degenerate in the US Congress do behave treasonously towards the US citizenry. Just take Bolton, Pompeo, Schumer, and Pelosi with you.

Leave the US alone. Sort out your problems with your Arab cousins ((Ishmaels) on your own. And, by the way, stop murdering the Middle Eastern children; this is a very bad behavior that is not going to be forgotten by good people.

[Apr 04, 2019] Where creation of nukes by Israel the US government approved policy ?

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

geokat62 says: April 2, 2019 at 7:49 pm GMT 100 Words @Lot

Israeli nukes were always our government's policy.

First off, Lot, given your passionate attachment to the Zionist Project, you need to be a little clearer as to whom you are referring when you write "our" government.

Secondly, if you were referring to the policy of the US gov't, as you are no doubt aware, JFK had several correspondences with David Ben Gurion in which he warned him against the development of a nuclear program for fear of nuclear proliferation in the region. The issue was so divisive that it led to DBG's resignation and JFK's demise.

RobinG , says: April 3, 2019 at 2:27 am GMT

@renfro How about POTUS making a secret pledge to Israel? Clinton, Bush the younger, Obama, and Trump have all signed letters pledging never to expose Israel's nuclear arsenal. At last week's conference, Grant Smith outlined his efforts to stop this practice of subverting both letter and spirit of US law. For starters, we should demand that all presidential candidates pledge: No Secret Pledge to a (((Foreign))) Power.

U.S. foreign aid and the Israeli nuclear weapons program – Grant F. Smith

[Apr 04, 2019] Media Blackout as Israel's Largest Banks Pay over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax Evasion Schemes

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Art: April 2, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT 200 Words

Zionist media control over America is absolute.

"It's the Benjamins Baby" -- money is everything to the Jew.

Israeli banks screw America – help US Jews to circumvent taxes

US MSM screw America – never tell the American people about it.

Media Blackout as Israel's Largest Banks Pay over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax Evasion Schemes

Israel's three largest banks -- Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank -- have all been ordered to pay record fines, which collectively are set to total over $1 billion, to the U.S. government after the banks were found to have actively colluded with thousands of wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-largest-banks-pay-1-billion-fines-us-tax-evasion-schemes/5672335

80% of the American people are serfs – living paycheck to paycheck – paying interest on everything – receiving none back – actually, outright owning little of value.

Think Peace -- Do No Harm -- Art

[Apr 04, 2019] We will provide you no more American military to get slaughtered or maimed for life in the process of "neutralizing" all your alleged existential threats in the Middle East. And of course, as we both know, that includes all of your neighbors in the region.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Edward Huguenin , says: April 2, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMT

The American people have gotten extraordinarily tired of the demands, bullying, and blackmail the American government has received from the fully nuclear armed, viciously apartheid, theocracy which is what neo-nazi Israel has become in the 21st century.

And we have one word for you: enough!!

We will provide you no more American military to get slaughtered or maimed for life in the process of "neutralizing" all your alleged existential threats in the Middle East. And of course, as we both know, that includes all of your neighbors in the region.

And on top of that, sir, we would appreciate it greatly if the US government immediately pull all financial and military aid from your country immediately, as all this aid is completely illegal under the Symington Amendment.

We the people would like to see this accomplished and immediately, sir. The days of the host/parasite relationship between the Us government and that of Israel may well be coming to a very abrupt halt, and it is damn well about time, sir!!!

Sun comes up, Israel demands money. Sun goes down, Israel demands money. Moon waxes, Israel demands money. Moon wanes, Israel demands money. Weather is sunny, Israel demands money. Weather is rainy, Israel demands money. I sense a pattern here!

[Apr 04, 2019] I think you should distinguish between the deep state and the elite. The former are primarily concerned with US primacy. The elite are economic internationalists and focused on profit.

Notable quotes:
"... China is a milch cow for the global capitalists, they are dependant on China succeeding. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sean says: April 4, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT 300 Words I am not aware that anyone has ever considered Syria a crucial centre of world power, and while Ukraine was once thought of that way back in the days of Halford Makinder, I am afraid now they are both worthless.

I think you should distinguish between the deep state and the elite. The former are primarily concerned with US primacy. The elite are economic internationalists and focused on profit. Carter instituted a decades long policy mandating officials to help trade with China under the influence of Brzezinski's Russophobia.

They fundamentally miscalculated the ability of China to rapidly rival the West in productive capacity. Now the Western economies are dependant on a Keynesian and financially frail China going all out for future growth. The elite are in no position to lower the boom on China, and I think that is the last thing they intend.

China is a milch cow for the global capitalists, they are dependant on China succeeding.

Everyone is in favour of free trade if they think they will be successful in it, so the Chinese enthusiasm is no evidence of altruism or the absence of a venal elite in their country. Free trade allocating reward based on merit will benefit the American elite through their Chinese investments, but it does not sound like good news for the American worker.

If there is pressure for something to stop China it will not just be coming from the rust belt. The deep state plus the working class versus the financial elite is already ongoing; a struggle to control American policy as the wealth generated by China is reaped by Western financial elites and America falls to the status of second rate power.

[Apr 04, 2019] Neoliberals are no Christians

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anja Böttcher , says: April 3, 2019 at 7:56 am GMT

@Anon You are no Christians. USAism and all radical Protestantism is abusing the surface of Christianity for satanic anti-Christianity.

There is no Christianity but what is rooted in the old and everlasting Church of which Christ is the Head in the Holy Spirit, as laid in apostle's hands and transferred by Church fathers.

Christianity is genuinely collectivist, it has nothing to do with the perverted individualism of Anglosaxon background and does not agree with the inherent nihilistic energy of capitalism.

... ... ...

[Apr 04, 2019] I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike from Jersey , says: April 4, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT

I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."

When has the Imperial State ever followed any "rules?"

For instance, didn't the Nuremberg trials establish the principle that wars of aggression constituted international war crimes? Wasn't the invasion of Iraq a violation of "rules-based international order." And what about UN approval for the use of force. Did the US get UN approval when they decided to overturn the Assad regime. Wasn't that a violation of "rules-based international order."

The same can be said about the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and the coming war against Venezuela.

What Washington really means when they talk about a "rules-based international order" is "we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."

[Apr 04, 2019] How much of the present-day US economy is even real i.e., results in the production of actual goods that people might want, as opposed to dodgy financial/insurance transactions which may add a lot of dollar value to GDP, but don't create anything real that enhances the quality of life for the masses?

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: April 4, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMT

@Andrei Martyanov All true. And one more point: compared with China, how much of the present-day US economy is even real – i.e., results in the production of actual goods that people might want, as opposed to dodgy financial/insurance transactions which may add a lot of dollar value to GDP, but don't create anything real that enhances the quality of life for the masses?

Economist used to have a joke: every time you break your leg, you increase GDP. First, you gotta pay the hospital (transaction), then you gotta pay your doctor (another transaction), then you gotta pay for your case (yet another transaction). All those transactions make it look like 'wealth' is being created, because they are–numerically, at least–increasing per capita GDP. But still: wouldn't you and the country actually be better off if you hadn't broken your leg in the first place?

[Apr 04, 2019] Finance Capitalism came out of London and hopped to America, especially post WW2.

Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: April 4, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT

China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US.

Industrial Capitalism is the system China and Russia are running on. America briefly had this system from 1868 to 1912; it was called the American System of Economy (Henry Clay/Peshine Smith).

This type of economy uses state credit (from Treasury not banks) and injects it into industry. Industry then grows, and people's welfare is increased through improved productivity.

Finance Capitalism came out of London and hopped to America, especially post WW2. At the same time Atlantacism and Rim theory hopped. America still runs under this BIZWOG (Britain Israel World Government) matrix. This matrix depends on finance capitalism.

Finance Capitalism is the placing of EXISTING ASSETS onto a private bank ledger, to then hypothecate said assets into new bank credit. For example, a ships bill of lading may be used to create new bank credit, or existing homes are put on double entry ledger to make housing bubbles.

The closer analogs to China and Russian economy are American System of Economy, not the current American BIZWOG finance capital. The historical analogs would also be Canada 1938-1974, when Canada had a sovereign economy. Canada post 1974 was converted to finance capitalism and now are debt laden and suffering like the rest of the west.

Kaiser's Germany used industrial capitalism then Japan's Manchurian Railroad Engineers copied it for Japan. Mussolini in Italy copied parts of it, and NSDAP in Germany resurrected Frederick List and the Kaiser's methods.

Finance Capital out of wall street funded the Bolsheviks in what amounted to a looting operation of Russia. It is any wonder that finance capitalism found succor with communism since they are both pyramid schemes?

Rim Theory, Atlantacism, Finance Capitalism, and Brzezinsky's chessboard are part of the same thing, an excuse matrix for gobbling up the world into one double entry private bank ledger, to then benefit a special (((usury))) finance class of plutocrats.

The "markets" that China and Russia operate on are those of industrial capitalism, using state credit. China has four large state banks, and they often cancel debt instruments (housed in the state bank) to then effectively put debt free money into their economy. Russia injects gold into their Central Bank Reserves, to then emit Rubles. Both China and Russia inject into industry, their farm sectors, and other sectors to get a desired output to help their people, not put them into debt servitude.

The BIZWOG matrix will collapse, it is anti-logos and hence against the natural order. It is on the wrong side of history.

[Apr 03, 2019] Democrats are now the party of war

Apr 03, 2019 | www.facebook.com

Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in 2019, its third year of operation.

"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when there really isn't."

investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.

Indeed, report after report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money associated with "Russians" is always dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the social media game.

Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."

"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom government of the worst kind."

[Apr 03, 2019] Bad News For Boeing Preliminary Report Shows Anti-Stall Software Sealed Flight ET302's Fate

Apr 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Bad News For Boeing: Preliminary Report Shows Anti-Stall Software Sealed Flight ET302's Fate

by Tyler Durden Wed, 04/03/2019 - 08:06 251 SHARES

Thought it hasn't been publicly released yet, a preliminary report on the circumstances that caused flight ET302 to plunge out of the sky just minutes after takeoff was completed earlier this week, and some of the details have leaked to Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. And for Boeing shareholders, the findings aren't pretty.

Appearing to contradict Boeing's insistence that procedures for deactivating its MCAS anti-stall software were widely disseminated, and that pilots at airlines around the world had been trained on these procedures, WSJ reported that the pilots of ET302 successfully switched off MCAS as they struggled to right the plane after the software had automatically tipped its nose down. As they struggled to right the plane, the pilots ended up reactivating the software, while trying a few other steps from their training, before the plane began its final plunge toward a field outside Addis Ababa, where the ensuing crash killed all 157 people on board.

Though the pilots deviated from Boeing's emergency checklist as they tried to right the plane, investigators surmised that they gave up on the procedures after they failed to right the plane. But when MCAS reengaged, whether intentionally, or on accident, it pushed the nose of the plane lower once again.

The pilots on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 initially reacted to the emergency by shutting off power to electric motors driven by the automated system, these people said, but then appear to have re-engaged the system to cope with a persistent steep nose-down angle. It wasn't immediately clear why the pilots turned the automated system back on instead of continuing to follow Boeing's standard emergency checklist, but government and industry officials said the likely reason would have been because manual controls to raise the nose didn't achieve the desired results.

After first cranking a manual wheel in the cockpit that controls the same movable surfaces on the plane's tail that MCAS had affected, the pilots turned electric power back on, one of these people said. They began to use electric switches to try to raise the plane's nose, according to these people. But the electric power also reactivated MCAS, allowing it to continue its strong downward commands, the people said.

Reuters , which was also the recipient of leaks from investigators, offered a slightly different version of events. It reported that MCAS was reengaged four times as pilots scrambled to right the plane, and that investigators were looking into the possibility that the software might have reengaged without prompting from the pilots.

After the Lion Air crash that killed 189 people back in October, Boeing and the FAA published a bulletin reminding pilots to follow the emergency procedures to deactivate the software if a faulty sensor - like the one that is believed to have contributed to the Lion Air crash - feeds erroneous data to the system.

The data show the pilots maneuvered the plane back upward twice before deactivating the software. But between the two reports, one detail is made abundantly clear. The software's reengagement is what doomed everybody aboard. That is an unequivocally bad look for Boeing, which has been deflecting questions about the software's bugs, and gaps in the dissemination of its training materials, while working on an update that the company says will make the software less reliant on automated systems.

ersl , 3 hours ago link

The aviation industry has been trying to make the human pilots obsolete, just as in so many industries. But they all do their, these days, their R & D on the job. Recall the Amazon Robot that went berserk recently. The idea is to rid all industry of people progressively so that they can end up not needing people at all. They'll end up with nothing. Some how they think that if they take people out then profits will be assured, which is actually psychotic. They have had remote auto pilot for 7 decades now. They can bring down any aircraft at will, and do so regularly. They can shut down or affect engines remotely, or alter the actions as is imbedded into just about all new machinery, other than knives, forks and spoons. Yet they still need consumers and workers to create hedged exchange to profit from. That is the dilemma industry owners are facing, that without pesky people they are doomed as much as the doom they are creating for even their own off spring = psychosis.

[Apr 03, 2019] The population of Russia after WW I was an estimated 120 million. By 1979, the population rose to 137.6 million.

Apr 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Durruti , says: December 4, 2018 at 5:02 pm GMT

@DESERT FOX

"The Zionists have a long historical experience with bringing terror to the world , one example being the Zionist/ Bolshevik revolution in Russia where the Bolsheviks killed some 60 million Russians bringing terror to Russia on an industrial level turning the whole country into a slaughter house!"

Your excellent narrative is weakened by the above cited & unproved assertion. The official Zionist narratives of 6 million Jews supposedly singled out and exterminated by Germans during WW II, or the 60 million Russians killed by the Bolsheviks, ( the Zionists agree with the 60 million figure-as well), contain numbers that do not add up. They apparently enjoy citing with the number 6.

You do an excellent job on the phony 6 million narrative, but accept the 60 million narrative -- without a demur. Does accepting the one allow you to freely declare the other?

The population of Russia after WW I was an estimated 120 million. By 1979, the population rose to 137.6 million. It is advised to distinguish between Russian, and Russian Empire populations. The Tsarist Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union were larger than -- just Russia. My citations below are of figures for the Russian population, as the official Propaganda Charge is that "60 million Russians" were murdered.

[MORE]
Below are just 2 of many citations available. http://www.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_population_of_Russia_in_1917 http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/russia.htm

It appears, that, taking into account (or not) the high Russian casualties of World War II, (of both civilian and Armed Forces), the "Bolsheviks killed some 60 million Russians" is clearly FAR more of an impossibility than the sacrosanct '6 million'.

This 60 million figure pushed by the American Zionist owned Mainstream Media, including Zio-American texts and Hollywood, is most likely highly in error.

Slight digression:

One of the distinguishing features, when one compares the American with the Soviet Gulags, is that the Soviet leadership viewed their prison system as a source of Cheap Labor, whereas in America, prisoners are regarded as so much flesh -- to allow to rot away in the all but Completely Unproductive American Gulag.

The American Gulag is profitable for corporations that build the prisons and supply America's more than 2 million prisoners. The Russian Gulag had a much healthier -- human use for their prisoners.

For the most part, Solzhenitsyn' s "GULAG Archipelago" supports this analysis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

After the fall of the Marxist Soviet government in 1990, the Russian Gulag quickly emptied out, as it was more profitable for Russia to maximize the number of Free Laborers (workers responsible for their own well being, and raising useful Russian progeny).

In Conclusion:

The Gulag was not a picnic, or Boy Scout Camp, few prison systems are. However there were no gas chambers (get my attempt at mis-directional humor?). I have no doubt that, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, millions died -- thru execution, or being worked to death. However:

I fail to see the "60 million Russians" killed by the Bolsheviks. If you can enlighten, and document, we can continue this discussion.

In America, we must Restore Our Republic! And free all our Prisoners -- inside and outside of the official Prison Walls.

DESERT FOX , says: December 4, 2018 at 7:13 pm GMT
@Durruti I am using Alexander Solzhenitsyns figure for the 60 million Russians killed by the Zionist/communists in Russia and Solzhenitsyn had access to Russian archives for his research and his experience in the Gulags, and I have read The Gulag Archipelago and that is what I am going on.

I do not accept the Zionist figure of 6 million as the Zionists were pushing that figure long before WWII in a propaganda effort , however I do think that several million jews were killed along with Lutherans and Catholics and various other religions and political dissidents and I base this on books like The Good Old Days by Ernst Klee and Willi Dressen and Volker Reiss, among others that I have read.

The Zionist perpetrated slaughter house is now in operation in the Mideast and has been for some 30 years and the Zionists show no signs of slowing down and want to use the Ukraine as an agent provocateur to get the west into a war with Russia. One sign of how the Zionist think is a remark by Madeline Albright , when aske if she thought the some 500,ooo thousand children killed in Iraq were worth it, and she said it was worth it, these Satanists have no regard for human life !

I believe at some point the Ukraine is going to be the powder keg used to start WWIII and the Zionists believe they will survive in the DUMBS and this is what they believe will usher in their messiah ie satan, read The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed and The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman.

Thanks for your reply

[Apr 03, 2019] There is no democracy in US. There is just a civil war between two dysfunctional and corrupt to the core parties

Notable quotes:
"... The Democrats are so fricking crazy, so far in outer space that any attempt at working with them is pure futility. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 7, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT

@Cassander There is no democracy in US. There is civil war between two dysfunctional parties. How come you did not notice? Or you just came from enchanted kingdom?
Authenticjazzman , says: February 7, 2019 at 5:42 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova " There is civil war between two dysfunctional parties"

Wrong again. There is in fact war between the cowardly, appeasing, Republicans, and the insane blue-haired democrats.

The Democrats are so fricking crazy, so far in outer space that any attempt at working with them is pure futility.

AJM

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:40 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman You are absolutely correct. I just did not wanted to go into such a details. It is not my stile.

[Apr 02, 2019] In 737MAX the pilot simply cannot take full control the aircraft when he needs to do so. Hence the pilots in the 737MAX cases scrambling to work through the problem by checklist, if you're doing this something is going wrong and will be wrong.

Apr 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Gravatomic , Apr 1, 2019 11:23:03 AM | 66 ">link

The 757 and 767 are a more obvious airframe to build upon, as a response to the Airbus the new 737MAX design was very poorly thought out, it's airframe vs. engine placement and thrust. Having trained on Boeing 767-300ERs myself a pilot becomes very in tune with it's quirks and it does have them, speed bugs and so on.

When you watch certain aircraft taking off in routine operations, unreasonable angles of attack V-speed, now many pilots will engage 1 autopilots minutes after take off while flaps are partially extended still(it stabalizes a positive rate of climb), this is so that the aircraft is more efficient, cost effective and reaches it's crusie altitude and destination on time.

The 767 has 3 autopilot computers, 2 of them receive data as to angle of attack and speed when the stall warning activates as the stick shakes, the autopilots are off, period, no more input from the computers other than warnings - these too can often lead to confusion and sometimes with fatal results.

Sometimes you will re-engage one after you've corrected the airspeed (nose down) and stall to regain and maintain a efficient airflow lift. Although in some cases the pitot tubes malfunction to due ice, so trusting what the machine was telling the pilots can be fatal.

[In 737MAX] The pilot simply cannot take full control the aircraft when he needs to do so. Hence the pilots in the 737MAX cases scrambling to work through the problem by checklist, if you're doing this something is going wrong and will be wrong.

Ever notice the difference between a soft smooth landing and a 'rough one' that shakes passengers - note these are totally normal landings, the computer assisted ones in clear blue skies and calm winds are not.

That's the pilots on a VFR or visual landing which the computer usually tries to interfere with, if a hybrid semi-assisted landing, especially on an ILS glideslope in bad weather.

A pilot should know these skills but many now do not. They have to rely on the input from the computers and Boeing tried unsuccessfully to introduce this new MCAS system seamlessly, when you've got 3 autopilots why is only 1 receiving the flight data of angle of attack and v-speed?!

[Apr 01, 2019] No Reds Under Our Beds After All by Eric Margolis

Apr 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

Not since the witchcraft hysteria of the Middle Ages have we seen such a display of human idiocy, credulity and absurdist behavior. I refer, of course, to the two-year witch hunt directed against President Donald Trump which hopefully just concluded last week – provided that the Hillaryites, Democratic dopes and secret staters who fueled this mania don't manage to keep the pot boiling.

This column has said from Day 1 that claims Trump was somehow a Russian agent were absurd in the extreme. So too charges that Moscow had somehow rigged US elections. Nonsense. We know it's the US that helps rig elections around the globe, not those bumbling Russians who can't afford the big bribes such nefarious activity requires.

What Muller found after he turned over the big rock was a bevy of slithering, slimy creatures, shyster lawyers, and sleazes that are normally part of New York's land development industry. No surprise at all that they surrounded developer Trump. Son-in-law Jared Kushner hails from this same milieu. The Kushners are pajama-party buddies with Israel's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now that the Muller investigation found no collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin, we Americans owe a great big apology to Vladimir Putin for all the slander he has suffered. Too bad he can't sue the legions of liars and propagandists who heaped abuse on him and, incidentally, pushed the US and Russia to the edge of war.

People who swallowed these absurdist claims really should question their own grasp of reality. Those who believed that the evil Kremlin was manipulating votes in Alabama or Missouri would make good candidates for Scientology or the John Birch Society.

They were the simple fools. Worse, were the propagandists who promoted the disgusting Steele dossier, a farrago of lies concocted by British intelligence and apparently promoted by the late John McCain and Trump-hating TV networks. One senses Hillary Clinton's hand in all this. Hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned.

It's so laughably ironic that while the witch hunt sought a non-existent Kremlin master manipulator, the real foreign string-puller was sitting in the White House Oval office chortling away: Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, behind him, the moneybags patron of Trump and Netanyahu, American billionaire gambling mogul, Sheldon Adelson, the godfather of Greater Israel.

The three amigos had just pulled off one of the most outrageous violations of international law by blessing Israel's annexation of the highly strategic Golan Heights that Israel had seized in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This usurpation was so egregious that all 14 members of the UN Security Council condemned it. Even usually wimpy Canada blasted the US.

Giving Golan to Israel means it has permanently secured new water sources from the Mount Hermon range, artillery and electronic intelligence positions overlooking Damascus, and the launching pad for new Israeli land expansion into Lebanon and Syria. Israel is said to be preparing for a new war against Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

In contrast to this cynical business over Golan, the Trump administration is still hitting Russia with heavy sanctions over Moscow's re-occupation of Crimea, a strategic peninsula that was Russian for over 300 years. So Israel can grab Golan but Russia must vacate Crimea. The logic of sleazy politics.

We also learned last week that according to State Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump might have been sent by us by God, like ancient Israel's Queen Esther, to defend Israel from the wicked Persians. Up to a quarter of Americans, and particularly Bible Belt voters, believe such crazy nonsense. For them, Trump is a heroic Crusading Christian warrior.

This is as nutty as Trump being a Commie Manchurian candidate. We seem to be living in an era of absurdity and medieval superstition. No wonder so many nations around the globe fear us. We too often look like militant Scientologists with nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, the cool, calm, collected Vladimir Putin remains in charge of the other side in spite of our best efforts to overthrow or provoke him.

[Mar 31, 2019] Israel is running America into the ground, wrecking Europe and trying to start a war with Russia

Mar 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

Renoman , says: March 31, 2019 at 10:30 am GMT

Israel is running America into the ground, wrecking Europe and trying to start a war with Russia. America needs to cut all aid and get away from the nasty little cancer before they finish the Job and start WW3!
anon [233] Disclaimer , says: March 31, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT
@A123 Palestinain Mandate and Palestine are historically 2 completely separate entities.
But Jews have a knack of conflating and presenting the mess as the reality that you and me have to respect. No, we don't.
Long time ago Israel started giving biblical names to certain areas of Palestine to make it appealing to the ignoramus leaders among the Bible thumping Western crowd of 1900.

It was planted as religious historical archeological realities with deeply emotional arc that bound lefties conservatives religion secular educated uneducated, local fellow international citizen and spliced together vast segmented stratified minds of western society to one theme – positive view about Jew and Zionism-on the sly.

It succeeded. But that success is an abomination. It is travesty, it is moral and intellectual and ethical failures of western education and politics. it is a dereliction of academic responsibility .

Now the tide is against the presence of intellectual dishonesty . BDS is part of that , so is the truth being forced on Democrats voters . Chasm is widening with raw edges . Conservatives still cling to the old charade at a cost . It hurts them BY allowing continued presence of the disastrous Zionist views on each and every aspect of their lives, they lose- religion,economy,society , and values. . It robs them a safe a prosperous future .

[Mar 31, 2019] EU Agency Said to Have Skipped 737 Max Meeting in Snub to Boeing

Mar 31, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

There was a prominent no-show among the 200 regulators, pilots and airline managers that Boeing Co. invited to preview a crucial software update for the 737 Max this week, said people familiar with the matter: European safety officials.

The planemaker is sending a team across the Atlantic to brief the European Union Aviation Safety Agency on the proposed changes after two of the jetliners plunged to the ground within five months, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Representatives of EASA didn't return requests for comment.

Intentional or not, EASA's snub points to the delicate politics Boeing faces in convincing regulators the Max is safe as the company seeks to restore confidence in its best-selling jet, which has been grounded for more than two weeks. The reputation of U.S. regulators has taken a hit in the scrutiny of the 737 Max's approval process, and foreign agencies are less likely to rubber-stamp aircraft certifications simply because they have been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration.

EASA is expected to play an influential role in determining how long and complicated the review of the Max will be, while safety officials from China to Canada have vowed to conduct their own rigorous analysis.

"EASA's determination should be important for the rest of the world, given its sophistication and perceived independence," Seth Seifman, analyst with JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a note to clients.

A spokesman for the FAA declined to comment.

'Productive' Sessions

"We had productive information sessions this week and continue to work closely with our customers and regulators on software and training updates for the 737 Max," Boeing spokesman Paul Bergman said by email.

As of late Friday, the Chicago-based planemaker was still finishing up paperwork needed to certify a software upgrade and revised pilot training for the 737 Max. One prominent pilots union criticized the proposed training as insufficient.

The software changes, intended to prevent stall-prevention software from engaging in normal flight, have been in the works since the system pointed a Lion Air jet's nose downward about two dozen times before pilots lost control Oct. 29. That accident killed 189 people, while 157 died when an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crashed March 10.

While certifying the software upgrade is the first step toward returning the Max to flight, it doesn't assure the grounding will be speedily lifted by the FAA or its counterparts around the world. The EU, China and Canada all grounded the 737 Max more quickly than the FAA in the wake of the Ethiopian crash.

Software Changes

The break between FAA and overseas authorities on the initial decision to ground the plane, combined with worldwide public furor and a U.S. criminal probe of the Max certification, "all make it hard for us to see how foreign regulators can avoid coming back with their own questions and doing some of their own due diligence," Seifman said in his report.

Crash investigators suspect that a damaged or malfunctioning sensor triggered anti-stall technology in the Ethiopian Airlines plane, Bloomberg reported Friday. Investigators think that caused the plane's nose to point downward, and the pilots struggled to counteract the software-based system, according to people familiar with the crash probe. That scenario would be similar to the crash that brought down the Lion Air flight last year in Indonesia.

Click here to read Bloomberg's report on the sensor investigators are focusing on.

Boeing is planning software revisions that restrict the number of times the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, kicks in to a single interaction. The update is also designed so that MCAS can't command the horizontal stabilizer to push a plane's nose down with more force than what pilots can counter by pulling back on the steering column.

The enhancements appeared to work as billed, said pilots who viewed demonstrations of the upgrades by company test pilots in flight simulators at the event March 27 in Renton, Washington.

"We were confident flying the aircraft in its present state," said Roddy Guthrie, American Airlines Group Inc. 's 737 fleet captain, who was at the Boeing briefings. The improvements "were needed. They've put some checks and balances in the system now that will make the system much better."

Simulator Demonstrations

Still, Boeing representatives faced caustic comments from some at the Wednesday session, said one of the people familiar with the discussions. As Boeing test pilots demonstrated old and new versions of MCAS, attendees were especially interested in re-enacting the sequence of events leading to the Lion Air crash, the person said. Pilots also demonstrated how the 737 Max would behave if an angle-of-attack vane was sheared off by, say, a bird strike.

Click to read how Boeing rival Airbus is treading carefully with the 737 Max grounded.

One pilot group walked away from the event feeling that Boeing needs to do more work on a new 30-minute iPad course, followed by a test, that is intended to help pilots of the older generation of 737 planes prepare for the Max. The newest version of Boeing's workhorse single-aisle jet debuted less than two years ago.

Pilots who saw the preliminary version of the training "characterized it as nice for an elementary level of understanding, but pilots will definitely need a more textured and layered instructional piece," said Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents pilots at American. "That was the hands-down consensus."

Boeing was receptive to the comments, Tajer said.

-- With assistance by Alan Levin

[Mar 30, 2019] You don't like Trump? Bolton? Clinton? All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population. ..."
"... Decades ago while in a leftist organization debate was raised as to how to find valid information to inform ourselves with. It was well understood that the vast majority of the western corporate mass media was a brainwashing operation to keep the masses clueless and supporting imperialist war but, we reasoned, the ruling class itself would need to be kept informed with quality information in order to feel confident that they were making good decisions. ..."
"... But things change. Note how the Russiagate skeptics in the US were attacked by the desperately faithful: If you focused attention on flaws in the Russiagate conspiracy theory then the general consensus was that you were defending Trump. ..."
"... This condition has arisen from literally generations of propaganda instilling as reality in American media consumers the myth of "American Exceptionalism" . The current crop of American adults have been raised by parents who themselves have been thoroughly indoctrinated in this alter reality. The disease is literally universal across the nation, from lowliest and most oppressed Black transvestites to the CEOs of the biggest corporations. ..."
"... The Washington Post used to be one of the journals that the elites looked to in order to help inform their decisions, but now in the post-truth, or relative truth, world these information sources have increasingly sought to align their information products with the "proper" relative truths that reinforce the myth of "American Exceptionalism" , even if that is in conflict with objective and empirical reality. ..."
"... In short, Washington Bezos Post writers are not moronic or drunk. They are delusional . They are in the grips of a delusion that afflicts the entire United States, and portions of the rest of the world as well ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Mar 30, 2019 5:18:08 PM | link

"... Washington Bezos Post writers are moronic or drunk."

What ails them is far more complicated and vastly more sinister.

One often hears people say of other countries "It isn't the people of Elbonia whom I hate, it is their government." It may be difficult for some in Europe, where there remains a vestige of an imperative to foster a worldview based upon objective reality, to come to grips with the fact that the problem with America has metastasized and spread to the level of the individual citizens... all of them, to one degree or another. You don't like Trump? Bolton? Clinton?

All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population.

How did this happen to America?

Decades ago while in a leftist organization debate was raised as to how to find valid information to inform ourselves with. It was well understood that the vast majority of the western corporate mass media was a brainwashing operation to keep the masses clueless and supporting imperialist war but, we reasoned, the ruling class itself would need to be kept informed with quality information in order to feel confident that they were making good decisions.

With this in mind we identified journals and sources that the capitalist elites themselves relied upon to inform their decisions.

Things like the CIA World Factbook, for instance, even though created by an organization devoted to disinformation, could be trusted back then to be relatively dependable.

But things change. Note how the Russiagate skeptics in the US were attacked by the desperately faithful: If you focused attention on flaws in the Russiagate conspiracy theory then the general consensus was that you were defending Trump. The possibility that you could be defending reason and truth is still dismissed out of hand. Why is that? Because in America (it's a mind disease spreading to Europe, apparently) truth is relative and reason has become just whatever justifies what you wish to be the truth; therefore, those who propose a "truth" that conflicts with what people want to believe are agents of some enemy.

This condition has arisen from literally generations of propaganda instilling as reality in American media consumers the myth of "American Exceptionalism" . The current crop of American adults have been raised by parents who themselves have been thoroughly indoctrinated in this alter reality. The disease is literally universal across the nation, from lowliest and most oppressed Black transvestites to the CEOs of the biggest corporations.

As prior generations of the ruling elites from the post WWII era who still retained some sense for the importance of objective reality have died off they have been replaced by the newer generation for whom reality is entirely subjective. If they want to believe their gender is mountain panda then that's their right as Americans! Likewise if they want to believe that America's bombing is humanitarian and god's gift to the species, then anyone who suggests otherwise is obviously a KGB troll.

The Washington Post used to be one of the journals that the elites looked to in order to help inform their decisions, but now in the post-truth, or relative truth, world these information sources have increasingly sought to align their information products with the "proper" relative truths that reinforce the myth of "American Exceptionalism" , even if that is in conflict with objective and empirical reality.

To do otherwise would be to aid and give comfort to America's "enemies" (do keep in mind that America is a nation at war - has been for decades - and that workers in the corporate mass media are very much conscious of their roles in that ongoing war effort, to the point that they see themselves as information warriors fighting shadowy enemies that only exist in their own relative reality bubbles).

In short, Washington Bezos Post writers are not moronic or drunk. They are delusional . They are in the grips of a delusion that afflicts the entire United States, and portions of the rest of the world as well.

Some Americans have broken free from this Matrix-like delusion, but the numbers remain somewhat small... certainly less than one or two percent of the population, and those who have broken free of the delusion will never be given a soapbox to speak to the rest of the population from by the corporate elites.

mourning dove , Mar 30, 2019 6:36:14 PM | link
William Gruff @33

I think you have wildly underestimated the number of Americans who are very aware of what is going on with our country and the world. More than 40% of eligible voters elect not to participate in elections realizing the futility of it, and withholding their consent to this regime. It's a feature of propaganda to engender feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and feelings of isolation by falsely portraying a consensus among the population for the policies of the regime. Resist!

[Mar 29, 2019] Early troubling sign of Trump: most individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran

One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
www.moonofalabama.org
Circe | Nov 19, 2016 8:37:46 PM | 23

95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.

And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.

Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".

That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.

Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.

b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.

Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly President was elected.

Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 10:20:57 PM | 26

Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms.

And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.

What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.

And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?

The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:

>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?

>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.

>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?

Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.

[Mar 29, 2019] Donald Trump just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony by Chuck Baldwin

Early warning about Trump betrayal
Notable quotes:
"... And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist. ..."
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
Nov 17, 2016 | www.newswithviews.com

Originally from: Chuck Baldwin -- Trump Supporters Must Not Go To Sleep

After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.

And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.

Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment, thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.

On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.

To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.

Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.

Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of what we need to know.

What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.

There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.

The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.

I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.

[Mar 29, 2019] Is a War With Iran on the Horizon by Bob Dreyfuss

Notable quotes:
"... Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen. ..."
"... Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications. ..."
"... With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. ..."
"... On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003. ..."
"... Yet by openly calling for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. ..."
"... Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed, battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to the administration's calls to back the Jewish state? ..."
Mar 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Trump Administration Is Reckless Enough to Turn the Cold War With Iran Into a Hot One

Here's the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran? Could military actions designed to be limited -- say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf -- trigger a wider war?

Worryingly, the answers are: yes and yes. Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen.

Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications.

Such a war could quickly spread across much of the Middle East, not just to Saudi Arabia and Israel, the region's two major anti-Iranian powers, but Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the various Persian Gulf states. It might indeed be, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani suggested last year (unconsciously echoing Iran's former enemy, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein) the "mother of all wars."

With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, President Trump's former favorite generals who had urged caution, are no longer around . And though the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution last month calling for the United States to return to the nuclear agreement that President Obama signed, there are still a significant number of congressional Democrats who believe that Iran is a major threat to U.S. interests in the region.

During the Obama years, it was de rigueur for Democrats to support the president's conclusion that Iran was a prime state sponsor of terrorism and should be treated accordingly. And the congressional Democrats now leading the party on foreign policy -- Eliot Engel, who currently chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin, the two ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- were opponents of the 2015 nuclear accord (though all three now claim to have changed their minds ).

Deadly Flashpoints for a Future War

On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003.

Yet by openly calling for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

There are three potential flashpoints where limited skirmishes, were they to break out, could quickly escalate into a major shooting war.

The first is in Syria and Lebanon. Iran is deeply involved in defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (who only recently returned from a visit to Tehran) and closely allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite political party with a potent paramilitary arm. Weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu openly boasted that his country's air force had successfully taken out Iranian targets in Syria. In fact, little noticed here, dozens of such strikes have taken place for more than a year , with mounting Iranian casualties.

Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed, battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to the administration's calls to back the Jewish state?

Next, consider Iraq as a possible flashpoint for conflict. In February, a blustery Trump told CBS's Face the Nation that he intends to keep U.S. forces in Iraq "because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is the real problem." His comments did not exactly go over well with the Iraqi political class, since many of that country's parties and militias are backed by Iran.

Trump's declaration followed a Wall Street Journal report late last year that Bolton had asked the Pentagon -- over the opposition of various generals and then-Secretary of Defense Mattis -- to prepare options for "retaliatory strikes" against Iran. This roughly coincided with a couple of small rocket attacks against Baghdad's fortified Green Zone and the airport in Basra, Iraq's Persian Gulf port city, neither of which caused any casualties. Writing in Foreign Affairs , however, Pompeo blamed Iran for the attacks, which he called "life-threatening," adding, "Iran did not stop these attacks, which were carried out by proxies it has supported with funding, training, and weapons." No "retaliatory strikes" were launched, but plans do undoubtedly now exist for them and it's not hard to imagine Bolton and Pompeo persuading Trump to go ahead and use them -- with incalculable consequences.

[Mar 29, 2019] Boeing Doubles Down on 737 Max, Rejects Need for Simulator Training naked capitalism

Notable quotes:
"... Boeing compromised on sound engineering with the 737 Max . Recall the origins of the problem: Boeing was at risk of losing big orders to a more fuel-efficient Airbus model. Rather than sacrifice market share, Boeing put more fuel-efficient, larger engines on the existing 737 frames. The placement of the engine created a new safety risk, that under some circumstances, the plane could "nose up" at such a steep angle as to put it in a stall. The solution was to install software called MCAS which would force the nose down if the "angle of attack" became too acute. ..."
"... Merriam-Webster defines kludge -- sometimes spelled kluge -- as "a haphazard or makeshift solution to a problem and especially to a computer or programming problem." Oxford defines it as, in computing, "A machine, system, or program that has been badly put together, especially a clumsy but temporarily effective solution to a particular fault or problem." ..."
"... In the case of the 737 Max, it's the combination of how two separate problems interacted -- a plane whose design introduced aerodynamics issues and what now appears to have been a poorly designed anti-stall system -- that seems to be drawing many to turn to Granholm's term. The problems were compounded in many ways, including by the fact that pilots were not told of or trained for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) before the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 on board. ..."
"... "My concern is that Boeing may have developed the MCAS software as a profit-driven kludge to mitigate the Max 8's degraded flight characteristics due to the engine relocation required to maintain ground clearance," commented Philip Wheelock on a New York Times story about the plane's certification process this week. "Not convinced that software is an acceptable solution for an older design that has been pushed to its inherent aeronautical design limits." ..."
"... "Indeed, it seems the 737 MAX was a kludge to an existing design, and that MCAS was a kludge on top of that," said a commenter on Hackaday . ..."
"... Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing's new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor -- a type of sensor that was known to fail. ..."
"... That no one who wrote the MCAS software for the 737 MAX seems to have even raised the issue of using multiple inputs, including the opposite angle of attack sensor, in the computer's determination of an impending stall is mind-blowing. ..."
"... As a lifetime member of the software development fraternity, I don't know what toxic combination of inexperience, hubris, or lack of cultural understanding led to this. But I do know that it's indicative of a much deeper and much more troubling problem. The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far out of their league and did not know it. How can we possibly think they can implement a software fix, much less give us any comfort whatsoever that the rest of the flight management software, which is ultimately in ultimate control of the aircraft, has any fidelity at all? ..."
"... And we're giving short shrift to how Boeing compounded the problem, for instance, by making it an upcharge to have the 737 Max have a light showing that its angle of attack sensors disagreed (the planes did have two, but bizarrely, only one would be giving data to the MCAS system on any day), or hiding the fact that there was a new safety automated safety system in two paragraphs after page 700 in the flight manual. ..."
"... It's about an airplane manufacturer that put engines on an airframe they weren't designed for, having to add a flight control override to guard against said airplane's new tendency to nose up, and then adding insult to injury by driving that system with a single sensor when two are available. Oh – and charging airlines extra for the privilege of their pilots being told when one of those sensors is providing bad data. ..."
"... Officials investigating the fatal crash of a Boeing Co. BA 0.06% 737 MAX in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion that a suspect flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to people briefed on the matter, the first findings based on data retrieved from the flight's black boxes. ..."
"... Boeing is doubling down on its mistakes . The lesson of the Tylenol poisoning is that if a company has a safety problem, even if it isn't its fault, it needs to do everything it can to rectify the defects and protect customers. If there is any doubt, the company needs to err of the side of safety. ..."
"... Here, unlike with Johnson & Johnson, the failings that led to 737 Max groundings all originated with Boeing. Yet rather than own the problems and go overboard on fixing them to restore confidence in the plane and in Boeing, Boeing is acting as if all it has to put in place are merely adequate measures. ..."
"... [Former Boeing engineer Mr. [Rick] Ludtke [who worked on 737 MAX cockpit features] recalled midlevel managers telling subordinates that Boeing had committed to pay the airline $1 million per plane if its design ended up requiring pilots to spend additional simulator time. "We had never, ever seen commitments like that before," he said. ..."
"... I hope the pilots in our readership speak up, but as a mere mortal, I've very uncomfortable with pilots being put in a position of overriding a system in emergency conditions when they haven't even test driven it. When I learn software, reading a manual is useless save for learning what the program's capabilities are. In order to be able to use it, I have to spend time with it, hands on. Computer professionals tell me the same thing. It doesn't seem likely that pilots are all that different. ..."
"... Boeing does not seem to comprehend that it is gambling with its future. What if international flight regulators use the Max 737 as a bloody flag and refuse to accept FAA certifications of Boeing planes, or US origin equipment generally? Do you think for a nanosecond that the European and Chinese regulators wouldn't use disregarding the FAA as a way to advance their interests? Europe would clearly give preference to Airbus, and the Chinese could use Boeing to punish the US for going after Huawei. ..."
"... And yet we do not see anyone suggesting the obvious solution to this problem; eliminating the 737 MAX type of aircraft altogether. ..."
"... I don't think that Boeing can afford to drop the 737 MAX. This aircraft was in response to the Airbus as they did not have any new aircraft designs on the boards to take it on. So they modified a 1970s design as a profitable stopgap solution. ..."
"... Boeing were designing a follow-on to the 737, but panicked when the A320Neo came and went for the MAX instead as they could deliver it much quicker and cheaper than a new aircraft. ..."
"... If its true that they are another example of a once great engineering company enslaved to the quarterly results, then it may well be that all work on the replacement stopped when they put their engineers to work on the MAX line. If that's the case, then they really are screwed. Ten years is an absolute minimum to get a brand new aircraft delivered to customers from a standing start. ..."
"... The newer versions of the 737 have nearly twice the max takeoff weight of the original, but with the same landing gear and nearly the same wing area. ..."
"... Airbus probably can't produce enough Neo to make up for the shortfall, but they essentially own the Bombardier C-Series now (ironically, made in Mobile, Alabama and relabelled the Airbus 220) which could prove an excellent investment by Airbus. ..."
"... Regarding the FAA I have read in Spanish press that Daniel Elwell declared in the congress (translated from Spanish) that "I can't believe that airline companies tried to save a few thousand dollars on a feature that increases safety". This is a bad try to shift blame from Boeing to airline companies and if anything will reduce (eliminate) the international confidence on FAA regulations. ..."
"... Managers telling this to engineers before a plane is designed is one thing. Telling it to them after the plane been designed but while its user interface is being designed is outrageous. ..."
"... And I think the plane actually has two (one on each side) , but for some reason, their inputs weren't combined. There's a slight subtlety that the air flow is 3 dimensional, so when the plane is turning, and particularly turning+climbing, the readings of the two might vary slightly – but that's for the software to sort out. They reportedly didn't hook both of them up to both flight computers – why is an interesting question. There's probably a practical reason, but ..."
"... What the folks at Boeing may not realise is that the more they double-down on this bizarre tactic of using spin-doctoring as a crisis management tool aimed at an audience that is rapidly losing trust in the company ( and frankly may no longer believe anything coming out of the corporate communications department at Boeing), the harder it's going to be to reverse course by coming out and saying "we screwed up and will do whatever it takes to fix this". This debacle has all the makings of a large scale cover up and the continued mala fide attempts to deflect focus away from taking ownership of and accountability for this crisis will only result in continued assault on an already battered reputation. ..."
"... As an aside, the malaise at the FAA has been much documented on these pages and elsewhere recently, from the egregious abdication of its regulatory responsibilities to Boeing to having a top position go unfilled for over a year, my question to US readers is whether a comparable level of capture by corporate interests has similarly defanged the FDA? ..."
Mar 29, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Boeing compromised on sound engineering with the 737 Max . Recall the origins of the problem: Boeing was at risk of losing big orders to a more fuel-efficient Airbus model. Rather than sacrifice market share, Boeing put more fuel-efficient, larger engines on the existing 737 frames. The placement of the engine created a new safety risk, that under some circumstances, the plane could "nose up" at such a steep angle as to put it in a stall. The solution was to install software called MCAS which would force the nose down if the "angle of attack" became too acute.

Before getting to today's updates, experts have deemed the 737 Max design to be unsound. For
The word "kludge" keeps coming up when pilots and engineers discuss Boeing's 737 Max , from Quartz:

Again and again, in discussions of what has gone wrong with Boeing's 737 Max plane in two deadly crashes within five months, an unusual word keeps coming up: kludge.

Merriam-Webster defines kludge -- sometimes spelled kluge -- as "a haphazard or makeshift solution to a problem and especially to a computer or programming problem." Oxford defines it as, in computing, "A machine, system, or program that has been badly put together, especially a clumsy but temporarily effective solution to a particular fault or problem."

In the case of the 737 Max, it's the combination of how two separate problems interacted -- a plane whose design introduced aerodynamics issues and what now appears to have been a poorly designed anti-stall system -- that seems to be drawing many to turn to Granholm's term. The problems were compounded in many ways, including by the fact that pilots were not told of or trained for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) before the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 on board.

"My concern is that Boeing may have developed the MCAS software as a profit-driven kludge to mitigate the Max 8's degraded flight characteristics due to the engine relocation required to maintain ground clearance," commented Philip Wheelock on a New York Times story about the plane's certification process this week. "Not convinced that software is an acceptable solution for an older design that has been pushed to its inherent aeronautical design limits."

"Indeed, it seems the 737 MAX was a kludge to an existing design, and that MCAS was a kludge on top of that," said a commenter on Hackaday .

Lambert found more damning takes, which he featured in Water Cooler yesterday. First from the Seattle Times :

Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing's new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor -- a type of sensor that was known to fail. Boeing's rival, Airbus, has typically depended on three such sensors. "A single point of failure is an absolute no-no," said one former Boeing engineer who worked on the MAX, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the program in an interview with The Seattle Times. "That is just a huge system engineering oversight. To just have missed it, I can't imagine how."

And the second, from software developer Greg Travis who happens also to be a pilot and aircraft owner:

That no one who wrote the MCAS software for the 737 MAX seems to have even raised the issue of using multiple inputs, including the opposite angle of attack sensor, in the computer's determination of an impending stall is mind-blowing.

As a lifetime member of the software development fraternity, I don't know what toxic combination of inexperience, hubris, or lack of cultural understanding led to this. But I do know that it's indicative of a much deeper and much more troubling problem. The people who wrote the code for the original MCAS system were obviously terribly far out of their league and did not know it. How can we possibly think they can implement a software fix, much less give us any comfort whatsoever that the rest of the flight management software, which is ultimately in ultimate control of the aircraft, has any fidelity at all?

Ouch.

And we're giving short shrift to how Boeing compounded the problem, for instance, by making it an upcharge to have the 737 Max have a light showing that its angle of attack sensors disagreed (the planes did have two, but bizarrely, only one would be giving data to the MCAS system on any day), or hiding the fact that there was a new safety automated safety system in two paragraphs after page 700 in the flight manual. As Wall Street Journal reader Erich Greenbaum said in comments on an older article, How Boeing's 737 MAX Failed :

No – this isn't about "planes that fly by themselves." It's about an airplane manufacturer that put engines on an airframe they weren't designed for, having to add a flight control override to guard against said airplane's new tendency to nose up, and then adding insult to injury by driving that system with a single sensor when two are available. Oh – and charging airlines extra for the privilege of their pilots being told when one of those sensors is providing bad data.

The 737 Max has gotten a bad name not just for itself but also for the airlines that were big buyers. Southwest had taken the most 737 Max deliveries, and American was second. I happened to be looking at American for flights last night. This is what I got when I went to aa.com:

I came back to the page later to make sure I hadn't hit the 737 Max message randomly, by loading the page just when that image came up in a cycle .and that doesn't appear to be the case. I landed on the 737 Max splash a second time.

This result suggests that American has gotten so many customer queries about the 737 Max that it felt it had to make providing information about it a priority. If you click through, the next page explains how all 737 Max planes have been grounded, that American is using other equipment to fly on routes previously scheduled for those planes, but it has still had to cancel 90 flights a day.

Evidence is mounting that the MCAS system was responsible for the Ethopian Air crash in addition to the Lion Air tragedy . From the Wall Street Journal this evening :

Officials investigating the fatal crash of a Boeing Co. BA 0.06% 737 MAX in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion that a suspect flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to people briefed on the matter, the first findings based on data retrieved from the flight's black boxes.

The emerging consensus among investigators, one of these people said, was relayed during a high-level briefing at the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday, and is the strongest indication yet that the same automated system, called MCAS, misfired in both the Ethiopian Airlines flight earlier this month and a Lion Air flight in Indonesia, which crashed less than five months earlier. The two crashes claimed 346 lives.

Boeing is doubling down on its mistakes . The lesson of the Tylenol poisoning is that if a company has a safety problem, even if it isn't its fault, it needs to do everything it can to rectify the defects and protect customers. If there is any doubt, the company needs to err of the side of safety.

Here, unlike with Johnson & Johnson, the failings that led to 737 Max groundings all originated with Boeing. Yet rather than own the problems and go overboard on fixing them to restore confidence in the plane and in Boeing, Boeing is acting as if all it has to put in place are merely adequate measures.

Reuters, which has a bias towards understatement, has an atypically pointed farming Boeing's refusal to recommend pilot simulator training for the MCAS:

Boeing Co said it will submit by the end of this week a training package that 737 MAX pilots are required to take before a worldwide ban can be lifted, proposing as it did before two deadly crashes that those pilots do not need time on flight simulators to safely operate the aircraft.

In making that assessment, the world's largest planemaker is doubling down on a strategy it promoted to American Airlines Group Inc and other customers years ago. Boeing told airlines their pilots could switch from the older 737NG to the new MAX without costly flight simulator training and without compromising on safety, three former Boeing employees said.

Specifically, the Wall Street Journal reported that Southwest, which is the biggest buyer of the 737 Max, got Boeing to agree to a financial penalty if the new plane required additional simulator training :

The company had promised Southwest Airlines Co. , the plane's biggest customer, to keep pilot training to a minimum so the new jet could seamlessly slot into the carrier's fleet of older 737s, according to regulators and industry officials.

[Former Boeing engineer Mr. [Rick] Ludtke [who worked on 737 MAX cockpit features] recalled midlevel managers telling subordinates that Boeing had committed to pay the airline $1 million per plane if its design ended up requiring pilots to spend additional simulator time. "We had never, ever seen commitments like that before," he said.

I've never flown Southwest and now I will make sure never to use them.

I hope the pilots in our readership speak up, but as a mere mortal, I've very uncomfortable with pilots being put in a position of overriding a system in emergency conditions when they haven't even test driven it. When I learn software, reading a manual is useless save for learning what the program's capabilities are. In order to be able to use it, I have to spend time with it, hands on. Computer professionals tell me the same thing. It doesn't seem likely that pilots are all that different.

In other words, Boeing's refusal to recommend simulator training looks to be influenced by avoiding triggering a $31 million penalty payment to Southwest. This is an insane back-assward sense of priorities. Boeing had over $10 billion in profits in 2018. A $31 million payment isn't material and would almost certainly be lower after tax.

Boeing does not seem to comprehend that it is gambling with its future. What if international flight regulators use the Max 737 as a bloody flag and refuse to accept FAA certifications of Boeing planes, or US origin equipment generally? Do you think for a nanosecond that the European and Chinese regulators wouldn't use disregarding the FAA as a way to advance their interests? Europe would clearly give preference to Airbus, and the Chinese could use Boeing to punish the US for going after Huawei.

Boeing's comeuppance is long overdue. The company's decision to break its union, outsource, and move to Chicago as a device for shedding seasoned employees was a clear statement of its plan to compromise engineering in the name of profit. Something like the Max 737 train wreck was bound to happen.


ambrit , March 29, 2019 at 4:51 am

And yet we do not see anyone suggesting the obvious solution to this problem; eliminating the 737 MAX type of aircraft altogether.

The crashes of the early de Havilland Comet commercial jet aircraft all but destroyed English commercial jet production. Boeing should suffer a similar fate as de Havilland. Indeed, since the Comet crashes were the result of a previously unsuspected design flaw, and Boeing's problems are self inflicted, Boeing should suffer a more drastic punishment.

The Rev Kev , March 29, 2019 at 5:12 am

I don't think that Boeing can afford to drop the 737 MAX. This aircraft was in response to the Airbus as they did not have any new aircraft designs on the boards to take it on. So they modified a 1970s design as a profitable stopgap solution.

If they dump the 737 MAX then they have nothing good to go for years. In that space of time Airbus would move in and take over many of Boeing's markets and there would be new aircraft from Russia and China coming online as well.

I do not think that it would destroy Boeing as the US government would bail it out first, but it would be a colossal setback. I doubt that they would end up on this list-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_aircraft_manufacturers_of_the_United_States

Jon D Rudd , March 29, 2019 at 9:05 am

I understand that it can take up to ten years to develop a new aircraft, but the basic design of the 737 has been around since the Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" (!). Given that Airbus, like Avis, was going to be trying harder for more market share, was it totally beyond Boeing's capacity to develop a follow-on for the 737 over the past, say, 20 years?

PlutoniumKun , March 29, 2019 at 9:39 am

Boeing were designing a follow-on to the 737, but panicked when the A320Neo came and went for the MAX instead as they could deliver it much quicker and cheaper than a new aircraft. What I don't know is if they are still working on a replacement or if they shelved the plans entirely.

If its true that they are another example of a once great engineering company enslaved to the quarterly results, then it may well be that all work on the replacement stopped when they put their engineers to work on the MAX line. If that's the case, then they really are screwed. Ten years is an absolute minimum to get a brand new aircraft delivered to customers from a standing start.

scott 2 , March 29, 2019 at 7:51 am

The 737 was designed to be low to the ground because it was to serve small airports where the passengers had to climb stairs to enter (which I remember doing at Burbank and Ontario years ago) The 737 Max is what you would get if the 757 and 737 had a child. The newer versions of the 737 have nearly twice the max takeoff weight of the original, but with the same landing gear and nearly the same wing area.

Perhaps a shorter version of the 757 would have been the correct move, but Southwest would have screamed bloody murder.

Pilot and aircraft owner here.

John A , March 29, 2019 at 4:56 am

The problem for airlines is the need to have more energy efficient aircraft for both cost and environment pressure reasons. The 737 max is a response to the airbus 321neo, but as I understand it, Airbus does not have the capacity to takeover cancelled orders for the 737 max.

Do airlines stick with older 737 or brazen it out with Boeing that the max problems have been resolved? And passengers. I imagine they will fall into the brackets I will never fly on a 737 max, or I trust Boeing/airline, or a fatalistic if my number is up, my number is up'.

I regularly fly with Norwegian in Europe. However I for one will never fly a max and will now prefer SAS with the 321neo. As for Ryanair, that has max on order, if they take delivery, bye bye them.

Maybe the new Russian and Chinese versions can be an option? Or will Trump sanction any airline brave enough to order them instead of Boeing?

PlutoniumKun , March 29, 2019 at 5:34 am

Airbus probably can't produce enough Neo to make up for the shortfall, but they essentially own the Bombardier C-Series now (ironically, made in Mobile, Alabama and relabelled the Airbus 220) which could prove an excellent investment by Airbus.

There are four other potential competitors –

The French have a significant input to the Sukhoi, while Bombardier were involved with the Comac. None of those are direct replacements (they are generally smaller and shorter range), but they might suit many airlines who need aircraft quickly but won't touch the Max.

None of the above can match the Boeing or Airbus for state of the art engineering, but they are cheaper to buy, so they may well now be more attractive to budget airlines and third world airlines. The big one to look out for is Ryanair – they've long been Boeings biggest customer outside the US and have stuck with 737's consistently.

They will do their usual tactic of demanding huge discounts every time Boeing look weak, and no doubt they will do the same now. But they may decide to look elsewhere (especially as they don't really need the longer range as they operate exclusively in Europe). If they opt for something like the A220 or the Irkut, then that will be an enormous blow to Boeing, because others will follow Ryanairs lead.

The Rev Kev , March 29, 2019 at 5:49 am

PK, you said that the Sukhoi Superjet had significant French input. Does that mean physical components as well? If so, I would be surprised after the Mistral amphibious assault ships fiasco. On this topic, I saw this week how the French were taking out German components out of joint French-German weapons systems and replacing them with French ones as the Germans are wary about arming countries like Saudi Arabia and so have a say in these joint systems much to the disgust of the French, hence the swap-out so the French can continue to sell these systems.

PlutoniumKun , March 29, 2019 at 6:43 am

I was thinking of the engines , which are a joint project between a French and Russian company. Ironically, the core of the engine for the Sukhoi is the M88, the engine the French developed for the Rafaele fighter. The French are exceptionally good at using military research to help their commercial companies, and vice versa.

The French are also very ruthless (i.e. immoral) when it comes to export sales. This is why they usually only partner with the British, as they know the British share their rather loose definition of ethical policy in weapons sales. And they insist on Frenchifying their systems as much as they can so there is nobody to interfere with sales.

Ignacio , March 29, 2019 at 6:04 am

Kludge translates in spanish into "chapuza" and in my view expresses very well the "solution" that Boeing brougth to the 737 Max.

Regarding the FAA I have read in Spanish press that Daniel Elwell declared in the congress (translated from Spanish) that "I can't believe that airline companies tried to save a few thousand dollars on a feature that increases safety". This is a bad try to shift blame from Boeing to airline companies and if anything will reduce (eliminate) the international confidence on FAA regulations.

Ignacio , March 29, 2019 at 6:15 am

Boeing is doubling down on its mistakes. The lesson of the Tylenol poisoning is that if a company has a safety problem, even if it isn't its fault , it needs to do everything it can to rectify the defects and protect customers. If there is any doubt, the company needs to err of the side of safety.

And that might, precisely the difference between the Tylenol and the 737 MAX affairs. Boeing knows it is their fault and the blame feeling prevents them to act as rationally as Johnson&Johnson did.

allan , March 29, 2019 at 6:53 am

The Reuters article also says the following, which seems incredibly damning:

At Boeing's factory in Renton, Washington, managers told engineers working on the MAX, including its anti-stall system known as MCAS, their designs could not trigger Level C or D training designations from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the three former Boeing employees and a senior industry executive with knowledge of MAX development told Reuters. Otherwise, pilots would have to spend time in simulators before flying the new planes.

Managers telling this to engineers before a plane is designed is one thing. Telling it to them after the plane been designed but while its user interface is being designed is outrageous.

Ptb , March 29, 2019 at 7:56 am

Good review.

Certainly a relatively delicate sensor with external moving parts is a super obvious point of failure that any engineer would flag down instantly.

And I think the plane actually has two (one on each side) , but for some reason, their inputs weren't combined. There's a slight subtlety that the air flow is 3 dimensional, so when the plane is turning, and particularly turning+climbing, the readings of the two might vary slightly – but that's for the software to sort out. They reportedly didn't hook both of them up to both flight computers – why is an interesting question. There's probably a practical reason, but

Sometimes in industry what happens is you are updating a system or product, you don't want to re-certify your electronics (to make schedule or cost) , but you used all the input capacity on your logic systems/comms/wiring and still need more. So you have to "get creative" squeezing functionality into your legacy electronics. I really hope it wasn't something like that.

Jim A , March 29, 2019 at 8:11 am

ISTR that there was a crash in South America a few years back because both artificial horizons were getting info from a single pitot tube that had been taped over when the plane was being washed. The thing is, there was a switch in the cockpit to select whether the dual instruments were both using the left pitot, both the right one, or one on each. Using two sensors is not a new idea.

Jim A. , March 29, 2019 at 9:02 am

I mingled two accidents in my mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copa_Airlines_Flight_201
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603

John Beech , March 29, 2019 at 8:12 am

As a business owner who also happens to be a pilot and aircraft owner, I've been following this fiasco with great care. While not widely reported, Boeing submitted a software update to the FAA back in January. They're still dragging their feet and as a consequence, folks needlessly died the EA crash. To those who would say, "Nope, this is all on Boeing and the FAA for letting them run roughshod over the regulations!", let me share a bit of news with you to help you grok what dealing with the FAA is like.

Did you know AVGAS (aviation gasoline, e.g. the fuel used in the entire piston-powered fleet) still has lead in it? This, decades after MOGAS (motor vehicle gasoline, e.g. what we buy for our automobiles) was banned from using tetraethyl lead (TEL) as an antiknock compound!

Yet there's a drop in replacement available. Drop in meaning, refiners like Shell, Mobile, et al can begin mixing and distributing it using existing pipelines and trucks without so much as having to first clean the equipment or change anything whatsoever. So why isn't it used? It's because the FAA has been dragging their feet on approval. Put another way, the FAA would rather people continue being adversely affected by lead in the environment than fast tracking this.

http://www.gami.com/g100ul/news.php

Source? I know the owner of the company, and stand up guy if ever there was on, plus I've got friends who have flown with this fuel – extensively to help with testing. Bottom line? It works!

And while there's speculation this has to do with big oil not wanting to pay the patent holder and thus lobbying the FAA to obstruct permission, I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Suffice to say this stuff has been available for years and the patent clock is running down so you figure it out. Me? I do believe it's all about the Benjamins and am greatly saddened we're still damaging the environment when a replacement fuel is available we could begin using by next week! I kid you not.

Carolinian , March 29, 2019 at 8:59 am

Just to confirm, my town is on the Colonial pipeline that runs up the east coast and one of the local terminal's operators told me that they do add the lead for avgas here at the distribution facility. Switching to a different octane booster would be quite possible.

On the other hand I'm not sure the limited amount of leaded gas used by prop planes should be considered that big an environmental hazard (perhaps as someone who hangs around airports you feel differently).

Jim A. , March 29, 2019 at 8:14 am

–I'm guessing that sort of safety practice wasn't inculcated into the software engineers in the same way that it was for old school aerospace engineers. Software is often a poorly documented, partially tested black box.

oaf , March 29, 2019 at 8:17 am

Trim systems have been a part of airplanes from the earliest experiments with powered flight. They can be as simple as a bungee cord pulling on a stick, or as complex as multiple computers interacting in a *fly-by-wire* scenario. Pilots have to demonstrate more than awareness of these systems; they must demonstrate competency in their operation and oversight.They have been trained in how to identify, override, and compensate for malfunctions in any misbehaving flight control system in the aircraft for which they receive authorization. One big unknown here (in my mind) is whether a malfunctioning trim system would (or should) have been obvious to the flight crew. Another other big question is whether means of deactivation (not speaking of *override*) of the system was the same as in the previous 737 variants. Typically; this might involve pulling a labeled circuit breaker to remove power, and then manually adjusting a trim wheel on the console; or near the flight controls.

"an aircraft is a mechanical device; any component of which can fail" which I remember but increasingly; a COMPLEX electrical-mechanical device .with input from multiple people's minds and hands

The history of aircraft design and flight testing is full of unanticipated complications; frequently addressed by tweaks to details of structure and/or operational limits. The goal is to cover all possible permutations of problematic interactions of aircraft; environment, and human beings. There is a great deal of precedence in this topic.

the phrase *due diligence* comes to mind .

Thuto , March 29, 2019 at 8:17 am

What the folks at Boeing may not realise is that the more they double-down on this bizarre tactic of using spin-doctoring as a crisis management tool aimed at an audience that is rapidly losing trust in the company ( and frankly may no longer believe anything coming out of the corporate communications department at Boeing), the harder it's going to be to reverse course by coming out and saying "we screwed up and will do whatever it takes to fix this". This debacle has all the makings of a large scale cover up and the continued mala fide attempts to deflect focus away from taking ownership of and accountability for this crisis will only result in continued assault on an already battered reputation.

As an aside, the malaise at the FAA has been much documented on these pages and elsewhere recently, from the egregious abdication of its regulatory responsibilities to Boeing to having a top position go unfilled for over a year, my question to US readers is whether a comparable level of capture by corporate interests has similarly defanged the FDA? I only ask because I see a lot of supplements and other medicinal products sold here in South Africa with the "Approved by the US FDA" seal of approval and wonder whether deferring to US regulators by international regulatory bodies is still a good idea under the current climate.

oaf , March 29, 2019 at 8:32 am

The following statistical categories might generate interesting numbers.

#1: Total flight operations of all 737 types since introduction. (wheels up to wheels down)
#2: Same for Max variant in question.
#3: Difficulty reports filed for all 737 (flight related)
#4: Difficulty reports filed for Max (flight related)

TG , March 29, 2019 at 9:11 am

Boeing is, sadly, not making a 'mistake.' Boeing is too big to fail. Why should Boeing care?

EoH , March 29, 2019 at 9:30 am

Flight simulators are expensive and scheduling will likely be backed up, given the large number of existing and planned 737 Max aircraft. It's an important problem to fix, but not with the current workaround, which seems to be to use a tablet computer instead.

One would think a tablet computer would be a poor platform for a computer game, let alone to simulate flying a commercial aircraft with new s/w or h/w, the flight conditions under which they fail, and how to respond to them. All a tablet computer could simulate is turning the pages in the flight manual.

EoH , March 29, 2019 at 9:34 am

Your note should be a useful reminder to the current generation of executives at Johnson & Johnson.

They and their peers at other companies seem to have discarded the crisis management gold standard established by J & J during the Tylenol scare. It is cheaper, it seems, and provides fewer avenues of attack for the tort bar, to substitute scripts provided by the apology industry, which can trace its origins to that same Tylenol scare.

[Mar 29, 2019] I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans

Highly recommended!
Interesting information about Cuban lobby and Trump
Notable quotes:
"... George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation. ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

Well now that most everyone knows Trump's ME policy on Iran is run by his Zionists.

We would be remiss in not mentioning the "other foreign lobby" .the Cuban exiles ..who are all very interested in Venezuela.

I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/what-triggered-the-escalation-of-us-venezuela-policy

What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?

For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed with the
https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/what-triggered-the-escalation-of-us-venezuela-policy

What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?
For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed with the evolving crisis inside Venezuela

Two days after taking office in January 2017 President Donald Trump surprised White House staff by asking for a briefing on Venezuela. At the time, Fernando Cutz was on the National Security Council staff as the President's Director for South America.

"For whatever reason, and honestly I don't know what the reason was, but President Trump started on Day One, literally on Day One, asking about Venezuela. So, it was a priority of his from the very start," Cutz told a forum at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank, after he left government last year.

Cutz didn't know, but the seed was planted a few days before Trump's inauguration during a casual meeting at Trump Tower in New York. Trump had invited some South Florida friends to pay him a visit, among them Freddy Balsera, a Cuban American Democrat, who represented the real estate mogul on several South Florida golf projects.

During the meeting, Trump asked Balsera for some advice on what South Floridians would like to see from his presidency, according to witnesses. Balsera mentioned taking a tougher line on the Maduro regime in Venezuela, adding it would have bipartisan support and could make for a good foreign policy victory

The president's son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, was in the room and his ears picked up, the sources said. Balsera told Trump and Kushner about Venezuela's most famous political prisoner: Leopoldo Lopez. And he had a suggestion: "You should meet with his wife, Lilian Tintori," he said.

That's precisely what happened a few weeks later, courtesy of another Cuban American – a Republican this time – Senator Marco Rubio

Rubio's influence has also grown since that White House visit with Lilian Tintori. Despite calling him 'Little Marco' during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken to heaping President Donald Trump has lately taken to heaping praise on his former presidential rival

"I do listen a lot to Senator Rubio on Venezuela, it's close to his heart," Trump told a small group of reporters representing regional news outlets last month.

Rubio was also instrumental in bringing into the government some key Cuban Americans; Mauricio Claver-Carone at the NSC. Another John Barsa, is awaiting confirmation to lead USAID's operations in Latin America. Claver-Carone is a longtime activist on Cuba policy and staunch backer of the economic embargo against Havana's communist government]

Otto Reich, another conservative Cuban American and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela says the Trump administration clearly has Cuba in its sights.
"I think that what they are preparing in the government is first of all to use the fall of the Venezuelan dictatorship that has financed so much violence and subversion in the hemisphere, to later bring about changes, transitions in Cuba and Nicaragua,"

White House to appoint Cuba hardliner to head Latin America policy Mauricio Claver-Carone, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's engagement with Cuba, is taking over as the National Security Council's influential director for Latin America policy.

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
@renfro Good information.

I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.

Well, 'we' got a tax cut. And 'we' are going to have mandated vaccinations from companies exempt from liability. And 'we' will get the joys of subsidizing the 5G rollout for total internet connectivity from the toilet to the grave. 'We' get total surveillance, too, so there is that.

I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.

But we're a nation of immigrants, so we celebrate all those hyphenated pseudo-Americans hijacking our country for foreign benefit. Why, I think one of the reasons President Kushner wants immigrants in the largest numbers ever is to provide more boots for all of our wars. Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, reduxes on Iraq and Lebanon? Adventures in Africa? Wheel of fortune, who hurts Ivanka's feelings first?

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT
@chris Two-fer? I don't think so. Trump will be a popular wartime president . The media has already changed its tone. No, Trump is completely housebroken, a useful fool. He's good for more than one war, so will probably be re-elected. How many wars do you think we're good for before total collapse?
Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
President Trump is a complete and total whore for Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson.

Shelly Adelson is an ISRAEL FIRST Jew who wants to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.

Shelly Adelson wants to flood more mass legal immigration into the United States.

Shelly Adelson wants to give amnesty to upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.

Shelly Adelson demanded 4 things from Trump:

1) Adelson wanted the US military to attack and invade Iran.

2) Adelson wanted the US military to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran as a demonstration of resolve and power.

3) Adelson wanted the US embassy moved to Jerusalem.

4) Adelson wanted the Iran nuclear deal killed and buried.

Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has moved a satellite branch of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Trump and the US military have refused to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran. Trump and the US military have refused to attack and invade Iran.

If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.

Art , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.

Sorry but there is not one US general who will act against Israel – period.

bucky , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:03 pm GMT
@Talha If Jews want to live in Palestine there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But they have to live as the locals do and without any special favors.

What is BS is the special favors the USA gives them. They even have the gall to say that our giving $5 billion in military aid to them is a favor to us.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:06 pm GMT
George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War.

The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America.

Trump went to a 2016 GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina and said the US military was dragged into the Iraq War debacle by George W Bush on false claims.

Trump:

He added, forcefully: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction – there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/13/cbs-republican-debate-trump-bush-cruz-rubio-antonin-scalia

The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation.

Tweet from 2015:

[Mar 29, 2019] SEC type full disclosure prospectus required of candidates could be useful, who to enforce this after those guys get to power is unclear

Notable quotes:
"... There are no agency in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ? ..."
"... Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no longer exist ..."
"... Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans, ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names. ..."
"... Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus. just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

smokey , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:20 am GMT

@Captain Willard

Though I would agree that an SEC type full disclosure prospectus required of candidates could be useful. There are no agency in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ?

Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no longer exist to those who are part of economic zionism (EZ); they use government to establish their monopolies not to prevent them. Not only have the EZ eliminated International Law, they have given themselves, and each person they allow to be elected, unlimited get out of jail free cards.

My question Captain Willard is: who would enforce the intentional misrepresentations, glaring omissions, hoax after hoax embedded within the candidate prospectus you propose? Who who prosecute the lies? Who would prosecute the behaviors done contrary to the promises made in the prospectus? Can't even get Trump to make public his Tax Returns and half the FBI can't publish an investigation on el presidente.

Until governed Americans change the constitution to take the power to appoint the judges (article 3) and the Prosecutors that can prosecute the EZ and the elected from the 450 Article I liars, and the 2 Article BoZoos nothing is going to change.

Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans, ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names.

Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus. just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses.

[Mar 29, 2019] Boeing Anti-Stall Software Mistakenly Activated Before Deadly Crash, Investigators Believe

Notable quotes:
"... All this is ignoring the real issue with complex aircraft today. To save money airlines pushed to eliminate the Flight Engineer. ..."
"... As the MCAS system has such authority to cause the plane to crash, a system like this should be quadruple-redundant to prevent a single source of bad data from causing a catastrophic loss of life. ..."
Mar 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Lysander Spooner , 2 minutes ago link

All this is ignoring the real issue with complex aircraft today. To save money airlines pushed to eliminate the Flight Engineer.

The one time this scenario was avoided was when a jump seat pilot saw what was going on. Both the captain and the co pilot had tunnel vision just trying to fly the damn plane. It's a myth modern aircraft are less complex the older generation aircraft that required a Flight Engineer. The computers work fine when everything is ok or the issue is straight forward but when complexity enters during an emergency its far more complex than any old piston or early jet aircraft.

None of these crashes would have occurred if a flight engineer was onboard. They have the big picture on the air-frame and train to know that air frame backwards an forwards. The pilots fly the aircraft while the flight engineer operates the systems.

Ask any qualified pilot these questions. You will get the same answer as above.

PriceAction , 4 minutes ago link

As the MCAS system has such authority to cause the plane to crash, a system like this should be quadruple-redundant to prevent a single source of bad data from causing a catastrophic loss of life.

This is compounded by the fact the pilots were unable to easily override the system and unable to know _why_ they could not control the plane when MCAS malfunctioned.

There should be outrage that this was allowed to go into production.

crazytechnician , 7 minutes ago link

These aircraft would be impossible to fly without automation. You would need at least 3 or 4 pilots and 15 engineers to keep on top of everything. There are hundreds of systems running in the background. Airbus A series for example have anywhere between 80 to 120 million lines of code depending on the type and configuration. Pilot's these days are computer terminal operators. Errors are unavoidable in software until they fail.

The trick is simulation , clearly Boeing did not simulate any of this , this aircraft should not have been certified.

olibur , 13 minutes ago link

All families on behalf of 350 victims must sue the lying Boeing.

terrific , 13 minutes ago link

The solution is less reliance on automation, at least not until AI is actually able to intervene when sensors and software malfunction, and ESPECIALLY not with aircraft, for God's sake.

pismobird , 13 minutes ago link

One H1b to anotherH1b, "I thought you were supposed to fix those 297 stubbed out error conditions on the MCAS stall sensor?" "No, I fixed the stubbed out error conditions on the SQUALL sensor!"

"It's right there on the assignment schedule."

"What's the matter can't you read English?"

( The H-1B is a visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H) that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. )

I got out of the coding business when they started putting these MFturkeys in charge!

Mactruck , 17 minutes ago link

This tragedy is as much about government corruption (FAA approvals) as it is about a POS company, it's shitbag execs, or third world pilots for that matter.

Rusticus2.0 , 19 minutes ago link

Without cross limiting; where 2 or more inputs cross reference each other and limit output if the variation exceeds a predetermined setpoint; Boeing employed a control system with a single point failure.

Analogous to a cars cruise control speeding up if the speedometer failed and registered zero mph.

Not if_ But When , 23 minutes ago link

I read that the Operator's Manual for this aircraft is 1400 pages. Is that possible? And if so, is this MCAS system info just hidden on page 419 like in a financial document? 1400 pages is almost as long as the cautions in a new drug advertisement. And I'm sure the technical translations for Indonesian and Ethiopian pilots are perfectly done and readily understood.

ScratInTheHat , 14 minutes ago link

That is why commercial pilots get paid high wages to do their jobs and know the aircraft they are flying. They just don't walk into a new aircraft cold turkey. This issue is covered in the manual and it is an issue that any pilot would note as a big deal. In 1965/66 the well-loved 727 had 4 crashes because pilots didn't know the aircraft. This is the same thing.

PriceAction , 3 minutes ago link

As the MCAS system has such authority to cause the plane to crash, a system like this should be quadruple-redundant to prevent a single source of bad data from causing a catastrophic loss of life.

This is compounded by the fact the pilots were unable to easily override the system and unable to know _why_ they could not control the plane when MCAS malfunctioned.

There should be outrage that this was allowed to go into production.

N0TME , 26 minutes ago link

So the MCAS doesn't take into account speed, just the AOA?

thomas.thomas73 , 27 minutes ago link

I g­­­­e­­­­t p­­­­a­­­­i­­­­d o­­­­v­­­­e­­­­r $­­9­­0 p­­­­e­­­­r h­­­­o­­­­u­­­­r w­­­­o­­­­r­­k­­­­i­­­­n­­­­g f­­­­r­­­­o­­­­m h­­­­o­­­­m­­­­e w­­­­i­­­­t­­­­h 2 k­­­­i­­d­­­­s a­­­­t h­­­­o­­­­m­­­­e. I n­­­­e­­­­v­­­­e­­r t­­­­h­­o­­­­u­­­­g­­­­h­­­­t I­­­­'­­­­d b­­­­e a­­­­b­­­­l­­­­e t­­­­o d­­­­o i­­­­t b­­­­u­­­­t m­­­­y b­­­­e­­­­s­­­­t f­­r­­i­­e­­n­­d e­­a­­r­­n­­s o­­v­­e­­r 1­­0­­k a m­­o­­n­­t­­h d­­o­­i­­n­­g t­­h­­­­i­­­­s a­­­­n­­­­d s­­­­h­­­­e c­­­­o­­­­n­­­­v­­­­i­­­­n­­­­c­­­­e­­­­d m­­­­e t­­­­o t­­r­­y. T­­h­­e p­­o­­t­­e­­n­­t­­i­­a­­l w­­i­­t­­h t­­h­­i­­s i­­s e­­n­­­­d­­l­­e­­­­s­­­­s. H­­­­e­­­­r­­­­e­­­­s w­­­­h­­­­a­­­­t I'v­­­­e b­­­­e­­­­e­­­­n d­­­­o­­­­i­­­­n­­­­g,

►►●►●►●►►●►●►●► http://www.worktoday33.com

bluskyes , 29 minutes ago link

Somebody turned off airplane mode on their phone.

DrBrown314 , 29 minutes ago link

The FAA had the final call on this and they failed to do their job. The MCAS was never designed to mask the airflow issues created by hanging over sized engines on an airframe designed for smaller nacelles. These bigger engines had to be mounted higher and more forward creating airflow disruption over the wing during critical climb out conditions. This bird should never have flown! It was flawed from the get go and the FAA let it slide. Now hundreds of people are dead!

archie bird , 33 minutes ago link

lol their shares are going to go down faster than one of their planes when all the lawsuits start happening

beemasters , 29 minutes ago link

If the US government doesn't intervene, all would be very easy lawsuits to win. But I suspect there will be political pressure placed to limit the liability of Boeing or a deal struck to have US taxpayers bail them out.

OliverAnd , 33 minutes ago link

I do not believe this story or any other story of how the Boeing 737 crashed. On a private jet the engines are set in the tail. If the angle of attack is high, little to no air will flow into the engines as the wings block sufficient air movement thus stalling. Hondajet has improved this by placing the engines on the wing. The engines of a Boeing 737 are placed in front of the wing, thus there should be very little effect to the airflow, unless of course the angle of attack is approaching a very large attack angle of over 70 degrees.

HRClinton , 20 minutes ago link

70° ? WTF r u smoking?

Commercial planes typically stall at AOA = 17°

If the AOA is too great, you have more drag than lift, causing the stall.

bogbeagle , 20 minutes ago link

We are talking about an aerodynamic stall of the flying surfaces.

Different thing from compressor stall.

boattrash , 18 minutes ago link

With power settings reduced to lower fuel consumption aka costs, it doesn't really make a damn where the engines are mounted.

Fed-up with being Sick and Tired , 33 minutes ago link

The question is thus begged: did this NEW Anti-Stall System replace one that had caused issues in the past? WAS THIS NEW SYSTEM needed? Are pilots not trained to invoke changes to NOSE ATTITUDE when stall indicators, in the past, were alarmed?

William Dorritt , 35 minutes ago link

Who wrote the software ?????

Cruise Control in my 16 year old car

Deactivates when I touch the gas or brakes

Boeing should buy some used cars as

reference models for their automated features.

Who wrote the software

Indians or Chinese who have never owned a car ?????

reddpill , 36 minutes ago link

The "let's assassinate some peps" system, through which remote control access and false data injection into a so called "closed" system exists. The public are done being played as fools, Boeing. How much did you sell the encryption keys for access into that closed system to 3rd parties? Why did that northern Scandinavian country spend millions removing this very system from their purchased Boeing planes? Was it because they knew? The CEO of Lion Air knows also.

beemasters , 37 minutes ago link

New ads for Boeing now include: "Safety features sold separately."

Seal Team 6 , 38 minutes ago link

This makes a big assumption, that being the AOA was faulty and MCAS came on for no reason. That's a big assumption and probably very wrong. MCAS comes on in stalls or high bank turns which we know the ethiopian pilot executed a high bank turn. The likely scenario is that the inexperienced third world pilot with his 0 hours of training on the Max miscalculated the weight of the plane on takeoff and stalled it in a turn right after he put the gear up and took the flaps off. MCAS came on as it was supposed to do, and would be the right thing to do to save the plane. If he had taken his hands off the yoke and gone to have a pee, all those people would still be alive as the computer, which is much smarter than the third world pilot, would have flown the plane. Not understanding his plane, the 28 year old pilot fought the MCAS at 1000 feet and bought the farm. The next shoe to drop will be the more interesting one. They have already released the innuendo, next to come will be the hard facts. Let's see.

bogbeagle , 29 minutes ago link

Interesting.

Wouldn't be the first stall initiated by a change of configuration. See:BA 548, Stansted, circa 1970.

HushHushSweet , 38 minutes ago link

The sensor could also have been remotely triggered to cause the crash.

XBroker1 , 39 minutes ago link

Ok, now hold up that piece of metal and pose for the camera. Let's make this look like the real thing. -Boeing

richsob , 41 minutes ago link

The only winners in this will be the lawyers. My Dad frequently told me that lawyers were bleached souls in tan suits. I didn't understand at the time but I do now.

crazytechnician , 42 minutes ago link

The MCAS will be easily fixed but the real question is why did they install this in the first instance ? Is it a bandage over something else ?

Ignorance is bliss , 43 minutes ago link

BA stock is up pre-market. I guess this story is another nothin burger that can be fixed with software.

jewish_master , 38 minutes ago link

we now exist in idiocracy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leyn-oS5ASI

Wahooo , 43 minutes ago link

These planes are simply too complex anymore. If they can't be flown by a drunk pilot, they should be grounded.

Dormouse , 45 minutes ago link

We know that's not exactly what happened because Trump called them out with his double meaning "737 killers" talking about CA death penalty and this obvious deep state distraction murder.

PeteMMM , 46 minutes ago link

Surely this will mean the plane has to be 're-certified' after maybe modifications like additional sensors, software updates and extra pilot training have been factored in. Increasingly looking like there will be no 'quick fix', and admitting MCAS was at fault is going to open Boeing up to tons of lawsuits, not to mention cancelled orders. They'll need to drop the 737 MAX name too I would guess, it's too tarnished now.

Shatzy48 , 47 minutes ago link

I'm very surprised that a responsible company like Boeing would put out such a bad system. The program should have used readings from both sensors to ensure accuracy, and the cockpit warning mechanism should not have been optional equipment given the critical nature of the system.

Wahooo , 45 minutes ago link

Yeah it's puzzling. Someone in India fucked up big time.

beemasters , 34 minutes ago link

If they were responsible, they would have halted and recalled all productions by now.

not-me---it-was-the-dog , 47 minutes ago link

i stopped flying boing when they started producing self-immolating plastic planes.

(so that's where elon stole the idea!)

[Mar 29, 2019] Boeing (BA) 737 Stall Prevention System On in Ethiopia Air Crash

Notable quotes:
"... The stall-prevention system on the Boeing Co. 737 Max jet automatically switched on before the crash in Ethiopia this month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing preliminary findings from data on the aircraft's black boxes. ..."
Mar 29, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

The stall-prevention system on the Boeing Co. 737 Max jet automatically switched on before the crash in Ethiopia this month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing preliminary findings from data on the aircraft's black boxes.

The conclusion was relayed at a briefing at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday and is the strongest indication yet that the same system malfunctioned in both the Ethiopian Airlines flight and the Lion Air disaster in Indonesia in October, the newspaper said.

[Mar 29, 2019] Regulators Knew Of 737 MAX Trim Problems - Certification Demanded Training That Boeing Failed To Deliver

Notable quotes:
"... The MCAS system is poorly engineered and the design should never have been certified in the first place. But the issue is even worse. The certification that was given relied on false data. ..."
"... The first MCAS design, on which the safety analysis and certification was based, allowed for a maximum trim movement by MCAS of 0.6 degree of a maximum of 5 degree. Flight tests proved that to be too little to achieve the desired effects and the maximum movement was changed to 2.5 degree. ..."
"... No safety analysis for the much greater movement was conducted. The FAA and foreign regulators were not informed of it. Their certification of the 737 MAX was based on misleading data. ..."
"... But even those certifications were only conditional. They required from Boeing to include relevant training material that explained the MCAS trim system and its potential problems to the pilots. ..."
"... The original certification for the 737 MAX was issued by the U.S. regulator FAA. The European regulator EASA based its certification on the one the FAA provided but it added several of its own requirements. There is now documentary evidence that Boeing neglected to fulfill at least one of those requirements. ..."
"... The FAA is as regulator far too cozy with lobbyists and aircraft manufacturers. It outsources too much of the certification testing to the manufacturers. It should not have allowed Boeing to install a MCAS that depended on a sole sensor. ..."
"... "It's become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX," Ludtke said. ..."
"... MCAS was not the only change that made the 737 MAX a 'kludge'. The design errors were inexcusable . Boeing did not inform the regulators when it quadrupled the maximum effect the MCAS system could have. These changes had side effects that were not properly analyzed. Failure of the system was hazardous and extremely difficult to handle . Indicators lights showing that the system may have failed, a safety feature, were sold as extras . ..."
"... It will take quite long to certify the changes Boeing announced for the 737 MAX. Lawsuits were filed against the company. Orders were canceled . The company is under criminal investigation. The commercial damage to Boeing will likely be larger than currently estimated. It comes on top of a recent WTO ruling that Boeing illegally received billions of dollars in subsidies and will need to compensate its competition. ..."
"... The development and production of the 787 Dreamliner, announced in 2003, was outsourced all over the world. That led to years of delays and billions in development cost overruns. In 2010 Airbus announced the A-320 NEO as a better alternative to the 737 NG. Boeing was still busy to get the 787 into the air. It had neither the engineering capacity nor the money to counter the NEO with a brand new plane. It hastily revamped the 737, a design from the 1960s, into the 737 MAX. It promised to airlines that the new plane would not require to retrain their pilots. MCAS was specifically designed to allow for that. It was a huge mistake. ..."
"... Boeing once was an engineering company with an attached sales department. It 2001, when it moved its headquarter to Chicago , it became a dealership with an attached engineering wing. The philosophical difference is profound. It is time for the company to find back to its roots. ..."
Mar 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Regulators Knew Of 737 MAX Trim Problems - Certification Demanded Training That Boeing Failed To Deliver

A recently discovered document proves that Boeing ignored requirements international regulators made when they certified Boeing's 737 MAX airplane.

After the recent Boeing 737 MAX incident in Ethiopia we explained why it happened. Even before the plane type was grounded by the FAA we wrote:

Boeing, The FAA, And Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed

Our early take was confirmed by the reporting of other media which we also discussed:

Flawed Safety Analysis, Failed Oversight - Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed

The basic problem:

For commercial reasons Boeing wanted the new 737 version to handle like the old ones. But changes in the new version required an additional system to handle certain flight situations. The development of that system and the safety analysis of its implications were rushed through. Pilots were not informed of it and not trained to counter its failure.

The added 'maneuver characteristics augmentation system' (MCAS) depended on only one sensor. When the sensor provided false data MCAS engaged and pointed the planes towards the ground. Manual trim using the plane's trim wheel was required to regain flight stability. The pilots were not aware of that. The regulators who certified the plane as safe were unaware of the extend of the problem:

The MCAS system is poorly engineered and the design should never have been certified in the first place. But the issue is even worse. The certification that was given relied on false data.

The first MCAS design, on which the safety analysis and certification was based, allowed for a maximum trim movement by MCAS of 0.6 degree of a maximum of 5 degree. Flight tests proved that to be too little to achieve the desired effects and the maximum movement was changed to 2.5 degree.

No safety analysis for the much greater movement was conducted. The FAA and foreign regulators were not informed of it. Their certification of the 737 MAX was based on misleading data.

But even those certifications were only conditional. They required from Boeing to include relevant training material that explained the MCAS trim system and its potential problems to the pilots.

The original certification for the 737 MAX was issued by the U.S. regulator FAA. The European regulator EASA based its certification on the one the FAA provided but it added several of its own requirements. There is now documentary evidence that Boeing neglected to fulfill at least one of those requirements.

The one page document, first described by Reuters , is included in the Explanatory Note Issue 10 (pdf) to the EASA Boeing 737 type certification which was issued in February 2016.

Page 15 of the Explanatory Note discusses "Longitudinal trim at Vmo". Vmo is the maximum operational speed. The trim sets the nose of the plane up or down, independent of other pilot input. Too high up and the plane with lose lift and stall, too low down and the plane will hit terrain.

A failure of the MCAS system could trim the nose down. As a countermeasure the pilots would have to switch the trim system off. They would then manually trim the plane back into a level flight. This was a concern. The EASA note says:

Subsequent to flight testing, the FAA-TAD expressed concern with compliance to the reference regulation based on an interpretation of the intent behind "trim". The main issue being that longitudinal trim cannot be achieved throughout the flight envelope using thumb switch trim only.

EASA considered the need to use manual trim "unusual". But it allowed it to pass because the required training material would "clearly explain" the issue:

The need to use the trim wheel is considered unusual, as it is only required for manual flight in those corners of the envelope.

The increased safety provided by the Boeing design limits on the thumb switches (for out-of-trim dive characteristics) provides a compensating factor for the inability to use the thumb switches throughout the entire flight envelope. Furthermore, the additional crew procedures and training material will clearly explain to pilots the situations where use of the trim wheel may be needed due to lack of trim authority with the wheel mounted switches.


Full document

While the EASA was convinced (by Boeing?) that those situations would be discussed in "additional crew procedures and training material", Boeing did not include it in the training materials for the airlines that bought the planes:

Those situations, however, were not listed in the flight manual, according to a copy from American Airlines seen by Reuters.

Without the additional procedures and training material the 737 MAX would not have been certified. By providing the plane without the required training material Boeing essentially handed incomplete planes to its customers.

The FAA is as regulator far too cozy with lobbyists and aircraft manufacturers. It outsources too much of the certification testing to the manufacturers. It should not have allowed Boeing to install a MCAS that depended on a sole sensor.

But the bigger culprit here is clearly Boeing. The plane was developed in a rush . Even its own engineers doubted that it was safe:

Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked on designing the interfaces on the MAX's flight deck, said managers mandated that any differences from the previous 737 had to be small enough that they wouldn't trigger the need for pilots to undergo new simulator training.

That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community that was increasingly expecting automation.

"It's become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX," Ludtke said.

MCAS was not the only change that made the 737 MAX a 'kludge'. The design errors were inexcusable . Boeing did not inform the regulators when it quadrupled the maximum effect the MCAS system could have. These changes had side effects that were not properly analyzed. Failure of the system was hazardous and extremely difficult to handle . Indicators lights showing that the system may have failed, a safety feature, were sold as extras .

And today we learned that Boeing did not even provide its customers with the "clear explanations" the certifications required it to deliver.

These were not 'mistakes' by some lowly technicians. These were breaches of legal requirements and of trust.

It will take quite long to certify the changes Boeing announced for the 737 MAX. Lawsuits were filed against the company. Orders were canceled . The company is under criminal investigation. The commercial damage to Boeing will likely be larger than currently estimated. It comes on top of a recent WTO ruling that Boeing illegally received billions of dollars in subsidies and will need to compensate its competition.

All these are consequences of bad management decisions.

The development and production of the 787 Dreamliner, announced in 2003, was outsourced all over the world. That led to years of delays and billions in development cost overruns. In 2010 Airbus announced the A-320 NEO as a better alternative to the 737 NG. Boeing was still busy to get the 787 into the air. It had neither the engineering capacity nor the money to counter the NEO with a brand new plane. It hastily revamped the 737, a design from the 1960s, into the 737 MAX. It promised to airlines that the new plane would not require to retrain their pilots. MCAS was specifically designed to allow for that. It was a huge mistake.

Boeing once was an engineering company with an attached sales department. It 2001, when it moved its headquarter to Chicago , it became a dealership with an attached engineering wing. The philosophical difference is profound. It is time for the company to find back to its roots.

Posted by b on March 29, 2019 at 09:29 AM | Permalink

[Mar 28, 2019] On to Caracas and Tehran! by Pat Buchanan

Notable quotes:
"... While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating table. ..."
"... Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely? ..."
"... What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported by Iran, prevail. ..."
"... Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran." ..."
"... The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran." Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran. ..."
"... Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. ..."
"... We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era. ..."
Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com
Pat Buchanan February 22, 2019

In the Venezuelan crisis, said President Donald Trump in Florida, "All options are on the table." And if Venezuela's generals persist in their refusal to break with Nicolas Maduro, they could "lose everything."

Another example of Yankee bluster and bluff? Or is Trump prepared to use military force to bring down Maduro and install Juan Guaido, the president of the national assembly who has declared himself president of Venezuela? We will get an indication this weekend, as a convoy of food and humanitarian aid tries to force its way into Venezuela from Colombia. Yet, even given the brutality of the regime and the suffering of the people -- 1 in 10 have fled -- it is hard to see Trump sending the Marines to fight the Venezuelan army in Venezuela.

Where would Trump get the authority for such a war? Still, the lead role that Trump has assumed in the crisis raises a question. Does the reflexive interventionism -- America is "the indispensable nation!" -- that propelled us into the forever war of the Middle East, retain its hold on the American mind?

Next week, Trump meets in Hanoi with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating table.

Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely?

Nancy Pelosi's House just voted to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Senate may follow. Yet Trump is prepared to use his first veto to kill that War Powers Resolution and retain the right to help the Saudi war effort.

What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported by Iran, prevail.

Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran."

The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran." Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran.

Early this week came leaks that Trump officials have discovered that Shiite Iran has been secretly collaborating with the Sunni terrorists of al-Qaida. This could, headlined The Washington Times, provide "the legal rationale for U.S. military strikes" on Iran.

At the Munich Security Conference, however, NATO allies Britain, France and Germany recommitted to the Iran nuclear treaty from which Trump withdrew, and to improved economic relations with Tehran.

Trump pledged months ago to bring home the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan. But he is meeting resistance in his own party in Congress and even in his own administration. Reasons: A U.S. pullout from Syria would abandon our Kurdish allies to the Turks, who see them as terrorists, and would force the Kurds to cut a deal with Syria's Bashar Assad and Russia for their security and survival. This week, Britain and France informed us that if we leave Syria, then they leave, too. As for pulling out of Afghanistan, the probable result would be the fall of the Kabul government and return of the Taliban, who hold more territory now than they have since being overthrown 18 years ago. For Afghans who cast their lot with the Americans, it would not go well.

U.S. relations with Russia, which Trump promised to improve, have chilled to Cold War status. The U.S. is pulling out of Ronald Reagan's INF treaty, which bans land-based nuclear missiles of 300 to 3,000 mile range.

Putin has said that any reintroduction of land-based U.S. missiles to Europe would mean a new class of Russian missiles targeted on Europe -- and on the United States.

Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era.

And the U.S. national debt is now larger than the U.S. economy. This is imperial overstretch. It is unsustainable.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

[Mar 27, 2019] An Iranian April Surprise by Philip Giraldi

Mar 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

The situation that is developing around both this year's Israeli election and next year's ballot in the United States smacks of something like a developing conspiracy to renew the mandates of both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump somewhat reminiscent of the October Surprise that helped bring Ronald Reagan to the White House. Back then, the Reagan campaign team led by William Casey secretly negotiated with Iranian representatives to prolong the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis past the 1980 election, enabling Reagan to use the continuing stand-off as a wedge issue to attack the "weakness" of Carter foreign policy. If Carter had been able to bring the hostages home, he might have won reelection. In exchange for a Reagan offer of considerable military hardware, the Iranians agreed to release the U.S. hostages after the new president took office, which they did. And Reagan provided the hardware in an exchange that eventually morphed into Iran-Contra.

What is less known is that the initial secret meetings between Casey and the Iranians were set up by a group of CIA Chiefs of Station who had served in the Middle East but were at that time in Europe. The first meetings were in Paris. The Chiefs, all active-duty, serving CIA officers, were working for the Carter administration but were conspiring to defeat him and contributed materially to that outcome. Several of them were rewarded when Casey was subsequently named Director of Central Intelligence.

Curiously, both then and now Iran was and is at the center of what might or might not develop and there are clear signs that the United States is escalating its crisis with Tehran artificially to produce a conflict that would benefit no one in the short term but Bibi Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, who is struggling to get re-elected. A critical question becomes "Since Trump has pledged disengagement in the Middle East, is it he who is pulling the strings or is it National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, somewhat reminiscent of the cabal of CIA Chiefs conspiring behind the back of the elected president in 1980?" But the more important question is, perhaps, whether Bolton and Pompeo actually want Trump reelected or might they be engaged in something even more devious? Is a Mitt or a Marco lurking, either of whom would be seen very favorably by Israel and the neocons versus an extremely narcissistic and ultimately unreliable Trump?

That Washington has been slowly tightening the screws on Iran is undeniable, starting with the withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement last year, which has led to a level of economic warfare initiated by Washington that is unprecedented between two countries that are not actually at war. Ironically and inevitably, though the suffering of the Iranian people is real, the elites who run the country are largely immune to the hardships being experienced.

As there has been no sign that the Iranian people will overthrow their government, which is the White House's stated objective, more pressure is being contemplated. New sanctions were initiated last Friday and a move that mighty actually bring about an armed confrontation is being considered by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is clearly favoring declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to be a foreign terrorist group.

Qassim Suleimani , commander of the IRGC's elite Quds Force component, has already been designated a terrorist by the U.S., but no armed forces entity from any country has ever before been awarded that distinction and it would likely produce a serious response from Iran, possibly including an attack on some U.S. military installation in the Middle East or against a U.S. Navy warship patrolling the Straits of Hormuz. That would in turn justify a response and the crisis could easily escalate.

According to the New York Times, the Pompeo " plans also would designate some Iraqi Shiite militias as foreign terrorist organizations. As a result, the Iranian-trained militias -- and Iraqi officials who support them -- would be subject to new economic sanctions and travel restrictions." This scenario would also compound problems with Baghdad, which is already reluctant to accept the stationing of U.S. troops in the country without placing severe restrictions on when, how and where they might be able to operate, and it would also be seen by the rulers in Tehran as a major threat to Iran's national security.

So, there would be complications and also considerable downside if Washington were to take the lead on designating Iranian or Iranian connected militias terrorists, but bear in mind the considerable upside, which is that war is, generally speaking, good for incumbency unless it quickly and undeniably goes disastrously wrong. A quick strike to punish Iran before the Israeli election would help Netanyahu, just as a successful and not too prolonged "cakewalk" engagement with the Mullahs would elevate Trump next year. The president and his close advisors have surely noted that the only time he was regarded as "presidential" by the media and inside the Beltway talking heads was when he ordered the launch of cruise missiles to punish Syria for an alleged chemical attack back in April 2017. The fact that the attack was based on false intelligence was irrelevant and it did not produce any damage to key voter constituencies, apart from that segment of the population that voted for Trump because he was perceived to be the anti-war choice for president.

The Israelis are, of course, deep into the planning for a conflict, and have recently again been promoting their repeatedly discredited casus belli claim that Iran has a secret nuclear program. It would be reasonable to suggest that war with Iran is coming and it is only a matter of timing concerning when and exactly how it starts. There may not be enough time left to do Netanyahu a favor that he would surely reciprocate in American elections next year, but you can also bet that the Israeli Mossad intelligence service is hard at work coming up with "false flag" contingency plans to jump start a war sooner rather than later. There have long been concerns that intelligence agencies might go rogue but we are now living in an age where the existence of a "deep state" in many countries suggests that they have already been rogue for some time, most particularly in the United States.

Suggesting the possibility of some covert intrigues behind the scenes in the Administration does not necessarily mean that there is an actual conspiracy apart from that which is being run by the White House and Congress against the American people. But because we live in a world where we can no longer expect the government to behave honorably, it is wise to expect just about anything. Politicians care only about retaining power by being re-elected in both Israel and in the United States and, since the two governments are currently joined at the hip and likely perceiving war as part of an electoral strategy, why not expect the worst?

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

[Mar 26, 2019] I am impressed by the sheer silliness of Russiagate and the tenacious ignorance of those who still believe the corporate media.

Mar 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

WorkingClass , says: March 27, 2019 at 12:13 am GMT

Russiagate is a story about greed and lust for power manifesting as treachery and corruption. As a hoax it is notable for it's size and duration and damage done. But it is nothing at all compared to 9/11. I am impressed by the sheer silliness of Russiagate and the tenacious ignorance of those who still believe the corporate media.

But lessons for the left? None that I can see.

[Mar 26, 2019] Netanyahu is not the Disease, he is a Symptom, by Gilad Atzmon

Mar 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

March 25, 2019

In a recent thought-provoking article Gideon Levy, probably one of the last genuine Israeli voices for peace, claims that "It is not Netanyahu who is responsible for Israeli 'racism, extreme nationalism, divisiveness, incitement, hatred, anxiety and corruption.'" Behind Netanyahu, Levy says, there's a nation of voters and other elected officials that aren't very different from their leader.

"Simply put, the people are the problem There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything."

Levy reaffirms the observation that I have been pushing for two decades. The problem with Israel is not of a political kind . The conflict with the Palestinians or the Arabs is not of a political nature as some delusional characters within the Palestinian solidarity movement have been proclaiming for years. Israel defines itself as the Jewish state. In order to grasp Israel, its politics, its policies and the intrusive nature of its lobby, we must understand the nature of Jewishness. We must learn to define the differences between Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion) and Jewishness (the ideology). We have to understand how those terms are related to each other and how they influence Israeli and Jewish politics globally.

Levy writes that "there are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do. There are those who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do anything, simply because it can."

In order to understand what Levy is referring to we must dig into the core of Jewish identification and once and for all grasp the notion of Jewish choseness. Levy contends that "racism and xenophobia are deeply entrenched here, far more deeply than any Netanyahu The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's racism." Netanyahu as such, is not the disease. He is a mere symptom.

ORDER IT NOW

The devastating news is that neither the Israeli 'Left' nor the Jewish so-called 'anti' Zionist league are any less racist than their Zionist foes. The Israeli Left pushes for a 'two state solution.' It crudely ignores the Palestinian cause i.e. the Right of Return. The Israeli Left advocates segregation and ghettoization; not exactly the universal message of harmony one would expect from 'leftists.' Disturbingly, the Diaspora Jewish 'anti' Zionist Left is even more racially exclusive than the Israeli Right. As I have explored many times in the past, Corbyn's 'favourite Jewish political group namely, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is a racially exclusive political cell. It wouldn't allow gentiles into its Jews-only club. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is no better. It will happily take donations from Goyim but will never allow those Goyim to become its board members.

Levy proclaims that "Netanyahu is the best thing to ever happen to Israeli politics – you can dump everything on him." But in his most astute observation, which has been explored before by Uri Avnery (may he rest in peace) and yours truly, Levy continues, "It would be great if some local Nelson Mandela would arise, a brave leader with vision who would change the country's basic values and lead a revolution. But no such person has been born here, and it's doubtful he ever will be."

Levy points at the core of the Zionist failure. If early Zionism was a promise to civilise the diaspora Jew by means of 'homecoming,' Israel happened to do the complete opposite. Not much is left out of the Zionist promise to make the Jews 'people like all other people': as Israel is about to perpetrate another colossal war crime in Gaza, we have to admit that we are dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.


Bloody Bill , says: March 25, 2019 at 10:30 pm GMT

Another good one Atzmon. I thinks it's hard for people to grasp outside of Israel the connection you speak of between the religion, the people, and the ideology. Its underreported for obvious reasons in the media, plus the control the Israel lobby and its donors the Adelsons, Sabans, and Singers have in the US on what people hear about Israel and its citizens. All you hear is it's a democracy among hostile states that hate it because of freedom or democracy or whatever propaganda speak the mouth peace for Israel/Zionism media uses. You never hear about Israel's and its citizens actions that cause it just the eternal victim status they have been awarded.
A123 , says: March 25, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMT
Violent Islam is the Disease, Resistance Leaders are the Symptom

The author makes a good point. Netanyahu is not unique:
– Modi resists violent Islam in Kashmir.
– Jinping resists violent Islam in Xinjiang.
– Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary.
– Trump resists violent Islam in the U.S.
– Netanyhau resists violent Islam in Israel.
And, there are more cases not in the list above

Islam views all non-Muslims as infidels. Violent Islam wages Jihad until the infidels are killed, converted, or willingly submit as Dhimmi slaves. Until Islam changes, Resistance leaders will continue to protect their people. Perhaps the collapse of the Iranian government and its funding of terrorism will open the door to that change.
______

Israel started as a far left venture where the people lived in true communist shared estates know as Kibbutz. Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive.

The upcoming election makes no difference in Israeli survival strategy. Netanyahu's only serious competitor, Benny Gantz, openly states he will fight Iran's violent Islamic expansion in Lebanon & Syria (Iranian Hezbollah) and in Gaza (Iranian Hamas).

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260896

https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-vows-to-resume-targeted-killings-of-hamas-leaders-if-necessary/

Haxo Angmark , says: Website March 26, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
Zionist racial nationalist occupation of Palestine

would be just fine if

it weren't based on ZOG in America.

that's the core problem. The Chosen are in fact

parasites

who cannot live without a Host that

they insist on destroying.

Saggy , says: Website March 26, 2019 at 12:19 am GMT

we have to admit that we are dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.

Stay tuned next week when Atzmon will address another raging controversy, and he courageously concludes that we have to admit that water is wet.

Reg Cæsar , says: March 26, 2019 at 1:24 am GMT

There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu.

Yes, from the Zagros Mountains to the ports of old Phoenecia to the Atlantic Ocean. Those who they've conquered.

ariadna , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:08 am GMT
First:
Yes, do let's differentiate between Jews, judaism and jewishness (lest anyone be accused of criticizing "Jews the people," which is something only an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew might do, isn't it?).

The Jews are the people, judaism is their deeply inculcated worldview and ethos, and jewishness is their inherently logical behavior.

Or the Jews are the computer, judaism is its operating system and jewishness its applications.

Or the Jews are the rice, while judaism and jewishness are the white on rice.

Second:
The zionism did NOT fail to deliver its promise to make the Jews "people like other people." It is Atzmon who fails to understand that the Jews' definition of "people" ("nations") is based on the very Jewish worldview of the model: irrationally hateful, brutal, greedy, covetous, and ruthless "winners." I would say zionism succeeded remarkably well, but it had eager students to start with.

mark green , says: March 26, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
@ariadna Ha! Very well said.

Mr. Atzmon has painted himself in a corner on this otherwise tough editorial. But let's give him some credit. Gilad's taken a hell of a lotta heat for his rough and penetrating criticisms of the Zionist colony and its endless deceptions. And he (generally) pulls no punches.

But when all is said and done, and all the hairs are split, and all the (overdue) debates are finally finished (and we can somehow separate the 'racist' Jews from the good, 'humanitarian' Jews) we are nevertheless left with a core Jewish identity that puts God's Chosen People forever and eternally above the rest of humanity. God says so!

Basically, the problem is that Jewishness and 'Jewish supremacism' are pretty much one and the same.

Anonymous [675] Disclaimer , says: March 26, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT
@Haxo Angmark

The Chosen are in fact parasites who cannot live without a Host that they insist on destroying.

Bingo. Crazy, isn't it?

animalogic , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:13 am GMT
@A123 "Israel started as a far left venture Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive."
I wonder why the Palestinians employ violence ? Of course, the State of Israel was born out of terrorism (King David hotel, multiple assassinations etc) & ethnic cleansing (ie Nakba ). And yes, the Palestinians were also violent.
As for Israel's "survival" -- that's been a none issue since the late 70's, at a minimum. Israel with its 100's of nuclear weapons & it's US body guard has NO survival issues. It's all the poor bastards around them who have survival problems : (Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Libya etc)
jacques sheete , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:16 am GMT
@A123 Uh-huh.
neutral , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:54 am GMT
@A123

Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary

Typical brain dead Hasbara nonsense. Orban resists third world immigration, which I support, the problem is about mass non white immigration not Islam. The ultimate problem is the jew, it is they that push for mass immigration and miscegenation the most.

Fidelios Automata , says: March 26, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
My biggest problem with Zionism is that so many Zionists are hypocrites who want every nation to have open borders -- except Israel!
Christo , says: March 26, 2019 at 2:43 pm GMT
"Simply put, the people are the problem"

And the rest of this article just goes on and on about how evil , Israel, Israelis are , and as to how they are self-justified and unified in being so. And this is a Jew writing this.

Wow. What is the world to do? Doesn't seem to be any other option or solution, except a trip to Wannsee.

anom , says: March 26, 2019 at 3:25 pm GMT
@A123 Dancing Isreaeli said to the cops:" We are not your problem . Arabs are "

This guy is shouting at China India Russia and at the God : Israel is not the problem Its these Muslims.

Question is this : will these guys be allowed on the graves of the 911 victims strewn all across the world- Germany Soviet Russia, Poland, American rust belt, WW1 and 2 British cemeteries?

anom , says: March 26, 2019 at 3:32 pm GMT
@Fidelios Automata That's it?

When did they say something that turned out to be true?

Having said that, the world would be a better place if they ended up destroying elite run US UK . Yes they would cut the branch on which they are sitting . But they would jump the ship just before taht happening

You know Albert Sasson whow as knighted , who married in Riothchilds family, whose grand son / nephew or another Sasson – by name Amery gave us the Balfour in part . He was thrown out of Iraq court for corruption He made it to Raj's India and planted the seed of opium That soon ate up all the available fertile lands of north India . The opium made him rich made India poor corrupted British Raj and led to Chinese deprivations rebellion and to communism

m___ , says: March 26, 2019 at 9:10 pm GMT
@neutral Regardless, Jews (definition as provided and all three facets) are the most coherent group globally. They can muster the most coordination, the strongest drive, the detachment and loyalty, add as needed,

Since everyone here on unz likes thinking in bursts, to the matter. That makes for success. No reason to whine about for the loosing party, the WASP, traditional US elites. If some other group has ambitions, it should acquire that type of quality identity.

Islam is a poor enemy, as Jews see them as target practice, so should other entities maybe.

Western European descend Whites, and the ambition of enlightenment, (for one, all individuals across ethnic and religious lines being equals), should stow their ambitions of principle until they are in charge. That will require appropriating the same acerbic mindset of the Jew, and not whine publicly about the teacher. White elites have sold out, they are burdened by a commoner population that far exceeds any asset value. To disconnect their base, also made them hostages of Jew elites.

From the point of view of the Euro-descend commoner, non-Jew, unpriviledged, as long as they see themselves as genuine and belonging to the system, the US, and not the trash they are treated as, as long as the non-Jewish middle classes continue their egocentric quest for scraps, they deserve the Gaza they are converted into. No Jew should be blamed for pushing an outsider into demise. The tactics are in the open for grabs, Whites (non-Latino, non-Jew) have only themselves to blame for their demise.

WorkingClass , says: March 26, 2019 at 11:50 pm GMT
I have always thought that Bibi is an ass hole elected by ass holes. So I guess I'm in agreement with this article.

[Mar 25, 2019] When psycho automation left this pilot powerless

When it works it's great; when it not it can lead to a disaster. They make computer No.1 and the pilot No.2.
Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

D Jaquith , 1 year ago

Lesson learned all AI must have an OFF switch.

Komputar , 2 days ago

This happened at 37,000 feet, if this was triggered while taking off at 3,700 feet - none would be alive to tell the story.

[Mar 24, 2019] Mueller-D mmerung by C.J. Hopkins

Notable quotes:
"... Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees "colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. ..."
"... This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. ..."
"... He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story. ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. ..."
"... Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

If Nietzsche was right, and what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, we can thank the global capitalist ruling classes, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media for four more years of Donald Trump. The long-awaited Mueller report is due any day now, or so they keep telling us. Once it is delivered, and does not prove that Trump is a Russian intelligence asset, or that he personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, well, things are liable to get a bit awkward.

Given the amount of goalpost-moving and focus-shifting that has been going on, clearly, this is what everyone's expecting.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees "colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. After all, if you're going to accuse a sitting president of being a Russian intelligence asset, you kind of need to be able to prove it, or (a) you defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, (b) you destroy your own credibility, and (c) you present that sitting president with a powerful weapon he can use to bury you.

This is not exactly rocket science. As any seasoned badass will tell you, when you're resolving a conflict with another seasoned badass, you don't take out a gun unless you're going to use it. Taking a gun out, waving it around, and not shooting the other badass with it, is generally not a winning strategy. What often happens, if you're dumb enough to do that, is that the other badass will take your gun from you and either shoot you or beat you senseless with it.

This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. When the Mueller report fails to present any evidence that he "colluded" with Russia to steal the election, Trump is going to reach over, grab that report, roll it up tightly into a makeshift cudgel, and then beat the snot out of his opponents with it. He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story.

That story goes a little something like this

Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, and was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy.

Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup.

This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.

A minority of ideological heretics on what passes for the American Left are going to help him tell this story, not because we support Donald Trump, but because we believe that the mass hysteria and authoritarian fanaticism that has been manufactured over the course of Russiagate represents a danger greater than Trump. It has reached some neo-Riefenstahlian level, this bug-eyed, spittle-flecked, cult-like behavior worse even than the mass hysteria that gripped most Americans back in 2003, when they cheered on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the murder, rape, and torture of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children based on a bunch of made-up horseshit.

We are going to be vilified, we leftist heretics, for helping Trump tell Americans this story. We are going to be denounced as Trumpenleft traitors , Putin-sympathizers, and Nazi-adjacents (as we were denounced as terrorist-sympathizers and Saddam-loving traitors back in 2003). We are going to be denounced as all these things by liberals, and by other leftists. We are going to be warned that pointing out how the government, the media, and the intelligence agencies all worked together to sell people Russiagate will only get Trump reelected, and, if that happens, it will be the End of Everything.

It will not be the End of Everything.

What might, however, be the End of Everything, or might lead us down the road to the End of Everything, is if otherwise intelligent human beings continue to allow themselves to be whipped into fits of mass hysteria and run around behaving like a mindless herd of propaganda-regurgitating zombies whenever the global capitalist ruling classes tell them that "the Russians are coming!" or that "the Nazis are coming!" or that "the Terrorists are coming!"

The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with.

If you want a glimpse of the dystopian future it isn't an Orwellian boot in your face. It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Study the Russiagate believers' reactions to the Mueller report when it is finally delivered. Observe the bizarre intellectual contortions their minds perform to rationalize their behavior over the last three years. Trust me, it will not be pretty. Cognitive dissonance never is.

Or, who knows, maybe the Russiagate gang will pull a fast one at the eleventh hour, and accuse Robert Mueller of Putinist sympathies (or appearing in that FSB video of Trump's notorious Moscow pee-party), and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the special prosecutor. That should get them through to 2020!

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .

[Mar 24, 2019] This aviation expert says Boeing made 'disastrously bad decision' on training for 737 MAX

Mar 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

The recent Ethiopian Airlines crash led to the grounding of Boeing's 737 MAX planes across much of the globe. But as new details emerge about the cause of the model's second crash within five months, questions are being raised about how the plane's safety was approved in the first place. John Yang talks to Jeff Wise, a pilot and author of a book about MH370, the flight that vanished in 2014.


Kellie Hickman , 1 day ago

Hundreds of lives lost...because of nothing more than corporate greed and its enablers at the FAA.

Ray Quinn , 1 day ago

World to Boeing. Safety features are not optional! SMH😑

Zemli Drakona , 1 day ago

The warning light should be always on and should say "This plane sucks!"

die Macsmannschaft , 23 hours ago

No wonder Airbus become the new prince on the air! No wonder european produce luxurious goods, not the US!

LA's Totally Awesome , 1 day ago (edited)

So it was like driving a car while the "check engine" light is on X1000

K Me , 22 hours ago

Imagine buying a car with ABS, but the ABS failure light was an "optional extra".

CK Man , 1 day ago

$80,000 for a safety warning light! It should have been standard. How could they justify charging $80,000 for a warning light? It's like Ford charging $800 for Brake Fluid warning light, they would never have gotten away with that!

Africanknight88 , 19 hours ago

LAWSUIT and CRIMINAL CHARGES NEED TO BE FILED!!!! ....Now take that "optional".....my lord 😤🤬

Brandon E. Smith , 23 hours ago

It took only 346 lives to "improve" safety. 🙄 Boeing has always been a horrible, horrible company.

GNegasi , 1 day ago

How design or structural problems can be solved in a software update???

Jenny Kevin , 1 day ago

please don't hide the true, and don't the victim,

numbersix100 , 18 hours ago

I'll never fly on a 737 max, it's inherently unbalanced with its engines so far forward

Armando D'SOUZA , 20 hours ago

First make plane stable in flying mode when engines are producing force to move forward.

[Mar 24, 2019] Boeing 737 Max approval documents subpoenaed by fraud unit - YouTube

Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Published on Mar 21, 2019

With the 737 Max still grounded after last week's deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash, the focus turns to Boeing. The company offered a warning system that -- for a price -- might have helped prevent the crashes. Kris Van Cleave reports.


Edmund Ming Yip Kwong , 2 days ago

This is so evil. Very disappointed at this multi-billion corporation

Arun K P , 2 days ago

I didn't know safety features were optional on planes 😂 wtf.

Suprianto , 2 days ago

$80 thousand for a warning light??? Unbelievable.... How much money can an indicator light cost? Software for detecting sensor malfunction should've been there in the first place.... For such a critical sensor, those safety systems should've been built into the systems in a $120 million dollar plane in the first place.

Ester F , 2 days ago (edited)

Why charge more for safety? It should be included by default. Then they kept saying it was safe for flight but excluded a crucial piece. It's all for profit... smh. 🧐 they are trying to deflect blame on the airline. Those planes should have never been sold in the first place.

Schmoo , 2 days ago

WOW! An add-on safety feature? Are you kidding me? That's just pure evil!

Rust belt McCLanahan Crawling , 2 days ago

Actually they should be charged with manslaughter for both plans ! Enough playing games with just a public court hearing then a fine ! Some Big People need to be held accountable by full law ! Jail time !

Crude Rude , 2 days ago (edited)

Wow.... just wow.... So they're releasing a flawed, unfinished product that requires glitchy software they have to patch and are also offering DLC?

Wenderz 26 , 1 day ago

That is like selling cars with no brakes, airbags, or seat belts, expecting the consumer to pay extra for necessary safety equipment . UNBELIEVABLE!

The Watchful Hunter , 2 days ago

I bet Boeing has been frantically shredding and wiping documents off hard drives for a week.

Mr. Sarcastic , 2 days ago (edited)

To bad all Airlines didn't buy the Super Deluxe "I really want to Live Package" from Boeing.

Hermes Trismegistus , 2 days ago

Once again, profit over safety! Those Boeing executives are money hungry demons! What a bunch of egotistical beasts!

Ryan Davis , 2 days ago

I would bet that the actual labor and materials are less than $2000. The engineering had already been completed as it is an option. Why then would safety be optional? Criminal greed, or a low value placed on human lives. Whomever is responsible has no moral or social compass and should be punished. Not with a fine but a lengthy prison term in Leavenworth.

Joseph Holland Pontes , 2 days ago

Oh no DLC is also optional to airplanes.

Dr Evil , 2 days ago

They should never have extra charge on safety features . Evil company

jaja smile , 2 days ago

80K just cost them billions ......

george movies , 1 day ago

Boeing and FAA, GUILTY! MASS KILLING . FIRST DEGREE MURDERERS.

David L , 1 day ago (edited)

I never thought capitalism was evil. Boeing: our planes were NOT safe to fly unless you pay extra.

Q & A , 2 days ago

That's one expensive bulb. 😳

105 Wonky , 1 day ago

You can have these 2 safety features which could potentially save lives, but your gonna have to pay 🤦‍♂️

Henry kirya , 1 day ago (edited)

if we can have recalls for cars, why cant we have the same for aircraft and force those chaps to install foolproof sensors in triplicate, complete with warning inidicators at no additional cost to the airlines!

[Mar 24, 2019] Ethiopian Airlines crash 'It seems amazing that Boeing have not provided the proper training' - YouTube

Notable quotes:
"... Profit before people. Computer says no! Failsafe failed. No manual over ride. Sorry folks. Say Your prayers. The problem maybe rebranded. Best case scenario. Impeccable flying from technical progress made. ..."
"... Totally unnecessary crash that was caused by cutting corners and greed. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

leemsy lazy , 1 week ago

Imagines if Airbus was crashing in America like that.

Mulya hadi purnama , 1 week ago

Very Clearly, Unsafety... " Recall " and Grounded all Boeing Type 737 Max 8...Most Dangerous aircraft, almost 400 people's dead in 6 Months !!!

rocco decrescentis , 4 hours ago

No resignation! Like dumbbell n.45 used to say: You are fired!!

Robert Stephens , 1 day ago

When you see documentary of broken dreams. You'll be surprised as i was is that Boeing is using lithium batteries on these aircraft.

Zelalem Zemene , 1 week ago (edited)

Ethiopian Airlines is one of the best known safe reputation. Of course Indonesian Airlines is the best too. The crash was very similar after take off and dive into the ground. Boing is just protecting itself for its market.

Global Solutions , 6 days ago

Boeing needs to be sued for $2 billion for each victim of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines plus $300 billion in punitive damages, and jail time for some executives ~ they knowingly put up unsafe planes. In its early days, the 737 also had several cashes.

QECHEW , 4 days ago (edited)

Obviously Boeing knew about the shortcomings of their design in earlier stages and instead of fixing their design they chose to use a software to fix it without informing the airlines or giving pilots adequate training in order to save costs.

GH1618 , 1 week ago

What is more surprising is that the angle-of-attack sensor system is not fail-safe.

Al Bundy , 6 days ago

Did the pilot's do the mandatory operating system Flash Player updates before takeoff?

Andy Roo , 16 hours ago

Profit before people. Computer says no! Failsafe failed. No manual over ride. Sorry folks. Say Your prayers. The problem maybe rebranded. Best case scenario. Impeccable flying from technical progress made.

Kamau Phillip , 1 week ago

The American pilots complained of the same issues with the same plane model but Boeing did nothing to correct the situation why????? ???

globalvillager700 , 3 days ago

Totally unnecessary crash that was caused by cutting corners and greed.

B M , 1 week ago

Prediction: Director of the FAA will resign!

Shinrin Yoku , 1 week ago

The MC-21300 is a much better plane anyway. Why do airlines not order it I wonder.

[Mar 24, 2019] Flying the Boeing 737 Max 8 A pilot's view from inside the cockpit - YouTube

Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Probir Ghosh , 5 days ago

Its a shame that Boeing didn't tell this little piece of information to the rest of the world.

Ed Estrella , 5 days ago

You're telling me that lack of knowledge is what got over 300 people killed.... Beyond disturbing..

KimsonJohn , 5 days ago

Ipad course GTFOH! This is no cooking recipe. ..it's people's lives!

Weez naz , 5 days ago

56 minutes with an iPad lesson... Jesus Christ

sando wando , 1 day ago (edited)

PR stunt proudly paid by Boeing after being in bed with the WP. 😤

John S , 5 days ago

This piece of PR brought to you by Boeing!

Carl Johnson , 5 days ago

Nice ad after two crashes in less than six months

David Njabia , 5 days ago (edited)

Boeing must be lobbying really hard and it's a shame that a respectable entity like Washington Post is helping the narrative to shift the blame to pilots who are now dead. If it's a Boeing, I'll have second thoughts.

Tewoflos Telahun , 5 days ago

This video is brought to you by Boeing ! Please, Washington Post, be less biased next time.

lucius1976 , 5 days ago

1:39 MCAS = Mass Coffin Automation System

Jason L , 2 days ago

'commitment' OH PLEASE.....america was the last to ground their 737s.

Ab Xarbi , 15 hours ago

I tried to show this video to an Ethiopian, and he almost killed me.

MrXperx , 4 days ago

1. Boeing wanted a new plane with larger enginers but without spending money on a new fuselage. 2. Sold their planes to customers saying that Max type is same as the NG and that no cost is involved for retraining pilots. 3. Make the MCAS system so that the new and plane and old plane feel theoretically same to the pilot. 4. Not tell pilots about MCAS or hide critical details about the system. 5. 300+ people dead. I hope the Boeing management can sleep well knowing they have blood on their hands.

Stephen Courton , 5 days ago

Sounds like they created a dangerously unstable craft that requires a computer system to keep from stalling. Even if pilot turns off plane may have already got in situation hard to recover from manually especially near ground. Two planes found this out.

scrimmo , 21 hours ago

Time for Boeing and FAA officials to be locked up

ludovicoC , 2 days ago

To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove: "The whole point of the [MCAS] is lost IF YOU KEEP IT A SECRET! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL THE [PILOTS], EH

[Mar 24, 2019] US Transport Department Looks Into Boeing 737 Max 8's Approval

Mar 20, 2019 | www.youtube.com

US Transport Department Looks Into Boeing 737 Max 8's Approval | al Jazeera English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ge8v5cIxm0

New investigations are starting into the certification of the Boeing 737 Max 8 after two fatal crashes in less than six months.


Damon Reynolds , 3 days ago

At the root of almost every problem today is 'cost cutting' for short term profits to satisfy roaming vulture capitalist greed. Why is the FAA 'under funded'? Why is it 'too expensive' to give pilots the sim time they need even after hundeds of people are dead??

Ardhi Adhary Arbain , 3 days ago

Ask manufacturer's engineers to check the plane for their own certification? That's crazy.

srinivas reddy , 3 days ago

I think boeing, FAA and US are working for each other I feel no surprise if they find no wrong doing

MVE , 3 days ago

profit over safety, that's what it is all about

DJ DA VINCI , 3 days ago

Did u know that when u turn off the MCAS it reset itself back on. Victims family should sue Boeing and the FAA till their last dime.

MegaTriumph1 , 3 days ago

Engines too far forward wings too swept back computer and pilot can't find center of balance and it piledrives into earth, its not a mystery. If I wanted to take a perfectly good 737 and turn it into an unflyable plane, well they did it.

Major Skies , 3 days ago

Just fix the auto pilot issue. Also, what in all of God's green earth? Pilots only learned about flying this new model with just textual information? No simulation? No wounder pilots of both airlines were confound by the conflicting warnings blaring at them in the cockpit.

GreenStorm01 , 3 days ago

First.

dinesh prabhu , 3 days ago

Ha ha ha there is no money for the faa, but the government had enough money to go on a bombing run around the world. So now who is responsible ? Boeing faa or other aviation authorities like the icao or others ? Who is going to be jailed for this mass murdering? Since they have accepted it so the faa chief should be put behind bars for lying about the inspection and the certificate !!!!!!

[Mar 24, 2019] FAA 'dropped ball' on Boeing 737 Max 8 - official - YouTube

FAA rep is a clown! It is not FAA fault and Boeing was under pressure. If one of your family was in one of those crashes, you would never shill for those corporate murders.
Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Leon Eldarion , 5 days ago

He is a clown! It is not FAA fault and Boeing was under pressure. If one of your family was in one of those crashes, you would never shill for those corporate murders.

gtud65 cutting , 2 days ago

If BOEING company is from another country, then USA 🇺🇸 Boeing air plane ✈ crashed The Boeing company will be closed immediately

Sammy Woo , 2 days ago

Ex FAA employees have come out and say FAA doesn't have the expertise and have to rely on Boeing for aspects of the certifications, why? because dumb Americans buy politicians ever selling lower taxes. Hey dudes, u gotta spend money to hire good people duh! something gotta give. Cheap government, cheap results. U deserve what u paid for America.

Robert May , 13 hours ago

The MCAS system was not revealed to the first receivers of the Max 8's, nor was it in the Manuals. Boeing thought it would quietly do it's job in the background, but they were wrong. After the first accident from Lion Air, out of Indonesia, then all airliners were informed of this. The pilots in Ethiopia may or may not have been aware of this, and if they were they lacked insufficient training on how to deal with this problem. The MCAS system works to bring the nose of the plane down so it can fly at a level flight. MCAS get's it's information from AOA sensors that send info to the plane as to what angle the plane is flying at. Pilots have reported that the AOA sensors are faulty and sending "wrong information" and "activating" the MCAS system when it shouldn't have, causing the planes nose to point downward, and causing the plane to go into a nose dive, and this is what happened. Basically the MCAS was needed because Boeing redesigned the engines, that were bigger, and were mounted differently -- more forward and up on the wing, throwing off the center of gravity of the new 737 Max 8.The old 737 does not have this problem. AOA sensors, stands for Angle of Attack, to make sure air flow is right both over and under the wings, to make the plane aerodynamic. According to reports from pilots, you can "disengage" the MCAS SYSTEM, buy pulling back on the yoke, and this will do it. At the same time there are wheels by the throttle that you turn manually, to trim the planes stabilizer manually by yourself. This was done many times by well trained American pilots, who averted crashes with this jet. So, proper training and awareness could have saved a lot of lives. Let's not forget these MAX 8 jets have been flying for a couple years, with thousands of flights in North America and developed countries with "no" accidents, and pilots say the plane flies beautifully. They say it's a very smooth flying aircraft, and a pleasure to pilot. So, who's responsible for this -- well it's Boeing, for non disclosure of the MCAS system, and what to do, if it functions in error, and how to manually disengage the system. In my opinion, all pilots should know how to manually take a plane from takeoff, and land it smoothly with no automation, or computers to help them -- just like in the old days. Over the last 20 years, there have been so very few major aircraft go down. I'm all for automation, but I fully support proper pilot training should some of this automation fail -- like faulty sensors. It's completely crazy to rely on robots or Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) to fly planes, if you don't understand how the computers work, and how they fly the plane, and in the event of a failure of the computer, you can then shut it off, and have "no problem" , and take control of the aircraft yourself,- "manually" with a lot of confidence. I SHOULD ADD - this MCAS system and it's AOA sensors, should all be mandatory on a plane, and not be sold as extras, same as brakes on a car. You don't play around with peoples lives, to make a few extra dollars, selling "options." These features "must be standard equipment", on all these aircraft sold, PERIOD. This is why I'm "very against" self driving cars'. Can you imagine all the accidents that will happen from "faulty sensors." WOW , it will be a nightmare. Faulty sensors could be caused by snow, ice, extreme heat or cold. Are we getting so lazy that we need to have Artificial Intelligence driving our cars. No thanks for me, I'll drive my own car, and hope that people will rebel against this idea, and the makers of these cars, won't sell any of them, and thus, taking them off the market.This Boeing Max 8 should send a good example, of things to come if we allow driverless cars. Not for me, and I hope the general public will agree with this.

You Tube , 2 days ago

Terrorists aren't needed to bring down airliners and frighten the public. Boeing and a failed Trump policy, that won't staff FAA department with a permanent and qualified leader, are managing the same thing through their fashionable neglect and arrogance.

Jackyboy335 , 3 days ago (edited)

The word Federal is part of this....right ? Profit is king...right ? "...we are a country of laws.."....right ?

Armando D'SOUZA , 3 days ago

Just look at the investigation of sinking and tilting Mellilium Tower in sanfransico. Building concrete Foundation and glasses are cracking and investigators are still studying what caused the two glass windows to crack. Similar investigation is going on how these two Boeing max crashed.

AJJ Against Jihadi Justin , 5 days ago

The FAA is in Boeings pocket book. Search... problems with Boeing 737 next generation with structural dangers reported on sbs datline australia

Vic Chavez , 5 days ago

Trump privatized the faa and this is what happens.

Wizkin Li , 5 days ago

No no no, this time it's all A320 neo 's fault

osidartaha2 , 4 days ago

Deadly strategie from Boeing for quick profits and market shares . Airliners are built to be operated for at least a couple of decades Boeing was providing worldwidely flying coffins made by mixing new technologies (leap engine ) with cheap and old technologies (1/2 century old airframe).A new well designed aircraft is stable, well-balanced without extra software's help.

barrych mak , 4 days ago

Check also the Boeing 767-300 nosedive crash on 23 Feb 2019 ! 3 Boeing nosedive crashes in 5 months !!!

I.P. Knightly , 3 days ago

Trump nominated his personal pilot to head up the FAA. After 2 years, they still have an "acting" director. Tim Boeing shows up at Mar-a-lago every weekend. What could possibly go wrong?

Peter Wexler , 1 day ago

I dissented this.

yin ng , 5 days ago

Same as to Ask Wall Street to regulate Wall Street and the Bankers to regulate themselves. Or ask the committed criminals to jail themselves.

Paradigm , 5 days ago

Byproduct of revolving doors.

Paul Forester , 3 days ago

This been a long time coming. Who cut the FAA? BOTH PARTIES DID! The system is gonna fall apart because too much damage has been done. Just keep paying people peanuts and have them try to do a skilled job. My cousin quit the airline industry because they don't want people to be able to pay for the education needed for these jobs. Like who program these systems.

roxar69 , 19 hours ago

So the merica is not really a saint..so now it not america dream but america dreaming..

Marcus Coyle , 5 days ago

Looks like I'll be getting that 🚲 sooner than later. I won't be traveling by plane for a few Give it time for all the smoke to clear and heads to roll😳

[Mar 23, 2019] Killing for Credibility A Look Back at the 1999 NATO Air War on Serbia by Brett Wilkins

Mar 23, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević's forces, and it was a campaign of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton's own admission was fought for the sake of NATO's credibility.

One Man's Terrorist

Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the 1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United States, which had provided arms, funding and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation, stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan descended deeper into civil war.

The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington's former mujahideen allies, turned on the West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam's holiest sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however, is something altogether different.

From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration armed and trained these fighters in flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.

When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and Bosnians who had won their independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.

The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia, called it "without any question a terrorist group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.

However, despite all its nastiness the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn't about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton administration. Clinton's hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president called the war an internal Russian affair and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.

Although NATO called the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted "what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" against the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict. President Clinton, however, apparently wasn't listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary of State James Rubin later admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing were quite small."

Wagging the Dog?

In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn't help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's impeachment and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog , there were exaggerated or completely fabricated tales of atrocities, and as in the film the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.

There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:

The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) A state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.

Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters."

While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted – that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves." This was completely false . US diplomat David Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men are missing, presumed dead." Again, a total fabrication . The FBI, International War Crimes Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.

However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been "fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington. Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, they did so knowing that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner, acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."

Bloody Hypocrites

The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention. More than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses, where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.

Colombia, the Western Hemisphere's leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the world's worst human rights records. The list goes on and on.

Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country's US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995. Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the Serbs' turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn't escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned convoys of fleeing refugees.

"Painful for the Serbs"

Washington's selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools, factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much of its water supply.

NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor and three security guards. There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac forecast as many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in nearby apartments.

Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided "precision" bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children's ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age 23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don't know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."

Dragiša Mišović wasn't the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7, killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic and medical dispensary were also bombed in the mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.

Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece was blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot's behavior would appear acceptable.

On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing. An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to help those wounded in the first strike.

No One Is Safe

The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO's fury. They endured some 175 bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000 residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children, died when bombs meant to destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people's home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."

The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded. Some people aren't so sure the attack was an accident – Britain's Observer later reported that the US deliberately bombed the embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.

There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed refugees along a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including 16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported a grisly scene of "bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month later, another column of refugees was bombed near Koriša, killing 87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM missile blew the roof off of a man's house while he was shaving in his bathroom.

NATO's "Murderous Thugs"

As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO's air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from the KLA's brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.

The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group "murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters were surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles rescued the besieged militants. It later emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.

Credibility Conundrum

The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance's saber rattling toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly action, said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton added that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO's real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton, declaring on the eve of the war that "to walk away now would destroy NATO's credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote that the Clinton administration "transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United States into a major test of American resolve."

Waging or prolonging war for credibility's sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable" way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah's 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had trained at Osama bin Laden's terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO's credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, then Moscow's ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.

Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history. Serbs, however, still seethe at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense, Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian people in service of NATO's credibility.

Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights, is archived at www.brettwilkins.com

Read more by Brett Wilkins

[Mar 23, 2019] Boeing Crapification 737 MAX Play-by-Play, Regulatory Capture, and When Will CEO Muilenburg Become the Sacrificial Victim by Lambert Strether

Notable quotes:
"... By Lambert Strether of Corrente . ..."
"... "It's a very, very serious investigation into basically, was there fraud by Boeing in the certification of the 737 MAX 8 ?" Arthur Rosenberg, an aviation attorney who is representing six families whose relatives died in the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes, explained. ..."
"... Rosenberg expects the criminal probe to question whether Boeing fully disclosed to the FAA the engineering of the 737 Max 8's MCAS flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), during the plane's certification process. The flight control system was designed to prevent the plane from stalling. ..."
"... Unfortunately for Boeing and the passengers its crashed aircraft were carrying, the MCAS system was very poorly implemented. ..."
"... The single sensor was the result of regulatory capture, not to say gaming; see below. ..."
"... Black box data retrieved after the Lion Air crash indicates that a single faulty sensor -- a vane on the outside of the fuselage that measures the plane's "angle of attack," the angle between the airflow and the wing -- triggered MCAS multiple times during the deadly flight, initiating a tug of war as the system repeatedly pushed the nose of the plane down and the pilots wrestled with the controls to pull it back up, before the final crash. ..."
"... Regulatory Capture : Commercial aircraft need to be certified by the FAA before launch. The Washington Post labels today's process "self-certification": ..."
"... In practice, one Boeing engineer would conduct a test of a particular system on the Max 8, while another Boeing engineer would act as the FAA's representative , signing on behalf of the U.S. government that the technology complied with federal safety regulations, people familiar with the process said. ..."
"... (Note that a 10-year-old process would have begun in the Obama administration, so the regulatory process is bipartisan.) I understand that " safety culture " is real and strong, but imagine the same role-playing concept applied to finance: One bankers plays the banker, and the other banker plays Bill Black, and after a time they switch roles . Clearly a system that will work until it doesn't. More: ..."
"... The process was occurring during a period when the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General was warning the FAA that its oversight of manufacturers' work was insufficient. ..."
"... The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes. ..."
"... Alert readers will note the similarity to the Neoliberal Playbook , where government systems are sabotaged in order to privatize them, but in this case regulatory capture seems to have happened "by littles," rather than out of open, ideological conviction (as with the UKs's NHS, or our Post Office, our Veteran's Administration, etc.). ..."
"... Several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing . ..."
"... In this atmosphere, the System Safety Analysis on MCAS, just one piece of the mountain of documents needed for certification, was delegated to Boeing . ..."
"... It should be clear at this point that the central claims of Muilenburg's letter are false. ..."
"... The self-certification debacle that allowed MCAS to be released happened on Muilenburg's watch and is already causing Boeing immense reputational damage, and a criminal case, not to mention the civil cases that are surely coming, will only increase that damage. Mr. Market, the Beltway, and even Trump, if his trade deals are affected, will all soon be bellowing for a sacrificial victim. Muilenburg should recognize the inevitable and gracefully resign. Given his letter, it looks unlikely that he will do the right thing. ..."
"... Beyond that ultimate problem is the ultimate regulatory problem: regulatory capture of the FAA by the airline companies. As a result, the FAA represents "its customers" the airplane makers, not the public users and customers. This is like the banks capturing the Fed, the Justice Dept. and Treasury to promote their own interests by claiming that "self-regulation" works. Self-regulation is the polite word for fraudulent self-indulgence. ..."
"... I would be surprised if the European Airbus competitors do not mount a campaign to block the 737-Max's from landing, and insisting that Boeing buy them back. This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes. ..."
"... This probably will throw Trump's China trade fight into turmoil, as China was the first country to ground the 737-Max's and is unlikely to permit their recovery without a "real" federal safety oversight program. Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane, so as to represent users and stakeholders, not only stockholders. ..."
"... The moral: Neoliberalism Kills. ..."
"... Rule #2 of Neoliberalism: Go die. ..."
"... > "Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane." ..."
"... As if the 737 MAX were the chlorinated chicken of aircraft. ..."
"... "This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes." ..."
"... Regulatory capture is rampant throughout the economy. Boeing self-certification being delegated by the FAA is not unlike the situation with electric transmission utilities. ..."
"... that is subject to both FERC and NERC regulation. ..."
"... In hindsight Boeing would have perhaps been better off to leave off the MCAS altogether and depend on pilot retraining to cover the altered handling. ..."
"... Reports I've read indicates that Boeing ignored even the clearly inadequate certification. "Documentation provided to the FAA claims that the MCAS system can only adjust the horizontal tail on the plane by 0.6 degrees out of a maximum of five-degrees of nose-down movement. But that limit was later increased to 2.5-degrees of nose-down movement. Boeing didn't communicate the change from 0.6-degrees to 2.5-degrees until after Lion Air." ..."
"... Boeing could also be liable for damages due to 737 groundings and due to delays in delivery of contracted planes. ..."
"... The analogy has been made between this the 737 MAX story and the Tylenol story. J&J got out in front of the problem and saved the product (and their company). Boeing's problem is of that order, and Muilenberg -- that letter! -- seems incapable of understanding that; insular, arrogant. One more reason to fire the dude toot sweet. If he comes out of his next review with a raise -- Everything Is Like CalPERS™ -- consider shorting Boeing ..."
"... Allowing this to happen seems the ultimate in short term thinking by Boeing. US manufacturers have always had an advantage over competitors because the FAA was held in such high regard worldwide that it was the de facto world safety regulatory body – every country followed its lead. But this chipping away of its authority has led to a near fatal loss of faith, and will no doubt lead to European and Asian regulatory authorities being strengthened. And no doubt commercial realities will mean they will look much more closely at US manufactured aircraft if there is some benefit to their own manufacturers. ..."
"... The Times thinks Boeing is too big to fail. Without a blockbuster Max, I don't see how Boeing maintains its current status in the industry. ..."
"... I also think they have been completely afflicted by the defense contractor mentality. ..."
"... Yes, the famous McDonnell-Douglas reverse takeover , where financial engineers inserted their sucking mandibles into an actual ..."
"... Note that Muilenberg came up through the defense side of the company not the commercial aircraft side. He may simply not have been equipped to understand FAA regulation at any deep level, hence the rot that finally surfaced. ..."
"... The tragedy is that corporate media in pursuit of profits will keep us up to date but will never mention the 6 or 8 minutes of terror for the 346 souls aboard the two flights. They will cover the criminal negligence trial if there are ever indictments. But, the news reports never will say that neoliberalism, deregulation, and privatization are the root causes of the deaths. ..."
"... Boeing also clearly did not know its customers . It should be engineering for the sort of pilots who are going to be hired by Lion Air, or any rapidly expanding airline in what we used to all the Third World. Hegemony, it seems, makes you insular and provincial. ..."
"... "The FAA, citing lack of funding and resource": I don't suppose I'll survive to see any arm of government not blame lack of funds for its boneheaded or corrupt incompetence. ..."
"... That's how I feel. The tech doc department at Boeing sounds like a horrible place to work; MBAs or their goons telling you all the time to do stuff you know is wrong. It's not surprising people were willing to talk to the Seattle Times; I bet there are more people. (Hey, Seattle Times! How about people testing the 737 MAX in simulators (assuming this is done)). ..."
"... Interestingly, and maybe relevant to the problem of confusion for the pilots, is that Boeing has had another automatic trim-modifier operating on its 737s for some time, the speed-trim system (STS): ..."
"... This system also modifies the stabilizer position during manual flight. Like MCAS, it was brought in to improve stability under certain flight conditions (the reasons for which are far beyond my knowledge). There is an indication that the pilots on the flight before the Lion Air crash misinterpreted MCAS actions for STS behavior. ..."
"... authority would revert to the pilot ..."
"... How many years ago did Wall Street take over the fortunes of the company? Why did they move their headquarters from their birthplace of Seattle to Chicago? Why did they start assembling planes in South Carolina and China? Was it to improve aviation safety? Or, to allow the profiteering parasites to feed off the carcass of the company? ..."
"... President Trump, here's a reelection tip: "Today I am declaring that all American registered aircraft flying in American airspace must be maintained in the U.S." ..."
"... Amazingly, Trump seems to have done OK on this. First, he didn't cave to Muilenberg's (insane, goofy, tone-deaf) request to keep the 737 flying; then he frames the issue as complexity (correct, IMNSHO), and then he manages to nominate a Delta CEO as head of the FAA . ..."
"... we're seeing signs that a crapification process has begun on the safety side in this industry. (It has been proceeding for years on the service/amenities side.) ..."
"... Considering the fact that all these 737s are grounded as no airline trust them to not kill a plane load of passengers and crew, this is a really big deal. Putting aside the technical and regulatory issues, the fact is that the rest of the world no longer trusts the US in modern aviation so what we have here is a trust issue which is an even bigger deal. ..."
"... Loss or at least wobbliness of imperial hegemony, like. It's not just the aircraft, it's US standards-setting bodies, methods, "safety culture," even -- dare we say it -- English as the language of aviation. French is no longer the language of diplomacy, after all, though it had a good run. ..."
"... Because markets. Neoliberalism puts everything up for sale. Including regulation. Oversimplifying absurdly: And so you end up with the profit-driven manufacturer buying the regulator, its produce killing people, and the manufacturer canceling its future profits. That's what the Bearded One would call a contradiction.* ..."
"... know your customer ..."
"... Like you, I am a retired software engineer, so I have followed an aviation blog discussion of this issue quite closely since it emerged as a probable software and system design failure. As the blog is open to all, its signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low, but it seems not too difficult for any technically-minded person to separate the wheat from the chaff. My current understanding, which I believe others here are in a position to correct, if necessary: ..."
"... this story is really fascinating and seems to be true a sign of the times. ..."
"... The Post's article on the FAA and Regulatory Capture is incomplete. The process for the FAA (and probably MANY government agencies) started under Reagan, did not revert to safety under Clinton (make government smaller and all that), and then accelerated under Bush II in 2005 (not a bi-partisan time). In particular, big changes to the FAA were made in 2005 that were executive in nature and did not require Congressional approval. CF: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/delegating-aircraft-safety-assessments-to-boeing-is-nothing-new-for-the-faa/ ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Lambert Strether of Corrente .

At some point in the future, I'd like to do failure matrix for the pathways to misfortune ( example of such a matrix here ) that precipitated two deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes on take-off in five months , but I don't feel that I have enough information yet. (I'm not unsympathathetic to the view that the wholesale 737 MAX grounding was premature on technical grounds , but then trade and even geopolitical factors enter in, given that Boeing is a "national champion.") We do not yet have results from the cockpit voice and flight data recorders of either aircraft, for example. But what we do know is sufficiently disturbing -- a criminal investigation into Boeing had already been initiated after the Lion Air crash, but before the Ethiopian Airlines crash -- that I think it's worthwhile doing a play-by-play on the causes of the crashes, so far as we can know them. About that criminal investigation :

According to the Wall Street Journal, a Washington D.C. grand jury issued a March 11 subpoena requesting emails, correspondence, and other messages from at least one person involved in the development of the aircraft.

"It's a very, very serious investigation into basically, was there fraud by Boeing in the certification of the 737 MAX 8 ?" Arthur Rosenberg, an aviation attorney who is representing six families whose relatives died in the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes, explained.

"Nobody knows the answer to that yet," Rosenberg cautioned, adding that he had not yet seen the Justice Department's subpoena and therefore could not know its full scope.

Rosenberg expects the criminal probe to question whether Boeing fully disclosed to the FAA the engineering of the 737 Max 8's MCAS flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), during the plane's certification process. The flight control system was designed to prevent the plane from stalling.

Bloomberg comments :

A possible criminal investigation during an aircraft accident investigation is highly unusual . While airline accidents have at times raised criminal issues, such as after the 1996 crash of a ValuJet plane in the Florida Everglades, such cases are the exception.

Before we get to the play-by-play, one more piece of background: CEO Dennis Muilenburg's latest PR debacle, entitled " Letter from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg to Airlines, Passengers and the Aviation Community ." The most salient material:

Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing, and ensuring safe and reliable travel on our airplanes is an enduring value and our absolute commitment to everyone. This overarching focus on safety spans and binds together our entire global aerospace industry and communities. We're united with our airline customers, international regulators and government authorities in our efforts to support the most recent investigation, understand the facts of what happened and help prevent future tragedies. Based on facts from the Lion Air Flight 610 accident and emerging data as it becomes available from the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accident, we're taking actions to fully ensure the safety of the 737 MAX. We also understand and regret the challenges for our customers and the flying public caused by the fleet's grounding.

Boeing has been in the business of aviation safety for more than 100 years, and we'll continue providing the best products, training and support to our global airline customers and pilots. This is an ongoing and relentless commitment to make safe airplanes even safer .

Soon we'll release a software update and related pilot training for the 737 MAX that will address concerns discovered in the aftermath of the Lion Air Flight 610 accident.

Fine words. Are they true? Can Boeing's "commitment to everyone to ensure " safe and reliable travel" really be said to be "absolute"? That's a high bar. Let's see!

I've taken the structure that follows from a tweetstorm by Trevor Sumner (apparently derived from a Facebook post by his brother-law, Dave Kammeyer ). However, I've added topic headings, changed others, and helpfully numbered them all, so you can correct, enhance, or rearrange topics easily in comments (or even suggest new topics). Let me also caveat that this is an enormous amount of material, and time presses, so this will not be as rich in links as I would normally like it to be. Also note that the level of abstraction for each topic varies significantly: From "The Biosphere" all the way to "Pilot Training." A proper failure matrix would sort that out.

* * *

(1) The Biosphere : The 737 MAX story beings with a customer requirement for increased fuel efficiency. This is, at bottom, a carbon issue (and hence a greenhouse gas issue , especially as the demand for air travel increases, especially in Asia). New biosphere-driven customer demands will continue to emerge as climate change increases and intensifies, and hence the continued 737 MAX-like debacles should be expected, all else being equal. From CAPA – Centre for Aviation :

The main expected impacts of climate change on aviation result from changes in temperature, precipitation (rain and snow), storm patterns, sea level and wind patterns. In addition, climate change is expected to lead to increased drought, impacts on the supply of water and energy, and changes in wildlife patterns and biodiversity. Consequences for aviation include reduced aircraft performance, changing demand patterns, potential damage to infrastructure, loss of capacity and schedule disruption.

All of these factors will affect aircraft design, manufacturing, maintenance, and use, stressing the system.

(2) Choice of Airframe : The Air Current describes the competitive environment that led Boeing to upgrade the 737 to the 737 MAX, instead of building a new plane:

Boeing wanted to replace the 737. The plan had even earned the endorsement of its now-retired chief executive. We're gonna do a new airplane," Jim McNerney said in February of that same year. "We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to an all-new airplane at the end of the decade." History went in a different direction. Airbus, riding its same decades-long incremental strategy and chipping away at Boeing's market supremacy, had made no secret of its plans to put new engines on the A320. But its own re-engineered jet somehow managed to take Boeing by surprise. Airbus and American forced Boeing's hand. It had to put new engines on the 737 to stay even with its rival .

Why? The earlier butchered launch of the 787:

Boeing justified the decision thusly: There were huge and excruciatingly painful near-term obstacles on its way to a new single-aisle airplane. In the summer of 2011, the 787 Dreamliner wasn't yet done after billions invested and years of delays. More than 800 airplanes later here in 2019, each 787 costs less to build than sell, but it's still running a $23 billion production cost deficit. .

The 737 Max was Boeing's ticket to holding the line on its position "both market and financial" in the near term. Abandoning the 737 would've meant walking away from its golden goose that helped finance the astronomical costs of the 787 and the development of the 777X.

So, we might think of Boeing as a runner who's tripped and fallen: The initial stumble, followed by loss of balance, was the 787; with the 737 MAX, Boeing hit the surface of the track.

(3) Aerodynamic Issues : The Air Current also describes the aerodynamic issues created by the decision to re-engine the 737:

Every airplane development is a series of compromises, but to deliver the 737 Max with its promised fuel efficiency, Boeing had to fit 12 gallons into a 10 gallon jug. Its bigger engines made for creative solutions as it found a way to mount the larger CFM International turbines under the notoriously low-slung jetliner. It lengthened the nose landing gear by eight inches, cleaned up the aerodynamics of the tail cone, added new winglets, fly-by-wire spoilers and big displays for the next generation of pilots. It pushed technology, as it had done time and time again with ever-increasing costs, to deliver a product that made its jets more-efficient and less-costly to fly.

In the case of the 737 Max, with its nose pointed high in the air, the larger engines "generating their own lift" nudged it even higher. The risk Boeing found through analysis and later flight testing was that under certain high-speed conditions both in wind-up turns and wings-level flight, that upward nudge created a greater risk of stalling. Its solution was MCAS , the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System control law that would allow for both generations of 737 to behave the same way. MCAS would automatically trim the horizontal stabilizer to bring the nose down, activated with Angle of Attack data. It's now at the center of the Lion Air investigation and stalking the periphery of the Ethiopian crash.

(4) Systems Engineering : Amazingly, there is what in a less buttoned-down world that commercial aviation would be called a Boeing 737 fan site, which describes the MCAS system in more technical terms :

MCAS was introduced to counteract the pitch up effect of the LEAP-1B engines at high AoA [Angle of Attack]. The engines were both larger and relocated slightly up and forward from the previous NG CFM56-7 engines to accomodate their larger diameter. This new location and size of the nacelle causes it to produce lift at high AoA; as the nacelle is ahead of the CofG [Center of Gravity] this causes a pitch-up effect which could in turn further increase the AoA and send the aircraft closer towards the stall. MCAS was therefore introduced to give an automatic nose down stabilizer input during steep turns with elevated load factors (high AoA) and during flaps up flight at airspeeds approaching stall.

Unfortunately for Boeing and the passengers its crashed aircraft were carrying, the MCAS system was very poorly implemented. Reading between the lines (I've helpfully labeled the pain points):

Boeing have been working on a software modification to MCAS since the Lion Air accident. Unfortunately although originally due for release in January it has still not been released due to both engineering challenges and differences of opinion among some federal and company safety experts over how extensive the changes should be.

Apparently there have been discussions about potentially adding [A] enhanced pilot training and possibly mandatory [B] cockpit alerts to the package. There also has been consideration of more-sweeping design changes that would prevent [C] faulty signals from a single sensor from touching off the automated stall-prevention system.

[A] Pilot training was originally not considered necessary, because MCAS was supposed to give 737 MAX the same flight characteristics as earlier 737s; that's why pilots weren't told about it. (This also kept the price low.) [B] Such alerts exist now, as part of an optional package, which Lion did not buy. [C] The single sensor was the result of regulatory capture, not to say gaming; see below.

(The MCAS system is currently the system fingered as the cause of both the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes; we won't know for sure until the forensics are complete. Here, however, is the scenario for an MCAS-induced crash :

Black box data retrieved after the Lion Air crash indicates that a single faulty sensor -- a vane on the outside of the fuselage that measures the plane's "angle of attack," the angle between the airflow and the wing -- triggered MCAS multiple times during the deadly flight, initiating a tug of war as the system repeatedly pushed the nose of the plane down and the pilots wrestled with the controls to pull it back up, before the final crash.

(5) Regulatory Capture : Commercial aircraft need to be certified by the FAA before launch. The Washington Post labels today's process "self-certification":

The FAA's publication of pilot training requirements for the Max 8 in the fall of 2017 was among the final steps in a multiyear approval process carried out under the agency's now 10-year-old policy of entrusting Boeing and other aviation manufacturers to certify that their own systems comply with U.S. air safety regulations.

In practice, one Boeing engineer would conduct a test of a particular system on the Max 8, while another Boeing engineer would act as the FAA's representative , signing on behalf of the U.S. government that the technology complied with federal safety regulations, people familiar with the process said.

(Note that a 10-year-old process would have begun in the Obama administration, so the regulatory process is bipartisan.) I understand that " safety culture " is real and strong, but imagine the same role-playing concept applied to finance: One bankers plays the banker, and the other banker plays Bill Black, and after a time they switch roles . Clearly a system that will work until it doesn't. More:

The process was occurring during a period when the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General was warning the FAA that its oversight of manufacturers' work was insufficient.

Four years after self-certification began, fires aboard Boeing's 787 Dreamliner jets led to the grounding of the fleet and a wave of questions about whether self-certification had affected the FAA's oversight.

Why "self-certification"? Investigative reporting from the Seattle Times -- the article is worth reading in full -- explains:

The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.

Alert readers will note the similarity to the Neoliberal Playbook , where government systems are sabotaged in order to privatize them, but in this case regulatory capture seems to have happened "by littles," rather than out of open, ideological conviction (as with the UKs's NHS, or our Post Office, our Veteran's Administration, etc.).

(6) Transfer of Authority to Boeing : In the case of the 737 Max, regulatory capture was so great that certification authority was transferred to Boeing. In order to be certified, a "System Safety Analysis" for MCAS had to be performed. The Seattle Times :

The safety analysis:

Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.

Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane's nose downward. Assessed a failure of the system as one level below "catastrophic."

But even that "hazardous" danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor -- and yet that's how it was designed.

So who certified MCAS? Boeing self-certified it. Once again The Seattle Times :

Several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing .

"There wasn't a complete and proper review of the documents," the former engineer added. "Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates."

In this atmosphere, the System Safety Analysis on MCAS, just one piece of the mountain of documents needed for certification, was delegated to Boeing .

(I'm skipping a lengthy discussion of even more technical detail for MCAS, which includes discrepancies between what Boeing self-certified, and what the FAA thought that it had certified, along with the MCAS system acting like a ratchet, so it didn't reset itself, meaning that each time it kicked in, the nose was pitched down even lower. Yikes. Again, the article is worth reading in full; if you've ever done tech doc, you'll want to scream and run.)

(7) Political Economy : This tweet is especially interesting, because even I know that Muddy Waters Research is a famous short seller:

MuddyWatersResearch ‏ Verified account @ muddywatersre Mar 18

What's the result? Two $ BA planes have been grounded: 787 and Max. Last FAA grounding of a type of plane was 1979. In the case of the Max, FAA outsourced more than planned bc BA was 9 months behind Airbus 320neo 3/4 2 replies 4 retweets 19 likes

This is a great example of real short-termism by a corporate. It's clearly in $ BA LT interest to have robust cert system, but those chickens come home to roost years later, allowing mgmt to meet ST expectations. BTW, semi-annual reporting would do NOTHING to fix this mentality. 4

And here we are! There are a myriad of other details, but many of them will only prove out once the black boxes are examined and the forensics are complete.

* * *

It should be clear at this point that the central claims of Muilenburg's letter are false. I understand that commercial aviation is a business, but if that is so, then Muilenburg's claim that Boeing's commitment to safety is "absolute" cannot possibly be true; indeed, the choice to re-engine the 737 had nothing to do with safety. Self-certification makes Boeing "a judge in its own cause," and that clearly contradicts Muilenburg's absurd claim that "safety" -- as opposed to profit -- "is at the core of who we are."

The self-certification debacle that allowed MCAS to be released happened on Muilenburg's watch and is already causing Boeing immense reputational damage, and a criminal case, not to mention the civil cases that are surely coming, will only increase that damage. Mr. Market, the Beltway, and even Trump, if his trade deals are affected, will all soon be bellowing for a sacrificial victim. Muilenburg should recognize the inevitable and gracefully resign. Given his letter, it looks unlikely that he will do the right thing.


John A , , March 19, 2019 at 4:34 pm

Maybe they should have appointed aviation expert Nikki Haley to the Boeing board earlier.

Yikes , , March 19, 2019 at 4:35 pm

Sacrificial Victims were spread over land and sea in Kenya and Indonesia. Muilenburg and Obbie The Wan both are the criminals who profit.

dcrane , , March 19, 2019 at 4:36 pm

That should be "five months" not "five weeks" in the first sentence. Lion Air crashed on 29 October 2018.

Howard Beale IV , , March 19, 2019 at 4:39 pm

IIRC, one of the big constraints that was leveled was the need to keep the 737, regardless of version, into the same height relative to all other generations of the 737, whereas Airbus kept their height a lot higher than the 737.

If you look at many 737's over the years, some of the engine's nacelles were flat at the bottom to accommodate larger engine. Why? Boeing kept the height the same in order to maintain built-in stairs that, with virtually all airports having adjustable jetways, was basically redundant.

When you compare an A320xeo against a B737, you'll find that the Airbus rides higher when it comes to the jetways.

Michael Hudson , , March 19, 2019 at 4:42 pm

It seems to me that the Boeing 737-Max with the heavier, larger fuel-saving engines is so unbalanced (tilting over and then crashing if not "overridden" by a computer compensation) that it never should have been authorized in the first place.

When Boeing decided to add a much larger engine, it should have kept the airplane in balance by (1) shifting it forward or backward so that the weight did not tip the plane, and (2) created a larger landing-gear base so that the large engines wouldn't scrape the ground.

The problem was that Boeing tried to keep using the old chassis with the larger engines under the wings – rather than changing the wings, moving them forward or aft, and expanding the plane to permit a more appropriate landing gear.

The computer system has been blamed for not being a "smart enough" workaround to tell the plane not to plunge down when it already is quite close to the ground – with no perception of altitude, not to mention double-checking on the wind speed from both sensors.

Beyond that ultimate problem is the ultimate regulatory problem: regulatory capture of the FAA by the airline companies. As a result, the FAA represents "its customers" the airplane makers, not the public users and customers. This is like the banks capturing the Fed, the Justice Dept. and Treasury to promote their own interests by claiming that "self-regulation" works. Self-regulation is the polite word for fraudulent self-indulgence.

I would be surprised if the European Airbus competitors do not mount a campaign to block the 737-Max's from landing, and insisting that Boeing buy them back. This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes.

This probably will throw Trump's China trade fight into turmoil, as China was the first country to ground the 737-Max's and is unlikely to permit their recovery without a "real" federal safety oversight program. Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane, so as to represent users and stakeholders, not only stockholders.

The moral: Neoliberalism Kills.

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 19, 2019 at 5:13 pm

Rule #2 of Neoliberalism: Go die.

> "Maybe Europe, China and other countries henceforth will each demand that their own public agencies certify the plane."

As if the 737 MAX were the chlorinated chicken of aircraft.

* * *

I'm not sure about redesigning the wing and the landing gear. That might be tantamount to designing a new plane. (I do know that the landing gear is so low because the first 737s needed to accommodate airports without jetways, and so there may be other facets of the design that also depend on those original requirements that might have to be changed.)

Synoia , , March 19, 2019 at 7:45 pm

Correct – redesign the wing = new plane.

Cal2 , , March 19, 2019 at 7:45 pm

Rule #3 of Neoliberalism:

Their profits = Your cancer, which presents even more profit taking. I.e. Bayer makes the carcinogenic pesticides AND the chemotherapy drugs.

Carey , , March 20, 2019 at 10:19 am

Precisely this. Thank you.

John Zelnicker , , March 19, 2019 at 7:46 pm

@Michael Hudson
March 19, 2019 at 4:42 pm
-- -- -

"This gives Airbus a few years to grab the market for these planes."

That would be great for Mobile as the Airbus A320neo is assembled here.

Octopii , , March 20, 2019 at 7:38 am

And provides time for the A220 to ramp up in Mobile as well. Not a direct competitor for the 737 but a very good airplane developed by Bombardier.

Carey , , March 20, 2019 at 11:20 am

Also, the MC-21 is in final testing now; still using Western engines, for the moment. One to watch, maybe.

Which is worse - bankers or terrorists , , March 20, 2019 at 4:17 am

Engineering logs seem to indicate that larger landing gear cannot be added without re-engineering the plane.

115 kV , , March 20, 2019 at 8:15 am

Regulatory capture is rampant throughout the economy. Boeing self-certification being delegated by the FAA is not unlike the situation with electric transmission utilities.

After the 2003 northeast & Canada blackout, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It directed FERC to create an "electric reliability organization". Previously there were voluntary organizations set up after the 1966 blackout to establish operating standards in the industry. One of them was the North American Electric Reliability Council which morphed into the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) in 2006.

NERC is headquartered in Atlanta and employs hundreds of people. The standards setting generally takes place in NERC Committees and Subcommittees and sometimes from FERC itself. These are typically packed with industry people, with a patina of diversity that includes some governmental types and large industrial consumers. Let it suffice to say the electric transmission industry itself largely sets the rules how it operates.

Now consider the article in yesterday's NYT " How PG&E Ignored California Fire Risks in Favor of Profits ". The transmission circuit featured in the article (the Caribou-Palermo line) that caused the destruction of Paradise is a transmission line that is subject to both FERC and NERC regulation. As described in the article the circuit had many previous failures and was well beyond its design life.

However, both FERC and NERC have a laser focus on "market players" (think Enron or JP Morgan) and system operations (e.g., prevent collapses like the blackout of 2003). AFIK, neither FERC or NERC have prescriptive standards for routine maintenance or inspection and replacement (i.e., very expensive capital replacement that was not done on the Caribou-Palermo line), these are left to the discretion of the transmission owner. While substantive information about electric reliability is maintained by industry trade groups and submitted to FERC, what is available to the public is generally useless and subjected to scrubbing and polishing (often under the guise of Critical Energy Infrastructure Information).

We can see how self-policing work, can't we??? Rent-seeking market players can arbitrage markets, inflating prices consumers pay and make billions in profits, while California burns.

The neglectful rot in California is endemic in the industry as a whole.

A little bit of dignity , , March 19, 2019 at 4:47 pm

How about seppuku for the entire top management?

Robert Hahl , , March 20, 2019 at 7:14 am

If an airplane crashes in the forest, and no American were killed, did it make a sound?

Carolinian , , March 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm

That Seattle Times investigative story is indeed very good and a rare instance of newspaper writers troubling to carefully and cogently explain a technical issue.

In hindsight Boeing would have perhaps been better off to leave off the MCAS altogether and depend on pilot retraining to cover the altered handling.

One reason they may not have was that crash several years ago of a commuter plane in upstate NY where the plane started to stall and the confused pilot pulled up on the controls rather than making the airplane dive to regain speed. Still one has to believe that no automation is better than badly designed or malfunctioning automation.

allan , , March 19, 2019 at 5:31 pm

"depend on pilot retraining to cover the altered handling"

IANAP, but maybe the problem is that "nose up" situations can go south very quickly. For those with the stomach for it, there are videos on youtube of the 747 freighter that went nose up at Bagram a few years ago (perhaps due to loose cargo shifting backwards on takeoff). It was over very quickly.

ChrisPacific , , March 19, 2019 at 5:37 pm

Yes, I was impressed with it. Unfortunately the investigation precludes Boeing from responding as they did indicate they would have had something to say about it otherwise. But the analysis looks pretty cut and dried:

  1. Boeing underestimated the risk rating for the sensor, excluding the possibility of a catastrophic failure as occurred in the two incidents to date;
  2. Boeing also failed to implement the redundancy that would have been required even for their lower risk rating;
  3. Manual correction by the pilot as a possible risk mitigation was constrained by the fact that pilots weren't trained on the new system due to commercial factors.

Fixing any one of those three issues would have averted the disasters, although #3 is pretty precarious as you're relying on manual pilot actions to correct what is a clear systems defect at that point.

It sounds like #1 was partly because they failed to account for all the scenarios, like repeat activation raising the risk profile in certain circumstances. This is very easy to do and a robust review process is your best defense. So we could add the tight timelines and rushed process as a contributing factor for #1, and probably the others as well.

XXYY , , March 20, 2019 at 12:08 pm

People who work on accident investigation would probably agree on 2 things:

So while there is much to be profitably learned by investigating everything here, an effective "fix" may be surprisingly (or suspiciously) small in scope. There will be much clamoring for the whole plane to be resigned or scrapped, for better or worse.

anon in so cal , , March 19, 2019 at 6:28 pm

The Colgan crash, whose pilot, Renfrew, was chatting with the co-pilot below the allowed altitude? And who had apparently lied about his background, and had a pay-to-play pilot's license?

I think the Air France Airbus 447 also had a high-altitude stall (due to a faulty air speed sensor) and needed its nose pushed down, not up (which the copilots didn't realize).

Also, very informative article / OP, thanks for posting.

Synoia , , March 19, 2019 at 7:47 pm

MCAS was added to change the behavior of the plane from to tend to stall as speed increases. That is stall and crash, because such a high speed stall makes polit recovery very, very difficult.

In addition the MCAS driven amount of elevator change was initially 0.6 to 2.5, which indicates the 0.6 increment was found to be too low.

Carolinian , , March 19, 2019 at 8:07 pm

Well they are planning to keep it but

According to a detailed FAA briefing to legislators, Boeing will change the MCAS software to give the system input from both angle-of-attack sensors.

It will also limit how much MCAS can move the horizontal tail in response to an erroneous signal. And when activated, the system will kick in only for one cycle, rather than multiple times.

Boeing also plans to update pilot training requirements and flight crew manuals to include MCAS.

–Seattle Times

So apparently the greater elevator setting is not so necessary that they are not willing to reduce it. Also the max power setting would normally be on take off when the pilots are required to manually fly the plane.

Synoia , , March 20, 2019 at 12:12 pm

It is about speed, not power. I presume that MCAS was developed to solve a problem, nose up behaviour.

Carey , , March 20, 2019 at 10:28 am

Yes, that was an excellent Seattle times piece. Surprising to see that kind of truth-telling and, especially, *clarity* in an MSM piece these days. So what's the angle?

voislav , , March 19, 2019 at 5:48 pm

Reports I've read indicates that Boeing ignored even the clearly inadequate certification. "Documentation provided to the FAA claims that the MCAS system can only adjust the horizontal tail on the plane by 0.6 degrees out of a maximum of five-degrees of nose-down movement. But that limit was later increased to 2.5-degrees of nose-down movement. Boeing didn't communicate the change from 0.6-degrees to 2.5-degrees until after Lion Air."

Apparently this was done after simulations showed that 0.6 degrees was inadequate and the new 2.5 degree setting was not extensively tested before the planes were rolled out. IANAL, but this may be a serious problem for Boeing. Boeing could also be liable for damages due to 737 groundings and due to delays in delivery of contracted planes.

Big question is how 737 issues will affect 777X rollout, due at the end of the year. If 777X certification is called into question, this may cause further delays and put it at a further disadvantage against A350.

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 3:17 am

The 777 has been a great plane. Let's all pray the MBAs didn't fuck it up, too.

If I were Boeing, I'd have a team looking into the 777 certification process right now. And I'd set up a whistleblower line (so the Seattle Times doesn't get to the story first).

The analogy has been made between this the 737 MAX story and the Tylenol story. J&J got out in front of the problem and saved the product (and their company). Boeing's problem is of that order, and Muilenberg -- that letter! -- seems incapable of understanding that; insular, arrogant. One more reason to fire the dude toot sweet. If he comes out of his next review with a raise -- Everything Is Like CalPERS™ -- consider shorting Boeing

Chris , , March 20, 2019 at 1:35 pm

Thanks, Lambert, for post and comments. I don't know if this angle has been covered or explored: the relatively new way that Boeing now "manufactures" "tests" and "assembles" parts of its planes. I had dinner with new acquaintance, Boeing engineer for decades (I live near a plant in WA state). For the last few years, this engineer is stationed half year in Russia annually to oversee assembly there. In this newish, more profitable manufacturing system for Boeing, the parts come in from around the world with sketchy quality control, are then assembled by Russian workers this engineer (and other Boeing employees sent from States) supposedly oversees. But the engineer doesn't speak Russian and has too little access to translators .Needless to say, this engineer is planning an exit as soon as possible. Having grown up in WA state for 60 years with neighbors/friends who were Boeing engineers, assemblers, line workers, etc it makes me heart sick to see the current decimation of talent, rigor and wages with additional far-flung assembly factories (Russia with few translators?! who knew?). Might these manufacturing/assemblying "improvements" also be a contributing factor in these terrifying woes for Boeing?

PlutoniumKun , , March 19, 2019 at 5:57 pm

Thanks for this Lambert, fantastically informative and interesting post.

Self regulation only works when liability is transferred with it – over example, in construction whereby certification by the engineers or architects designing the building are also taking on liability in the event something goes wrong. It seems unlikely that this is the situation with Boeing.

Allowing this to happen seems the ultimate in short term thinking by Boeing. US manufacturers have always had an advantage over competitors because the FAA was held in such high regard worldwide that it was the de facto world safety regulatory body – every country followed its lead. But this chipping away of its authority has led to a near fatal loss of faith, and will no doubt lead to European and Asian regulatory authorities being strengthened. And no doubt commercial realities will mean they will look much more closely at US manufactured aircraft if there is some benefit to their own manufacturers.

Airbus will no doubt try to take advantage – just as Boeing (with some justification) tried to focus attention on the Air France Airbus loss which was attributed at least in part to excessive automation. China is pushing hard with its new Comac aircraft, but they seem to be poorly regarded worldwide (only Chinese airlines are buying). The Canadians have missed their chance with the Bombadier C-series.

JBird4049 , , March 19, 2019 at 6:07 pm

The more I read of this the more baffling it is. What was there stopping Boeing from just highlighting the changes and installing an easy manual override instead of this hidden change with effectively no way to permanently do so? Especially when in crisis mode? One could make a case of no extra training needed so long as the pilot knows about it and can easily turn it off.

Darius , , March 19, 2019 at 6:30 pm

I didn't see this before I posted my response. A more concise statement of my thoughts. This plus more robust redundant sensors. Penny wise and pound foolish.

The Times thinks Boeing is too big to fail. Without a blockbuster Max, I don't see how Boeing maintains its current status in the industry.

Synoia , , March 19, 2019 at 7:52 pm

One could make a case of no extra training needed so long as the pilot knows about it and can easily turn it off.

That's the expensive re-certification Boeing wanted to avoid.

Robert Hahl , , March 20, 2019 at 7:52 am

That would entail simulator training, that would entail modifying the simulators and the curriculum.

Darius , , March 19, 2019 at 6:22 pm

I am leaning towards thinking the kludgy design of the 727 Max could have been rolled out with no major problems if Boeing had been up front about design changes, made a robust and conservative MCAS, fully at the command of the pilot, and provided ample training for the new aircraft.

They still could have saved billions on the airframe. They would have had to acknowledge the significant modifications to the airlines with the attendant training and other costs and delays. They would have lost some sales. They still would have been far ahead of Airbus and light years ahead of where they are now.

I also think they have been completely afflicted by the defense contractor mentality.

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 3:08 am

> I also think they have been completely afflicted by the defense contractor mentality.

Yes, the famous McDonnell-Douglas reverse takeover , where financial engineers inserted their sucking mandibles into an actual engineering culture. The merger took place in 1997, 22 years ago, which is not so long, really. Note also that the finance guys drove the decision to outsource as much 787 manufacturing as possible , which creates headaches for real engineering, so the initial stumble with the 787 that led to the 737 fall is down to them, too.

Note that Muilenberg came up through the defense side of the company not the commercial aircraft side. He may simply not have been equipped to understand FAA regulation at any deep level, hence the rot that finally surfaced.

VietnamVet , , March 19, 2019 at 6:50 pm

The 737 Max crashes and Brexit are the chickens coming home to roost. NC is a treasure for your coverage of both.

Clearly upper management in Chicago only knows short term finance. Boeing stuck with old fashion hydraulic controls in the 737 but faced with an unacceptable flight characteristics of the larger more efficient engines added a fly-by-wire system to compensate for it.

The criminal charges are that besides being a faulty design (it relies on one fragile exposed sensor that if out of position keeps triggering dives until switched off) but Boeing hid it and self-certified that it was safe. Adding a discrepancy warning and position indicator for the two independent flight sensors to the cockpit video display is an extra cost feature.

Neither of the planes that crashed had the added safety display. All are cost saving measures. Finally, if a faulty sensor triggers dives, the pilot at the controls is busy with both hands on the yoke forcing the airplane to stay in the air with stall and proximity warnings are sounding. The second pilot also must realize what's going on, immediately turn off the electricity to the screw jack motor and manually turn the stabilizer trim wheel to neutral.

You can't learn this on an iPad. Both pilots should practice it together in a Flight Simulator. If the co-pilot was experienced, unlike the one in the Ethiopian crash; just maybe, they could have survived the repeated attempts by the airplane to dive into the ground on takeoff.

The tragedy is that corporate media in pursuit of profits will keep us up to date but will never mention the 6 or 8 minutes of terror for the 346 souls aboard the two flights. They will cover the criminal negligence trial if there are ever indictments. But, the news reports never will say that neoliberalism, deregulation, and privatization are the root causes of the deaths.

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 3:01 am

> if a faulty sensor triggers dives, the pilot at the controls is busy with both hands on the yoke forcing the airplane to stay in the air with stall and proximity warnings are sounding. The second pilot also must realize what's going on, immediately turn off the electricity to the screw jack motor and manually turn the stabilizer trim wheel to neutral. You can't learn this on an iPad. Both pilots should practice it together in a Flight Simulator. If the co-pilot was experienced, unlike the one in the Ethiopian crash; just maybe, they could have survived the repeated attempts by the airplane to dive into the ground on takeoff.

That's what I mean by horrid UI/UX. Might as well as both pilots to pat their heads and rub their tummies in synch. And since the two pilots have to both understand what's going on, we've multiplied the chances for failure.

Boeing also clearly did not know its customers . It should be engineering for the sort of pilots who are going to be hired by Lion Air, or any rapidly expanding airline in what we used to all the Third World. Hegemony, it seems, makes you insular and provincial.

EoH , , March 20, 2019 at 4:54 pm

Added cost, "mandatory" safety feature. Does not seem to square with the [soon to be former?] CEO's apology-industry written claim to be committed to absolute safety.

You can't make this stuff up.

dearieme , , March 19, 2019 at 7:03 pm

"The FAA, citing lack of funding and resource": I don't suppose I'll survive to see any arm of government not blame lack of funds for its boneheaded or corrupt incompetence.

But the bigger picture: suppose the FAA is to do its job properly. From where is it going to recruit its staff?

Smaller picture: it doesn't really matter whether the cocked-up MCAS killed all those people or not. Even if it's innocent of the charge, the account of its development and application is a horror story.

Bigger picture: what other horrors have been hidden by Boeing?

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:48 am

> the account of its development and application is a horror story.

That's how I feel. The tech doc department at Boeing sounds like a horrible place to work; MBAs or their goons telling you all the time to do stuff you know is wrong. It's not surprising people were willing to talk to the Seattle Times; I bet there are more people. (Hey, Seattle Times! How about people testing the 737 MAX in simulators (assuming this is done)).

Sounds like the MBAs in Chicago have been busy planting land mines everywhere. Somebody stepped on this one; there are others.

oaf , , March 19, 2019 at 7:05 pm

The unfortunate pilots were made test pilots; the unsuspecting passengers: Guinea pigs. Lab rats. And paid for the privilege. Some others may share this opinion. Change one little thing? Chaos Theory Rules. Same with weather/climate; folks. That rant is for later.

oafstradamus

dcrane , , March 19, 2019 at 7:08 pm

Boeing stuck with old fashion hydraulic controls in the 737 but faced with an unacceptable flight characteristics of the larger more efficient engines added a fly-by-wire system to compensate for it.

Interestingly, and maybe relevant to the problem of confusion for the pilots, is that Boeing has had another automatic trim-modifier operating on its 737s for some time, the speed-trim system (STS):

https://leehamnews.com/2019/02/01/bjorns-corner-pitch-stability-part-7/

This system also modifies the stabilizer position during manual flight. Like MCAS, it was brought in to improve stability under certain flight conditions (the reasons for which are far beyond my knowledge). There is an indication that the pilots on the flight before the Lion Air crash misinterpreted MCAS actions for STS behavior.

Synoia , , March 19, 2019 at 7:55 pm

Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing

Yes, after money.

drumlin woodchuckles , , March 19, 2019 at 8:08 pm

At what point does "crapification" become insufficient to describe Boeing's product and process here? At what point do we have to speak of " ford-pintofication"?

barrisj , , March 19, 2019 at 8:15 pm

OK, I'm told to resubmit my crib re: "Boeing options" from the ZeroHedge "tweetstorm" by Trevot Sumner, and include a link got it:

Economic problem. Boeing sells an option package that includes an extra AoA vane, and an AoA disagree light, which lets pilots know that this problem was happening. Both 737MAXes that crashed were delivered without this option. No 737MAX with this option has ever crashed

https://mobile.twitter.com/trevorsumner/status/1106934369158078470

Ooops! "Options package"? Wait, a "package" that in the interim corrects a potentially catastrophic mfg. defect and airlines have to pay for it? Whoa, here's your late capitalism in play.

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:45 am

> Boeing sells an option package that includes an extra AoA vane, and an AoA disagree light

This is one of the details I could not get to (and we don't 100% know this is an issue until the forensics are done. Right now, we have narrative. Truly excellent narrative to be sure -- if only we thought of government the same way as pilots think of their aircraft! -- but narrative nonetheless).

Let me see if I have this right. Pilots, chime in!

"Authority" is one of the big words in this discussion; MCAS takes authority away from the pilot (and can do in such a drastic fashion as to crash the plane). Worse, the default case is that it can do so on the basis of a single sensor reading. In a design appropriate to the consequences for failure (i.e., a different design from that described in the "System Safety Analysis" that Boeing self-certified) MCAS would take readings from two sensors, and if they disagreed, authority would revert to the pilot . That's a general principle at Boeing, and so it's reasonable for pilots to assume that they retain authority of MCAS has not told them they don't have it any more.

Hence, the disagree light, which tells the pilots to take back authority because the sensors are confused. However, I think there are UI/UX issues with that, given that the 737 cockpit is extremely noisy and pilots have a lot to do on take-off. So a light might not be the answer. (The light also strikes me as a kludge; first, MCAS feels to me like a kludge, in that we're making the aircraft flyable only through software.* Fine for fighter jets, which can be inherently unstable, but perhaps not so fine for commercial aircraft? Then we have a second kludge, a light to tell us that the first kludge has kicked in. I dunno.)

NOTE * However, it's also true that automation affects flight characteristics all the time. So I'm not sure how savage to make this indictment.

rowlf , , March 20, 2019 at 6:00 am

The AOA indication is Service Bulletin 737-31-1650 (there may be others) and is on the both Pilot Flight Displays (PFDs). Pilots would likely abort a takeoff if they saw the indication come on before getting airborne.

California Bob , , March 19, 2019 at 8:20 pm

In hindsight, it appears Boeing should have made Mulally CEO. He appears to be competent.

Cal2 , , March 19, 2019 at 8:25 pm

"Boeing has been in the business of aviation safety for more than 100 years, "

How many years ago did Wall Street take over the fortunes of the company? Why did they move their headquarters from their birthplace of Seattle to Chicago? Why did they start assembling planes in South Carolina and China? Was it to improve aviation safety? Or, to allow the profiteering parasites to feed off the carcass of the company?

I want to fly on Boeing planes put together by well paid members of the Seattle Machinists Union, not low wage peons. Let's not even mention the maintenance of American aircraft in China and El Salvador.

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2018/04/20/southwest-airlines-should-have-inspected-engines.html

President Trump, here's a reelection tip: "Today I am declaring that all American registered aircraft flying in American airspace must be maintained in the U.S."

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:32 am

> President Trump, here's a reelection tip:

> "Today I am declaring that all American registered aircraft flying in American airspace must be maintained in the U.S."

Amazingly, Trump seems to have done OK on this. First, he didn't cave to Muilenberg's (insane, goofy, tone-deaf) request to keep the 737 flying; then he frames the issue as complexity (correct, IMNSHO), and then he manages to nominate a Delta CEO as head of the FAA .

And your suggestion is very good one. I wonder if he could do that by executive order? And I wonder how many grey-beards would come off the golf courses to help out? I bet a lot.

oaf , , March 19, 2019 at 8:47 pm

The aircraft is NOT CRAP!!! However. It should have been flown A WHOLE LOT MORE before receiving certification.

*Real* test pilots should have their a–es on the line ; operating for a lot more hours at *the edge of the envelope*, as it is known. Stability should be by design; not software*patch*. Patch this!

What portion of its' MCAS system flight testing was in computer simulation? Like the so-called Doppler Radar; which *magically* predicts what the future will bring; while the experts pitch it as fact? And make life-or-death decisions on the theoretical data???
Rush to market; markets rule. We can die.

dcrane , , March 19, 2019 at 9:19 pm

The aircraft is NOT CRAP!!!

Agreed, but I think we're seeing signs that a crapification process has begun on the safety side in this industry. (It has been proceeding for years on the service/amenities side.)

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:25 am

> The aircraft is NOT CRAP!!!

Didn't say it was. The headline reads "Boeing Crapification," not "737 Crapification."

That said, the 737 clearly has issues, as Boeing itself knew, since if they'd had their druthers, they would have launched a new plane to replace it. See point #2.

> What portion of its' MCAS system flight testing was in computer simulation?

That is a very good question. If I understand the aerodynamics issues aright, MCAS would be most likely to kick in at takeoff, which raises a host of UI/UX issues because the pilots are very busy at that time. So was MCAS not tested in the simulators? If so, how on earth was a scenario that included sensor failure not included? It may be that there are more issues with Boeing's engineering process than the documentation issues raised by the Seattle Times, though those are bad enough.

Ron D , , March 20, 2019 at 4:18 pm

I say the 737-whatever is a flying Turd, and always has been. It has a bad wing design which means it has to fly nose up compared to other models( I always remember that when going to the restroom while going somewhere on one). And because of its poor design it has to takeoff and land at higher speeds. So when flying into someplace like Mexico City it can be quite a harrowing experience, and the smell of cooking brakes is relatively normal.

Boeing never should have let go of the 757. Now that was a good plane that was simply ahead of its time.

The Rev Kev , , March 19, 2019 at 8:53 pm

Considering the fact that all these 737s are grounded as no airline trust them to not kill a plane load of passengers and crew, this is a really big deal. Putting aside the technical and regulatory issues, the fact is that the rest of the world no longer trusts the US in modern aviation so what we have here is a trust issue which is an even bigger deal.

We now know that the FAA does not audit the work done for these aircraft but the airlines themselves do it. It cannot be just Boeing but the other aircraft manufacturers as well. Other countries are going to be asking some very hard questions before forking over their billions to a US aircraft manufacturer in future. Worse is when Ethiopia refused to hand over the black boxes to the US but gave them instead to a third party.

That was saying that based on how you treated the whole crash, we do not trust you to do the job right and not to change some of the results. It has been done before, ironically enough by France who the Ethiopians gave the black boxes to. And when you lose trust, it takes a very long time to gain it back again – if ever. But will the changes be made to do so? I would guess no.

notabanker , , March 19, 2019 at 9:44 pm

But if the discount foreign airlines had just trained their pilots and paid for the non-crashintothegroundat500mph upgrade, all of this could have been avoided.

The Rev Kev , , March 20, 2019 at 12:55 am

Do you think that there was an app for that?

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:23 am

> we have here is a trust issue which is an even bigger deal

Loss or at least wobbliness of imperial hegemony, like. It's not just the aircraft, it's US standards-setting bodies, methods, "safety culture," even -- dare we say it -- English as the language of aviation. French is no longer the language of diplomacy, after all, though it had a good run.

Because markets. Neoliberalism puts everything up for sale. Including regulation. Oversimplifying absurdly: And so you end up with the profit-driven manufacturer buying the regulator, its produce killing people, and the manufacturer canceling its future profits. That's what the Bearded One would call a contradiction.*

NOTE * There ought to be a way to reframe contradiction in terms of Net Present Value which would not be what we think it is, under that model.

Synoia , , March 19, 2019 at 10:05 pm

Thank you Lambert, this is very complete.

Can Boeing survive? Yes, as a much smaller company. What is upsetting to me, is that the Boeing management has sacrificed thousands of Jobs.

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:10 am

> Thank you Lambert, this is very complete.

I wish it were as complete as it should be! There are a ton of horrid details about sensors, the UI/UX for the MCAS system, 737 cockpit design, decisions by the marketing department, and training and maintenance for Asian airlines that I just couldn't get to. (Although most of those presume that the forensics have already been done.) But I felt that dollying back for the big picture was important to. Point #1 is important, in that all the factors that drove the 737 decision making are not only still in place, they're intensifying, so we had better adjust our systems (assuming Boeing remains a going concern -- defenestrating Muilenberg would be an excellent way to show we accept the seriousness of customer and international concern).

Bill Smith , , March 19, 2019 at 10:56 pm

Bloomberg is reporting that : "The Indonesia safety committee report said the plane had had multiple failures on previous flights and hadn't been properly repaired."

And the day before when the same plane had the problem that killed everyone the next day: "The so-called dead-head pilot on the earlier flight from Bali to Jakarta told the crew to cut power to the motor driving the nose down, according to the people familiar, part of a checklist that all pilots are required to memorize."

Lambert Strether Post author , , March 20, 2019 at 2:14 am

There's an enormous expansion of air travel in Asia. The lower end -- not flag -- carriers like Lion Air and also Air Asia are in that business to be cheap ; they're driven by expansion and known to be run by cowboys.

That said, know your customer . I would translate this into an opportunity for Boeing to sell these airlines a service package for training their ground operations. But it seems that cutting costs is the only thing the MBAs in Chicago understand. Pilots, pipe up!

Bill Smith , , March 20, 2019 at 7:13 am

Pilot training and requirements are in the hands of the country, not Boeing. If the story that the copilot of the Ethiopian Airlines plane had only 200 hours of experience that is astounding.

In the US that requirement is 1500 hours. In addition most US airlines would require more than that. And then they slot 'beginning' pilots for flights in good (better) weather as high minimums pilot.

Bill Smith , , March 20, 2019 at 7:17 am

"sell these airlines a service package" That won't help an airline that is in the business to be cheap. The Indonesia airplane was repeatedly reported for problems in prior days/flights that was never fixed.

Basil Pesto , , March 20, 2019 at 2:42 am

indeed I was just about to mention this same story. The link is here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/how-an-extra-man-in-cockpit-saved-a-737-max-that-later-crashed?utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews

and this quote makes an interesting follow-on to the thread yesterday with 737 Pilot (which Lambert linked to in the first paragraph here):

"The combination of factors required to bring down a plane in these circumstances suggests other issues may also have occurred in the Ethiopia crash, said Jeffrey Guzzetti, who also directed accident investigations at FAA and is now a consultant.

"It's simply implausible that this MCAS deficiency by itself can down a modern jetliner with a trained crew," Guzzetti said."

Setting aside Mr Guzzetti's background (dismissing his claim here as tendentious right off the bat would strike me as uncharitable), and without wishing to exculpate anyone, it does lend some credence to the idea that Ethiopia Airlines may have some contributory negligence here, staffing the flight with such an inexperienced first officer.

JBird4049 , , March 20, 2019 at 12:25 pm

Setting aside Mr Guzzetti's background (dismissing his claim here as tendentious right off the bat would strike me as uncharitable), and without wishing to exculpate anyone, it does lend some credence to the idea that Ethiopia Airlines may have some contributory negligence here, staffing the flight with such an inexperienced first officer.

One can often point to inexperience, incompetence, stupidity, incompetence or just bad luck when some disaster happens, but Boeing counted on perfect performance from flight crews to successfully work with a workaround needed for other workarounds that needed perfect performance to not catastrophically fail. I know enough about complexity that you cannot depend on perfection because something will always fail.

BillC , , March 20, 2019 at 7:25 am

Your excellent summary lacks some MCAS details that are not widely reported by the general-audience press.

Like you, I am a retired software engineer, so I have followed an aviation blog discussion of this issue quite closely since it emerged as a probable software and system design failure. As the blog is open to all, its signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low, but it seems not too difficult for any technically-minded person to separate the wheat from the chaff. My current understanding, which I believe others here are in a position to correct, if necessary:

A. The requirement for MCAS apparently emerged very late in the MAX's development, when it became clear that the upper cowling around the larger engines, being moved up and forward with respect to earlier 737 versions, adds nose-up force as the angle of attack (AoA) approaches the upper limits of the MAX's operating envelope because at such angles, the cowling itself generates lift beyond that of the wing.

B. As perceived by a pilot flying manually (not on autopilot), this added nose-up force makes it easier to pull back on the control column ("stick"), increasing the AoA further. This is like a car running off the asphalt onto a muddy shoulder: the steering wheel wants to turn the wrong way (toward the ditch) rather than the right way (back on the road).

C. An FAA regulation prohibits certification of an aircraft that presents the pilot with changing stick forces near stall that nudge the pilot toward the wrong reaction, 14 CFR 25.203(a) , IIRC (unfortunately, I can't find the original blog citation).

D. MCAS was put in place to satisfy this certification requirement -- not to automagically correct stalls without pilot action.

E. Other means of meeting this requirement exist, ranging from an airframe redesign that avoids the extra nose-up effect of the larger repositioned engines down to a "stick pusher" that increases the force a pilot would need to pull the stick back further in this situation.

F. Any of the other options would negate one or both of the MAX's chief selling points: little cost or schedule impact to Boeing (in a rush to meet the Airbus 320 NEO challenge) and to its customers ("No new flight crew training necessary, because to the pilot, the MAX feels just like its 737 predecessors.") That is, all the other options introduce new hardware to a completed design and the more fundamental changes could require new type certification.

G. The easiest fix was pure software: at high indicated AoA, under manual control, and with flaps up, automatically rotate the horizontal stabilizer a little bit nose-down, which increases the pressure needed to pull the stick back (nose-up). No need to tell the pilot about this in training or real time, since it's just to make MAX feel like any other 737.

H. The design presented for certification described a single small rotation. Testing showed this was insufficient to provide the tactile feedback necessary for certification in all cases, so the software fix was obvious: if the trigger conditions still hold after a 5 sec. pause, do it again.

I. Apparently nobody asked at that point, "What if the AoA indication is stuck high?" We're under schedule and cost pressure, so who wants to complexify things by (1) adding additional sanity-checking to the aircraft's AoA computations or (2) limiting how many times we add a little bit of nose-down.

J. When these details combine with a consistently erroneous AoA reading, MCAS can -- if not repeatedly countermanded or disabled and manually reversed -- eventually rotate the horizontal stabilizer to its maximum nose-down position, where it was found in both recent incidents, IIRC.

Even if the pilots figure out that's what's happening amid a cacophony of seemingly contradictory instrument readings and warnings (stick-shaker, trim wheel clacking, alarm chimes, and synthesized voices), the pilots still have to (1) cut power to the electrical trim systems and (2) restore the required trim, which may then require as many as 50 manual turns of a trim wheel. If you're near the ground, time is short

A minority of commenting pilots assert that any competently trained cockpit crew should be able to identify MCAS misbehavior quickly and power off automatic trim per the same checklist that was prescribed for "runaway automatic trim" on every 737 variant, MAX included. Most seem to agree that with aircraft control difficulties, multiple alarms, and disagreement among the pilot's and first officer's airspeed and AoA readings almost from the moment of takeoff (not yet officially confirmed), an MCAS-commanded runaway trim event may feel very different from the runaway trim flavors for which pilots have had simulator training, making problem identification difficult even given knowledge of the earlier Lion Air incident.

I imagine most software developers and engineers have seen cost/schedule pressures lead to short cuts. If their life was at stake, I doubt that many would think self-certification that such a project complies with all relevant safety requirements is a good idea.

ShamanicFallout , , March 20, 2019 at 12:59 pm

Thank you for that. And just 'wow'. I don't really know anything about aircraft/flying but this story is really fascinating and seems to be true a sign of the times. I guess we'll know what the current 'temperature' is out there when the fallout (civil liability, criminal liability, plane orders cancelled/ returned, etc) manifests. If Boeing skates, we'll know we've got a long way to go.

Cheryl from Maryland , , March 20, 2019 at 8:15 am

The Post's article on the FAA and Regulatory Capture is incomplete. The process for the FAA (and probably MANY government agencies) started under Reagan, did not revert to safety under Clinton (make government smaller and all that), and then accelerated under Bush II in 2005 (not a bi-partisan time). In particular, big changes to the FAA were made in 2005 that were executive in nature and did not require Congressional approval. CF: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/delegating-aircraft-safety-assessments-to-boeing-is-nothing-new-for-the-faa/

drfrank , , March 20, 2019 at 9:22 am

Yes, but. Part of what we are seeing in this case is a rush to judgement based on less than full evidence and analysis, and so prejudices and ideological positions (which I share actually) are plainly to be seen (and perhaps worth analyzing). "Crapification," says the headline.

Yet, I cannot say that I disagree with BA's business decisions as such in a highly competitive environment as regards the tradeoffs in the development of the MAX and there is a certain absurdity in the idea that Boeing would knowingly take a high reputational risk, in an industry where failure is front page news (contrast banking or pharma failures).

I have no reason to believe that an FAA fully in charge of all aspects of certification would have prevented these crashes, as banking and drug regulators have not kept us safe either. What seems worthy of note is that neither the airlines that buy the product nor the foreign aviation regulators nor pilots' associations do their own testing and certification, in an area where more redundancy would be good. Nor is there any kind of private third party watchdog testing, like a Moody's or S&P, evaluating potentially toxic products and services for a price.

Finally, I suppose we have to ask ourselves why the price of the stock is holding up fairly well even as the news flow on these tragedies is helping the short sellers. Lest we forget that Boeing is the 5th largest defense contractor in the US.

oaf , , March 20, 2019 at 10:01 am

Is engine throttle automated in the flight regime where these accidents occurred? Or are the pilots controlling power? Is the lag in thrust response interacting with the MCAS in an unanticipated way? Aerodynamic lift of nacelles is mentioned several times; there is another lift factor relating to the thrust angle; which is not necessarily aligned with the fuselage axis in flight. Departure procedures often require speed limits and altitude changes; so it is likely multiple power demand levels get set through takeoff and climb until cruise altitude is reached. Does Autopilot/Flight Director integrate with MCAS; or are they independent systems? Even without touching flight controls; power changes affect pitch forces. I am wondering if consequences of manual power changes on an otherwise automated departure were adequately investigated in the certification of the MCAS. Please excuse my ignorance of these details.

oaf , , March 20, 2019 at 11:18 am

Regulatory elements that have been getting attention include the use of *standard* weights for passengers; IIRC, 170 lbs for US (and possibly ICAO) passengers comes to mind . Many aircraft accidents have an element of disregard for proper weight distribution, either accidental, or negligent. For instance: Tail-heavy bad! Intentional loading outside of subsequently approved C.G. and/or max weight limits is a common, if not ubiquitous part of determining certification limits.There is a safety factor in the certificated limits; but banking on this; using estimates; is proven risky or disastrous when actual weights, and distribution thereof, is uncertain. Cargo with false weight values could also occur. One might find incentive to claim lower weights than actual to save on freight charges. How many 170 lb passengers do you know? I am not familiar with scales being used to check aircraft weight and balance before takeoff; only calculations; based on formulas and charts.
Scales ARE USED during certain maintenance procedures; for airworthiness certificates; and following certain modifications.

Jack , , March 20, 2019 at 11:50 am

Here is an interesting article by a professional pilot blogger Patrick Smith. He calls the 737, "the Frankenplane", and traces its history all the way back to the 707 in 1959. According to Smith, "We wonder if the 737 MAX even needed to exist in the first place. Somewhere deep down, maybe the heart of this whole fiasco is Boeing's determination to keep the 737 line going, variant after variant, seemingly forever. I'm not saying this is the reason for what happened in Indonesia or Ethiopia, but the whole 737 program just seems misguided and unnecessary. Instead of starting from scratch with a new airframe, they took what was essentially conceived as a regional jet in the mid-1960s, and have pushed and pushed and pushed the thing -- bigger and bigger engines, fancier avionics and more seats -- into roles it was never intended for. The "Frankenplane," I call it.
See the article here .
As a pilot myslef, I feel the airlines have a lot to answer for as well. Their constant "dumbing down" of pilots, which comes from making pilots work long hours for low pay, results in pilots not being the best of the best. And training is a cost to airlines. Training doesn't result in revenue. Better to have the pilots actually flying, hence Boeing selling this new version of the 737 as not requiring further training. But, training and practice is everything in flying. Flying a plane is actually a relatively easy skill to acquire. Most people can learn to fly a trainer in 5 hours or so. Most people solo (fly the plane without an instructor) with only 10-20 hours of instruction. It takes a lot longer to learn how to drive a car for most people (45 hours is the average). So it really isn't that difficult .until something goes WRONG. That is when the training kicks in. An often quoted flying truism, is that flying is "99% boredom and 1% stark terror". What happened with these two crashes is that you had some inexperienced pilots who were not fully trained on the systems (a lot of that blame goes to Boeing). When things start going wrong, information overload can easily occur if you have not been properly trained, even with two pilots.

Carey , , March 20, 2019 at 1:44 pm

Maybe this is the link mentioned above:

http://www.askthepilot.com/ethiopian-737max-crash/

allan , , March 20, 2019 at 11:57 am

"you had some inexperienced pilots"

The captain, Yared Getachew, had more than 8,000 hours of flying under his belt.
(It is true that the first officer only had 200.)

You have to wonder how the average US commercial pilot would have done under the circumstances.

(Reply to Jack at 11:50 am)

EoH , , March 20, 2019 at 3:15 pm

Thanks for that correction. We can expect a deluge of blame-the-other-guy PR from the aircraft manufacturer and certification agencies. Billions are on the line for Boeing if a cascade of judgments it made materially contributed to these crashes. The usual strategic corporate bankruptcy might follow. I presume Boeing is considered much TBTF by the USG.

JerryDenim , , March 20, 2019 at 12:19 pm

Great job summarizing and connecting dots Lambert. I might add one more bullet point though. Items #5 and #6 were aided, abetted and perhaps somewhat necessitated by 'ye ole NeoLiberal playbook' you spoke of, but more specifically, the current regulatory FAA/Boeing milieu is attributable to years of budget cuts and strategically applied austerity. The old Grover Norquist, ' not destroyed, but small and weak enough to be drowned in a shallow bath' saw. Exact same thing we've witnessed with other formally effective regulators like the EPA, the SEC or the IRS.

I remember having a conversation with an FAA maintenance inspector, an old timer, about ten years ago. He looked to be upwards of seventy, and he told me he was eight years beyond eligibility for a full retirement. He informed me that a few years back he was supervising a team of ten people that was now down to two. Their positions had been cut outright or eliminated after they resigned or transferred when the remaining positions were made miserable by the increased workload and bureaucratic headaches. The inspector said he had not retired yet because he knew he would not be replaced and he felt the work was important. I asked him if his department was atypical and he said it was not. Same thing, across the board, with the exception of the executive level desk jobs in DC and Oklahoma City. Readers can draw their own conclusions but when it comes to funding Federal regulators, I believe you should never attribute anything to incompetence that you could attribute to malice.

No doubt Neo-Liberal ideologues in high places pushing the corrosive "customer/client" model of regulating along with the requisite deference and obsequious to industry played a large role as well.

"Chickens coming home to roost" Indeed.

EoH , , March 20, 2019 at 2:44 pm

I understand the published materials to boil down to this possible scenario:

To remain competitive and profitable, Boeing needed to improve the fuel efficiency and flight characteristics of a mainstay medium-haul aircraft. Instead of designing a new aircraft, it modified an existing airframe. Among other changes, it added more powerful engines, new lift and control surfaces, and enhanced computerized controls.

The modified Max aircraft **did not** fly like the earlier version. That meant Boeing would have to disclose information about those changes. It would need to train pilots in them, in how to integrate new protocols into existing ones, and in what to do if the enhanced computer controls malfunctioned, requiring the pilot to regain manual control.

These steps could have increased cost and time to market, might have involved new certifications, and might have reduced sales. Boeing appears to have relied on enhanced computer flight controls to avoid them.

The newly enhanced computerized controls meant that the computer would do more of the actual flying – the part that was different from the pre-Max version – and the pilot less. It gave the pilot the virtual – but not real – experience of flying the older aircraft, obviating the need, in Boeing's judgment, for additional disclosures and training. That worked except when it didn't. (See, driverless car development.)

One possible failure mode derives from the Max's reliance on a single sensor to detect its angle of attack, the aircraft's nose-up or nose-down deviation from level flight. Reliance on a single sensor would make it harder to detect and correct a fault. (Boeing's version of commitment to "absolute" safety.)

In these two crashes, the sensor may have given a faulty reading, indicating that the aircraft's nose was higher than it should have been for that stage of flight, an attitude that risked a stall. The programmed response was to drop the nose and increase power. A normal reaction to a real stall, this response can become catastrophic when unexpected or when the pilot cannot correct it.

In both crashes, it appears that the pilot did attempt to correct the computer's error. Doing so, however, reset the automated control, leading the computer to reread the faulty sensor to mean "stall." It again dropped the nose and increased speed. The pilot recorrected the error in what would become a deadly loop, a tug of war that ended in a powered dive into the ground.

Seal , , March 20, 2019 at 3:52 pm

This is like #Immelt at #GE

VietnamVet , , March 20, 2019 at 4:17 pm

What is interesting is what comes next. The FAA was drowned in the bath tub along with the EPA, FDA, SEC, etc. It doesn't have the money or staff to recertify the 737 Max. An incompetent Administration that is interested only in extracting resources is in charge. It is clear that Boeing hid the changes to save money and time. Adding a warning indicator that the flight sensors are not in the correct position to the pilot's display, including it in the preflight checklist, plus flight training would have prevented the Indonesian crash. But these changes would have raised questions on the adequacy of the new flight critical system and may have delayed certification overseas. It is easy to overlook problems if your paycheck is at risk. The Boeing managers who pushed this through deserve jail time for manslaughter.

Canada said it will recertify the 737 Max before it flies in their airspace. China won't recertify the Max until the Trump Trade War is over. Also, a delay boosts their replacement airliner. If Chicago and DC paper this over like the 2008 Great Recession; the final nails will have been hammered into the coffin of the hegemon. Trust is gone

[Mar 23, 2019] The Other Recent Deadly Boeing Crash No One Is Talking About - Slashdot

Mar 23, 2019 | tech.slashdot.org

The Other Recent Deadly Boeing Crash No One Is Talking About (nymag.com) 65 Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday March 23, 2019 @01:34PM from the searching-for-answers dept. New York magazine's Intelligencer remembers last month's crash of a Boeing 767 carrying cargo for Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service -- and shares a new theory that its cause wasn't a suicidal pilot or an autopilot malfunction:

In online pilot discussion forums, a third idea has been gaining adherents: that the pilots succumbed to a phenomenon called somatogravic illusion, in which lateral acceleration due to engine thrust creates the sensation that one is tipping backward in one's seat .

The effect is particularly strong when a plane is lightly loaded, as it would be at the end of a long flight when the fuel tanks are mostly empty, and in conditions of poor visibility, as Atlas Air 3591 was as it worked its way through bands of bad weather. The idea is that perhaps one of the pilots accidentally or in response to wind shear set the engines to full power, and then believed that the plane had become dangerously nose-high and so pushed forward on the controls.

This would cause a low-g sensation that might have been so disorienting that by the time the plane came barreling out of the bottom of the clouds there wasn't enough time to pull out of the dive.

It has been speculated that this might have been the cause of another bizarre and officially unsolved accident from three years ago: Flydubai Flight 981, which crashed 2016 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia....

While it's still too early to draw any kind of conclusions about Atlas Air 3591, the possibility exists that a firm conclusion will never be drawn -- and if it is, the cause could turn out not to be a design flaw or software malfunction that can be rectified, but a basic shortcoming in human perception and psychology that cannot be fixed as long as humans are entrusted with the control of airplanes.


BobC ( 101861 ) , Saturday March 23, 2019 @02:26PM ( #58321314 )

Re:Flying by Instruments? ( Score: 5 , Informative)

Yes, commercial pilots are taught to "fly their instruments". General aviation pilots may enjoy more "seat-of-the-pants" flying, but even they are taught to trust instruments over human perceptions, which are easily fooled, as even simple demos will show.

I used to work for an aircraft instrument maker, and our user interfaces, everything the pilot interacts with, got more care and attention than the rest of the instrument. Of course we had to display nothing but totally accurate data, and do so promptly, but we also had to do so in ways that were obvious and clear, so the pilot can take in the most important information with a quick glance.

The pilot's standard "scan" is perhaps the most-trained skill. To look at everything on the instrument panels and outside the windows often enough to not miss anything, yet slow enough to take in all vital information.

When things get hectic, the pilot still does this scan, interrupting it as needed to deal with situations, but still doing it. Because, as the saying goes, "trouble often comes in threes": Stopping everything to handle an initial situation may mask what's really going on, and lead to a cascade of failures.

With ever more data being aimed at the pilot, there is a distinct risk of information overload, especially when tired, or during tense but otherwise normal situations, such as take-off, landing, or flying through turbulence. This overload often encourages the pilot to rely more on signals from the body, which need less conscious processing, rather than focus on all that data.

Here, again, is where commercial pilots receive extra training, but perhaps not often enough. This is one of the factors that keep commercial pilot mandatory retirement ages so low: The risk of overload increases with age, even when all other factors match those of a younger person.

Plus, staying in peak training for decades is fatiguing, and relatively few can do so "naturally". Which is one of the reasons we're running out of commercial aircraft pilots.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but this overload risk is often handled by adding more automation, more automatic systems to "help" the pilot. So much so that actually manually "driving" a commercial aircraft, with hands on the controls, is an increasingly rare part of a normal flight.

Our instruments also tried to take pilot fatigue into account, saving our brightest and loudest alarms only for the most desperate situations, to punch-through that overload to help ensure prompt and correct reactions.

One product I worked on was a TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System) instrument, which basically stayed quiet unless there was a risk of the pilot flying into the ground, to help prevent "CFIT" accidents (Controlled Flight Into the Ground). It has special modes for take-off and landing, though our instrument was designed to actually *avoid* making the pilot depend on it's display: Useful for information as part of the scan, but not to be used to navigate the aircraft. Our main function was to provide visual and audible alerts only when needed.

I believe 100% of US commercial aircraft (and perhaps now even biz-jets) are required to have TAWS on-board and active. Any TAWS-equipped plane approaching the ground outside of an approved approach path for a know airport will give the pilot "Terrain ahead. Pull up! Pull up!" alerts until the hazard no longer exists.

Unfortunately, if a stall is also immanent, the pilot will simultaneously receive an alert to push the nose down. And increase power. And other things as well. An overload of alerts, which a skilled and calm pilot will respond to with the most correct action. But which can overload a stressed or tired pilot, or one with the beginnings of a cold or flu.

The thing is, every alert can be silenced, to reduce the confusion and distractions. But an overloaded pilot can forget even this simple aid to keeping full awareness and control.

This is a big part of why pilots are so often blamed for crashes: Because, for whatever reason, they failed to take the appropriate action demanded by the situation.

As a former aircraft instrument developer, I was always well aware of my instruments' contribution to the pilot's mental load. Our teams agonized over tiny changes to font selection and sizes and colors and contrast. And how many button presses were needed to accomplish a function. And how easy it was to switch modes or silence an alert. Which is why we had a massive alpha test system that got even the earliest versions of our instruments in front of pilots with experimental aircraft and ratings. (Experimental aircraft and the pilots who fly them are rare and precious things to instrument developers, even when we owned and operated our own corporate test aircraft.)

Fortunately, our efforts paid off, and pilots (and the FAA) loved our instruments. Some of our design innovations were adopted into instrument regulations by the FAA, so all manufacturers had to build to our standard. But always hovering over our success was the fear of news of the crash of a plane flying our instruments. And the fear that information overload from our instruments would be shown to be a contributing factor.

Which is why part of our required reading was any and all reports (mainly NTSB and NASA) that even mention pilot overload. Even a decade after leaving that industry, I still read these reports.

rnturn ( 11092 ) , Saturday March 23, 2019 @01:55PM ( #58321174 )
Oh... Are we back to t"pilot error" excuses again? ( Score: 2 )
``...the cause could turn out not to be a design flaw or software malfunction that can be rectified, but a basic shortcoming in human perception and psychology that cannot be fixed as long as humans are entrusted with the control of airplanes.''

On the other hand, we have two recent examples of what can happen when a flight computer is given control of the plane and it is unable to avoid doing something stupid like -- as the old euphemism goes -- `make inadvertent contact with the terrain'.

Until we know more about how this was supposed work and exactly why it didn't , I think I'll trust the human with his hands on the controls more than the flight computer.

(Thankfully, the occasions for my needing to fly are few and far between.)

Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) writes: < MJennings.USA@NOT_any_of_THISgmail.com > on Saturday March 23, 2019 @01:39PM ( #58321082 ) Homepage
Design errors in the 737 MAX-guidance system ( Score: 2 )

Everything I've been able to learn has indicated that there are major design errors in the guidance system of the Boeing 737 MAX-8

ebonum ( 830686 ) , Saturday March 23, 2019 @02:02PM ( #58321206 )
Artificial horizon? ( Score: 3 )

If you look at it and you are headed down (and you have good airspeed), you don't need to keep trying to nose down - regardless of what your senses are telling you.

What about looking at how the altimeter is changing?

The artificial horizon gives you a lot of information when your sense of direction is playing tricks on you (in the clouds and feeling like you are going up,down, rolling, etc.)

[Mar 21, 2019] The Lives the Free Market Took

Mar 21, 2019 | jacobinmag.com

BY
BRANKO MARCETIC

The people who died in last Sunday's plane crash were not just killed by Boeing. Their deaths stemmed from an ideology that puts business interests above human life.


... ... ...

Boeing is not just a lobbying juggernaut that donates prodigiously to politicians all over the country; it's also a company in which numerous members of Congress are personally invested, and it cultivates mutually beneficial financial relationships with top officials . Meanwhile, as William McGee of Consumer Reports told Amy Goodman , these issues are rooted in the FAA's lax, business-friendly oversight of the very industry it's meant to regulate, a case of regulatory capture that stretches back long before this administration.

Whatever the black box from the Ethiopian Airlines flight reveals, the lives put at risk by lax regulations are not apolitical tragedies; they are caused by an administration that time and again has shown itself to be callous and indifferent to the lives of the people it claims to fight for, whether Puerto Ricans left to fend for themselves in the wake of natural disaster, or federal workers used as bargaining chips in a game of political brinkmanship.

But more than that, they are victims of an ideology that tells us the greatest insult to human life is not the death and misery that comes from unchecked greed, but efforts to democratically control it through public institutions. The real problems aren't unsafe products, pollution, dangerous chemicals, and the like, we're told, but "red tape" and the taxes used to fund the bodies regulating them. Meanwhile, activists like Nader have long been painted as " wacky " extremists in the pursuit of some quixotic ideological crusade simply for trying to do things like prevent people from dying in cars without seat belts .

When social-democratic policies are enacted, wealthy people take less home after taxes, and businesses are inconvenienced by regulations meant to secure the common good. But when neoliberal policies are put in place, people and their families go hungry, they lose their homes, they get injured on the job, they get sick, and, sometimes, they die. The public should be enraged by the actions of governments like Trump's and Trudeau's; but we should also be angry at a political narrative that tells us trying to stop such tragedies is "ideological" instead of common sense. We owe it to the crash victims to create no more of them.


[Mar 21, 2019] The Boeing 737 Max 8- a Case Study in Uncreative Destruction

Mar 21, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

On May 12, 2010, the New York Times ran an article by economics editor Catherine Rampell titled "The New Poor: In Job Market Shift, Some Workers Are Left Behind"that focused on the largely middle-aged unemployed who will probably never work again. For example, 52 year old administrative assistant Cynthia Norton has been working part-time at Walmart while sending resumes everywhere but nobody gets back to her. She is part of a much bigger picture:

Ms. Norton is one of 1.7 million Americans who were employed in clerical and administrative positions when the recession began, but were no longer working in that occupation by the end of last year. There have also been outsize job losses in other occupation categories that seem unlikely to be revived during the economic recovery. The number of printing machine operators, for example, was nearly halved from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009. The number of people employed as travel agents fell by 40 percent.

But Ms. Rampell finds the silver lining in this dark cloud:

This "creative destruction" in the job market can benefit the economy.

Pruning relatively less-efficient employees like clerks and travel agents, whose work can be done more cheaply by computers or workers abroad, makes American businesses more efficient. Year over year, productivity growth was at its highest level in over 50 years last quarter, pushing corporate profits to record highs and helping the economy grow.

The term "creative destruction" might ring a bell. It was coined by Werner Sombart in his 1913 book "War and Capitalism". When he was young, Sombart considered himself a Marxist. His notion of creative destruction was obviously drawn from Karl Marx, who, according to some, saw capitalism in terms of the business cycle. With busts following booms, like night follows day, a new round of capital accumulation can begin. This interpretation is particularly associated with Volume Two of Capital that examines this process in great detail. Looking at this material, some Marxists like Eduard Bernstein drew the conclusion that capitalism is an infinitely self-sustaining system.

By 1913, Sombart had dumped the Marxist commitment to social revolution but still retained the idea that there was a basis in Karl Marx for upholding the need for "creative destruction", a view buttressed by an overly positive interpretation of this passage in the Communist Manifesto:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.

By the 1930s, Sombart had adapted himself fairly well to the Nazi system although he was not gung-ho like Martin Heidegger or Carl Schmitt. The wiki on Sombart notes:

In 1934 he published Deutscher Sozialismus where he claimed a "new spirit" was beginning to "rule mankind". The age of capitalism and proletarian socialism was over and with "German socialism" (National-Socialism) taking over.

But despite this, he remained critical. In 1938 he wrote an anthropology text that found fault with the Nazi system and many of his Jewish students remained fond of him.

I suspect, however, that Rampell is familiar with Joseph Schumpeter's use of the term rather than Sombart since Schumpeter was an economist, her chosen discipline. In 1942, he wrote a book titled Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy that, like Sombart, retained much of Karl Marx's methodology but without the political imperative to destroy the system that utilized "creative destruction". He wrote:

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation–if I may use that biological term–that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in. . . .

The wiki on Schumpeter claims that this theory is wedded to Nikolai Kondratiev's "long wave" hypothesis that rests on the idea that there are 50 year cycles in which capitalism grows, decays and enters a crisis until a new round of capital accumulation opens up. Not only was the idea attractive to Schumpeter, it was a key part of Ernest Mandel's economic theories. Unlike Schumpeter, Mandel was on the lookout for social agencies that could break the cycle and put development on a new footing, one based on human need rather than private profit.

Returning to Rampell's article, there is one dimension entirely missing. She assumes that "creative destruction" will operate once again in order to foster a new upswing in the capitalist business cycle. But how exactly will that manifest itself? All the signs point to a general decline in business activity unless there is some kind of technological breakthrough equivalent to the computer revolution that fueled growth for decades. Does anybody believe that "green manufacturing" will play the same role? I don't myself.

One thing does occur to me. Sombart's book was written in 1913, one year before WWI and was even titled eerily enough "War and Capitalism". One wonders if the Great War would be seen as part and parcel of "creative destruction". War, after all, does have a knack for clearing the playing field with even more finality than layoffs. Schumpeter wrote his in 1942, one year into WWII. My guess is that he did not theorize war as the ultimate (and necessary?) instrument of creative destruction but history will record that WWII did introduce a whole rafter of new technology, including aluminum, radar, nuclear power, etc., while bombing old modes of production into oblivion. What a great opportunity it was for capitalism to rebuild Japan, especially after firebombing and atomic bombs did their lovely work.

In my view, there's something disgusting about this "creative destruction" business especially when it is articulated by a young, pro-capitalist Princeton graduate like Catherine Rampell who wrote for Slate, the Village Voice and other such b-list publications before crawling her way up into an editorial job at the NYT. She clearly has learned how to cater her reporting to the ideological needs of the newspaper of record, growing more and more reactionary as the crisis of capitalism deepens.

[Mar 21, 2019] Neoliberalism at 30,000 Feet

Mar 21, 2019 | jacobinmag.com

hen United Airlines flight 1462 made an unexpected landing in Chicago last month, it was not due to mechanical issues, weather conditions, or flight logistics, but a battle over legroom in the aisles. As one passenger tried to recline her seat and another used a $20 device called a Knee Defender to prevent the occupant ahead of him from leaning back, the battle over personal space descended into a scuffle. The pilot opted to make an additional stop to remove the unruly passengers.

Flight 1462 hasn't been alone. Not just the random dispute of irate travelers, similar flights have been diverted because of the airlines' frenzied drive to wring as much money out of customers as possible. Airlines are increasingly cramming more passengers onto each flight, termed "densification," and regularly overbooking flights. Any aspect of a flight that was once provided free of charge -- from a checked bag to a complementary drink to using a credit card to pay for a ticket -- can now be charged à la carte.

So relentless has this nickel and diming been that when news reports claimed the discount airline Ryan Air was about to start charging for in-flight bathroom use, many people took them seriously. But the story wasn't true -- it was all a ploy for free press from a company unwilling to pay for advertising, help disabled passengers, or provide ice for drinks.

Such frugality is only one of the problems wrought by airline deregulation. If the greatest benefit of deregulation has been that more people can afford to fly, it has come at the cost of increased tumult within the industry and reduced pay for workers.

Before the airlines were deregulated under President Jimmy Carter, the Civil Aeronautics Bureau (CAB) maintained flight pricing structures, airport gate access, and flight paths. There were rules that stipulated which airlines could compete in which market and what prices they could charge. Loosening restrictions meant abandoning the CAB and its pricing structures, and allowing an unmediated flow of competition.

With fewer restrictions, upstart fly-by-night airlines could compete against major airlines like American/US Airways, United, Delta, Alaskan, and Hawaiian Airways. Such competition, conservative and liberal advocates claimed, would bring down flight costs, providing more savings and convenience to the customer.

But allowing this level of competition also unleashed chaos. While the discount airlines would win over passengers for a time by offering flights half as expensive, the major airlines would respond by slashing their prices in an attempt to drive the upstarts out of business.

By drastically reducing ticket costs, the major airlines would take on an unsustainable amount of debt that, combined with the loss of business to the new entrants, would lead to layoffs or bankruptcy. Pension funds were then raided and labor contracts voided to pay for the price wars. With each airline company collapse, thousands of employees were laid off, decimating union membership.

To compete, the legacy airlines also drove down the salaries of their pilots, and cut benefits and vacation time. Besides a reduction in compensation, a two-tiered pay system has been set up with decent pay for incumbent pilots and markedly low wages for new entrants. Starting salaries for pilots are now as low as $15,000 a year, even as CEO pay rises inexorably. Remarking on a career in which he had seen his pay cut in half and his pension eliminated, captain Sully Sullenberger told the BBC in 2009 that he did not know "a single professional pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps."

While unions were still strong in the industry, they were constantly embroiled in bitter labor disputes. Between the voided contracts and the hemorrhaging membership caused by regular bankruptcy, they were left fighting to maintain wage standards in an unnecessarily competitive industry.

The only way discount airlines could offer such low prices was by paying their workers less, using less experienced pilots and sometimes non-unionized labor, offering fewer frills, and running spartan operations that only serviced a handful of routes with a single type of jet liner (thus simplifying pilot and mechanic training). Instead of a single union representing employees across the industry -- typified by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represented a majority of pilots -- some discount airlines maintained relationships with offshoot unions with smaller membership rolls and less leverage.

The discount airlines also depended on secondary, class-B airports that charged less in landing fees. But those discounts eventually disappeared when the secondary airports no longer needed to cut their fees to attract business.

To maintain their dominance over the market, the major airlines shifted from a direct city-to-city flight standard to the hub-and-spoke system of today. The hub-and-spoke setup allowed large centralized airports like Dallas-Ft. Worth and Atlanta to be ruled by a single company that determines which flights can use which terminals and at what cost.

While the hub-and-spoke system has some benefits, it's largely inefficient, dependent as it is on multi-stage connecting flights. Combined with the need to cut costs, it would also cause longer airport delays as planes were left waiting on the tarmac to make sure all passengers from connecting flights made it aboard. A single delay in a connecting flight could throw passengers' itineraries askew, leaving them stuck in a random airport overnight.

The major airlines used other tricks to keep out nascent airlines. They paid off travel agents and travel reservation sites to give preference to their particular airline. They introduced frequent flier miles to maintain brand allegiance.

Upstart discount airlines like Southwest were able to survive the vicious price wars by leaning on quality of service and direct flights, but most did not. The list of companies that were liquidated, temporarily or permanently, as a result is impressively long considering what it takes to start an airline: America West, PanAm, TransWorld, Western, Piedmont, Frontier, Northwest, National, Texas International, People Express, ValuJet, Air Florida, Eastern, Braniff, Skytrain, Pacific Southwest, Western Pacific, and many more.

Once bankrupt, the major airlines then bought the upstarts, creating an effective oligopoly. So much for competition.

Already on a spending spree during the heady years of the 1990s dot-com boom, buying up failed companies only saddled major airlines with more debt. While most people assume that the airlines had to be bailed out in 2001 because of the decrease in traffic after the September 11 attacks, it was also because the airlines were insolvent from previous financial problems, largely as a result of the price wars.

The actions of the major airlines may seem ruthless, but they were largely protecting their position in a deregulated industry that allowed the discount airlines to undercut labor standards just to offer cheaper prices to customers. They were defending themselves from disruption.

Considering the skill, education, and investment needed to maintain a safe and reliable airline, it is not exactly a business that needs to be disrupted. Running an airline is labor intensive, and it only turns a profit at random intervals. There's little money to be skimmed off.

With profit margins so thin, tickets on a half-empty flight have to cost twice as much as a fully booked one. Which is why, for a time, smaller cities that weren't necessarily travel hubs bore the brunt of deregulation. Routes that weren't fully booked experienced skyrocketing flight costs, which, for small-town travelers, was a huge disincentive to fly.

The bilking of transportation costs to and from smaller cities after a run of chaotic competition is eerily similar to what happened during the railway mania of the 1800s. Investors rushed to build rail lines everywhere and anywhere while money was flush. But once cash became tight, the rail industry used their monopoly power to charge exorbitant prices for anybody trying to ship in and out of smaller towns like Cincinnati. Such predatory pricing is what led to transportation regulation in the first place.

Since the 2001 airline bailout, things have calmed down a bit. It no longer costs $600 to fly from New York to Pittsburgh. Fewer discount airlines are entering the market, and the handful that are still in operation work with the major airlines on various routes (e.g. "flight provided by Frontier"). The price wars have settled to a quiet struggle played out on online travel registration websites like Kayak.com and Hipmunk.com, which have wholly replaced the job of travel agents.

But for airlines, the lower revenue from cheaper tickets has to be made up somewhere, and convenience may be the easiest element to remove. Airlines are pushing petty indignities on passengers and flight attendants by way of a million miscellaneous charges. Half the time, the discounts saved by cheaper tickets from deregulation are recouped in add-on fees. Eventually airlines may just offer extra-saver flights devoid of the most basic accommodations and simply force passengers who can't afford first-class seats to be stacked in the cargo hold like cord wood.

So what's the alternative? The airline industry is close to being a natural monopoly, there's little reason to foster competition. Indeed, the industry would benefit from nationalization or a well-regulated public option. At the very least, more regulation is necessary.

Without subsidization and some rules about flight costs, there is little incentive for the airline industry to provide affordable flights to locations that aren't fully booked. The irony is that we already subsidize airline travel. It just occurs through bailouts and bankruptcies after each airline has fought tooth and nail for market dominance. Public funds wind up paying for a wasteful, inefficient system characterized by irrational, destructive competition.

Through regulation or more aggressive means, it's quite possible to ensure good wages and working conditions and safe, affordable, reliable service -- all without blackout dates, three layovers, or all-out battles for legroom.

[Mar 21, 2019] With Personal Connection to Crash, Ralph Nader Takes on Boeing - WSJ

Mar 21, 2019 | www.wsj.com

He has long been a vocal critic of the Federal Aviation Administration, saying the agency lacks the resources and willpower to aggressively police airlines and manufacturers.

Mr. Nader said Boeing may be exposed to civil and possibly criminal liability. After the first fatal crash in October -- a Lion Air flight that crashed into the Java Sea minutes after takeoff -- company officials "were put on notice about the problem" with an automated stall-prevention system that can misfire and override pilot commands by repeatedly pushing down an aircraft's nose, he said.

The Justice and Transportation Departments are scrutinizing Boeing's dealings with the FAA over safety certifications, people familiar with the matter have said.

... ... ...

Mr. Nader has expressed his concerns to lawmakers and former regulators, and called for congressional hearings. Before the U.S. grounded the planes last week, he championed the idea of a sweeping boycott of all versions of 737 MAX aircraft. He also has stressed the importance of having Mr. Muilenburg, Boeing's CEO, testify on Capitol Hill about safety issues with the fleet.

Criticizing Boeing's original design of the automated flight-control feature, dubbed MCAS, Mr. Nader said it reflected a misguided view driven by engineering overconfidence and called it "the arrogance of the algorithms."

[Mar 21, 2019] Ralph Nader's Grandniece Died in Ethiopian Plane Crash; Now He Is Urging Boycott of Boeing Jet Democracy Now!

Mar 21, 2019 | www.democracynow.org

... ... ...

RALPH NADER : Boeing is used to getting its way with the patsy FAA . And this time, however, it's in really hot water. If it continues to dig its heels in, it's going to expose itself and its executives to potential criminal prosecution, because they are now on notice, with two crashes -- Indonesia and Ethiopia. There's probably a lot more to come out in terms of the technical dissent, in the, what was called, "heated discussions" about the plane software between the FAA , the pilots' union, Boeing. And you can't suppress technical dissent forever. And Senators Markey and Blumenthal are calling for the release of all the relevant information. And while that happens, the planes must be grounded. You see, they're on notice now. This is the future of passenger business for Boeing. They've got orders for over 3,000 planes from all over the world. They've produced and delivered about 350. Southwest is the leading owner and operator of these planes. It's digging its heels in, and so is American Airlines, I believe, and Air Canada. And Boeing is not going to get away with this, because this is not some old DC-9 about to be phased out. This is their future strategic plan. And they better own up. 2013, they grounded the 787 because of battery fires, and they had about 50 or 60 of those planes. So, there's plenty of precedent.

And the most important thing that people can do is: Do not fly this plane, the 737 MAX 8 and 9. Ask the airline, when you book the flight, whether it's that plane. The airline should not dare charge you for reservation changes. And I'm calling for a boycott of that plane. If several hundred thousand air passengers boycott that plane and there are more and more empty seats, that will do more to bring Boeing around than the patsy FAA and a rather serene Congress, which, by the way, gets all kinds of freebies from the airlines that ordinary people don't get. We've sent a survey last year, twice, to every member of Congress, asking them to disclose all these freebies. We didn't get one answer. And that helps account for, over the years, the total reluctance of members of Congress even to do such things as deal with seat size, restroom space and other conveniences, never mind just the safety of the aircraft. So, this is important for consumers. Just don't fly 737 MAX 8 or 9. Make sure that you're informed about it. And for up-to-date information, you can go to FlyersRights.org . That's run by Paul Hudson, who lost his daughter in the Pan Am 103, 30 years ago, and has been a stalwart member of the FAA Advisory Committee. And that's where you get up-to-date information, FlyersRights.org .

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we're also joined by William McGee, who's the aviation adviser for Consumer Reports . Could you give us your perspective on what's happened here? And also, could you expand on what Ralph Nader was talking about, about the use of artificial intelligence in these new planes?

WILLIAM McGEE: Sure, absolutely, Juan. You know, there are so many unanswered questions here, but many of them are focused on the time period between the first crash in late October with Lion Air and the crash on Sunday with Ethiopian. Again, for perspective here, as Ralph noted, we're not talking about old aircraft. This is an airplane that's only been in service since 2017. This is the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a recent derivative of the 737. Now, in that time period, the aircraft that crashed in October was 2 months old; the one that crashed on Sunday was 4 months old. This is really unprecedented in all the years that I've been in this industry. We don't see brand-new airplanes crash on takeoff like this under similar circumstances.

... ... ...

WILLIAM McGEE: Absolutely. And, you know, this goes back many years. Ralph mentioned that the FAA is known throughout the industry, even among some of its own employees and to airline employees, as the "tombstone agency." And that phrase comes from the fact that the FAA has shown time and time again that it is reluctant to act unless there's a tragedy and, unfortunately, unless there are fatalities. Now, we have seen this as recently as last year, when, you may recall, over Philadelphia, a Southwest 737 had a major engine malfunction that punctured a hole in the fuselage and killed a woman who was nearly sucked out of the aircraft. Well, what wasn't as well reported was that two years prior, that same engine type and that same airline, Southwest, same aircraft type, 737, also had an uncontained engine failure. But in 2016, there were no injuries, and there were no fatalities. Instead of the FAA stepping in and saying, "We need to, you know, have all of these engine blades inspected on this engine type, on all the carriers that are operating it," the FAA asked the industry, "What would you like to do? How long would you like to take to look at this?" And the industry dragged its heels, not surprisingly, and said, "We need more time." Two years later, in 2018, there was a fatality. And then, two days after that, last April 2018, two days after that woman was killed, the FAA issued what's called an AD, an airworthiness directive. That's what should have been issued in 2016, where that death wouldn't have happened. So, we have seen this time and again.

And you mentioned Attention All Passengers , my book. Much of the book, about a third of it, is devoted to the issue of the FAA oversight of airline maintenance. We could easily talk about it for two or three more days. But the bottom line is that the entire model of how the airline industry works in the United States has been changed dramatically in the last 15 years or so. All airlines in the United States -- without question, all of them -- in 2019, outsource some or most or just about all of their maintenance, what they call heavy maintenance. Much of it is done outside of the United States -- El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, China, Singapore. Again, we're talking about U.S. airlines. And although the FAA , on paper, says there is one standard for maintenance of U.S. airlines, the reality is there isn't. There are waivers given all the time, so that when work is done outside the United States, there are waivers so that there are no security background checks, there are no alcohol and drug screening programs put in place. And, in fact, many -- in some cases, most -- of the technicians cannot even be called mechanics, because they're not licensed. They're not licensed as they're required to be in the U.S. So, basically, you have two sets of rules. You have one that's for in-house airline employees and another for the outsourced facilities. And this all leads back to the FAA . I have sat in a room with FAA senior officials and asked them about this, and they say that they don't think it's a problem. It is a problem.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what impact --

WILLIAM McGEE: I've spoken to --

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What impact have the mergers, of the constant mergers of airlines, had, so we basically have a handful of U.S. airlines now, on all of this?

WILLIAM McGEE: Oh, no question. We have an oligopoly now. And, you know, even just going back as far as 2001, you know, there were four or five major carriers that we don't have anymore: America West, Continental, US Airways, TWA . You know, so what we have now is effectively an oligopoly. And this is unprecedented in the history of the aviation industry here in the United States. And so, you know, even when -- Ralph was talking about boycotts, and, you know, it's an excellent idea. But it's more challenging now than it would have been a few years ago. You know, there might have been more pressure on Southwest and American 10 or 15 years ago, when consumers had more choices. Now it's getting harder and harder for consumers to express their displeasure. We saw this after the Dr. Dao incident, where that passenger was dragged off United. In the long term, it didn't really affect United's bookings. It would have in another time, but so many people are locked in, particularly outside New York, Washington, Los Angeles. They're locked in, where they don't have a lot of choice on carriers.

AMY GOODMAN : Ralph Nader, I wanted to get your response both to this news that they were working on a fix -- they know there's a software glitch, that somehow, when on automatic pilot, when the plane is taking off, it takes this precipitous dive, and the way to deal with it is to take it off automatic and put it on manual. Now, AP has been doing a deep dive into the database of pilots complaining over and over again about this problem and saying they have to quickly switch to manual to prevent the plane from nosediving into the ground. And this latest news from The Wall Street Journal that while they're talking about this glitch being fixed in the next five weeks or so, that five weeks were lost in January because of the government shutdown.

RALPH NADER : Well, that's what Paul Hudson wrote in his press release at Flyers Rights. The focus has got to be on inaccurate or nonexisting information in Boeing's training manuals and inadequate flight training requirements. They sold this plane on the basis, among other things, of having larger engines. It's supposed to be 10 percent more fuel-efficient. But they sold it on the grounds that "You don't have to really train your pilots, airlines. This is really just a small modification of the reliable 737 that's all over the world." The question really comes down to cost cutting. They tantalize the airlines by saying, "This isn't really a new plane. It's very easy to fly, if you can fly a 737." And that turned out to be quite false...

... ... ...

[Mar 21, 2019] Pentagon to probe if Shanahan used office to help Boeing

Mar 21, 2019 | finance.yahoo.com

The Pentagon's inspector general has formally opened an investigation into a watchdog group's allegations that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has used his office to promote his former employer, Boeing Co.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an ethics complaint with the Pentagon's inspector general a week ago, alleging that Shanahan has appeared to make statements promoting Boeing and disparaging competitors, such as Lockheed Martin.

Shanahan, who was traveling with President Donald Trump to Ohio on Wednesday, spent more than 30 years at Boeing, leading programs for commercial planes and missile defense systems. He has been serving as acting Pentagon chief since the beginning of the year, after James Mattis stepped down.

The probe comes as Boeing struggles to deal with a public firestorm over two deadly crashes of the Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliner within the last five months. And it focuses attention on whether Trump will nominate Shanahan as his formal pick for defense chief, rather than letting him languish as an acting leader of a major federal agency.

Dwrena Allen, spokeswoman for the inspector general, said Shanahan has been informed of the investigation. And, in a statement, Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson said Shanahan welcomes the review.

"Acting Secretary Shanahan has at all times remained committed to upholding his ethics agreement filed with the DoD," said Crosson. "This agreement ensures any matters pertaining to Boeing are handled by appropriate officials within the Pentagon to eliminate any perceived or actual conflict of interest issue(s) with Boeing."

During a Senate hearing last week, Shanahan was asked by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., about the 737 Max issue. Shanahan said he had not spoken to anyone in the administration about it and had not been briefed on it. Asked whether he favored an investigation into the matter, Shanahan said it was for regulators to investigate.

On Wednesday, Blumenthal said that scrutiny of Shanahan's Boeing ties is necessary. "In fact, it's overdue. Boeing is a behemoth 800-pound gorilla -- raising possible questions of undue influence at DOD, FAA and elsewhere," said Blumenthal.

Shanahan signed an ethics agreement in June 2017, when he was being nominated for the job of deputy defense secretary, a job he held during Mattis' tenure. It outlined the steps he would take to avoid "any actual or apparent conflict of interest," and said he would not participate in any matter involving Boeing.

The CREW ethics complaint, based to a large part on published reports, including one by Politico in January, said Shanahan has made comments praising Boeing in meetings about government contracts, raising concerns about "whether Shanahan, intentionally or not, is putting his finger on the scale when it comes to Pentagon priorities."

One example raised by the complaint is the Pentagon's decision to request funding for Boeing 15EX fighter jets in the 2020 proposed budget. The Pentagon is requesting about $1 billion to buy eight of the aircraft.

Shanahan, 56, joined Boeing in 1986, rose through its ranks and is credited with rescuing a troubled Dreamliner 787 program. He also led the company's missile defense and military helicopter programs.

Trump has seemed attracted to Shanahan partially for his work on one of the president's pet projects -- creating a Space Force. He also has publicly lauded Shanahan's former employer, Boeing, builder of many of the military's most prominent aircraft, including the Apache and Chinook helicopters, the C-17 cargo plane and the B-52 bomber, as well as the iconic presidential aircraft, Air Force One.

This is only the third time in history that the Pentagon has been led by an acting chief, and Shanahan has served in that capacity for longer than any of the others.

Presidents typically take pains to ensure the Pentagon is being run by a Senate-confirmed official, given the grave responsibilities that include sending young Americans into battle, ensuring the military is ready for extreme emergencies like nuclear war and managing overseas alliances that are central to U.S. security.


3 hours ago Why did Trump appoint a former Boeing executive and industry lobbyist to the the Secretary of Defense to replace General Mattis? What in Shananhan's background makes him qualified to lead our nation's military forces? 3 hours ago WITHOUT A DOUBT HE DID., ALSO INVESTIGATE NIKKI HALEY'S APPOINTED ON BOEING'S BOARD TO REPLACE SHANAHAN. FOLLOW THE HOEING KICKBACKS(MONEY), TO DONALD TRUMP'S FAMILY. 3 hours ago Shanahan probably helped Boeing on the promise of a later payback just like Ms. Nikki Haley did while Gov of SC where Boeing built a new plant on her watch. She helped big time to keep the Unions out of the new Boeing plant and now Boeing is going to put her on their board of directors. Nothing like a bit of an obvious payoff. 2 hours ago Reminds me of the Bush Jr days in the White House. During the Gulf War (#2) Vice President #$%$ Cheney awarded oil company Halliburton (Cheney was CEO before accepting the VP job) to deliver meals for the troops. The contract was ?No Bid.? Why was an oil company delivering food to troops with a no bid contract? After Cheney?s Job was over being VP he went back to being CEO at Halliburton and moved Halliburton?s headquarters to Dubai. What an American! 2 hours ago Now we understand why Boeing & the FAA hesitated to ground those planes for few days despite many countries who did grounded those plane which is a precedent for a country to ground & NOT wait for the manufacturer. ONLY after Canada grounded those planes Boeing & the FAA & that's because Canada IS a the #1 flight partner of the US ! 4 hours ago Years ago there was a Boeing procurement scandal and Trump does love the swamp he claims to hate.

[Mar 20, 2019] Reuters natch, are trying to pretend it's somehow the pilot's or airline's fault, but the their own reporters show it ain't

Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

FFS , Mar 20, 2019 2:26:33 PM | link

OT: Reuters natch, are trying to pretend it's somehow the pilot's or airline's fault, but the their own reporters show it ain't

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-indonesia-crash-exclusive-idUKKCN1R10F7

[Mar 20, 2019] Was the 737 Max problem just bad software by Stephen Bryen

Mar 18, 2019 | www.asiatimes.com

he crash of the Ethiopian Max-8 Flight 409 on March 10, 2019, resulted in the grounding of all the Boeing 737 Max series aircraft – even the last hold-out, the United States, belatedly grounded them when President Trump acted and overruled the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that opposed any halt to flights.

In the United States, the FAA certifies aircraft as airworthy, puts out bulletins and advisories on problems and fixes and often is the "go to" agency for many aviation flight authorities around the world.

The 737 Max series is a new version of the venerable 737, equipped with new engines and other modifications that have impacted the aircraft's performance in good ways and bad.

Almost every expert today puts the blame for both flight disasters on faulty software that took over running the plane's flight control system. Many have pointed to Boeing's alleged lack of transparency in telling pilots what to do if the software malfunctioned. In addition, there had been at least eight pilot-reported flight control incidents prior to the first Lion Air crash.

Experienced pilots

Three of the pilots on the two doomed planes each had more than 8,000 hours flying experience – quite a lot – and the pilots of the Ethiopian airlines had additional information on the plane's flight characteristics and what to do in an emergency.

While we are still awaiting a final report on last year's Lion Air crash, we do have a quite informative initial report, although it lacks hard findings. In the Ethiopian case, we only have flight track information from ground radar and some incomplete reporting on what the pilots were saying to ground control. More will become available as the flight recorders are analyzed.

Yet despite this, we can understand some of what happened and clearly it is more than a single software glitch. This may help explain why Boeing did not meet its proposed deadline of January for installing updated software. Now in March Boeing says the replacement software will be available in April. But even if it is, there are more issues involving both hardware and software.

The software which so far has received virtually all the attention is called MCAS, for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. MCAS was added to the Max-8 series because new, heavier and larger engines replaced the old engines and as a result, the updated Max planes had a strong tendency to pitch nose up.

The new engine, CFM Leap-1B, was selected by Boeing because it was much more fuel efficient than the older models, one of the big reasons customers want the 737 Max.

The new engines forced re-engineering of parts of the 737.

Fitting the new engines meant moving them forward and lengthening the front landing gear to keep the engines from scraping on the ground. In turn, this changed the plane's center of gravity and also altered the air flow on the wings.

MCAS was a band-aid to fix the pitch up problem caused by the relocated and heavier new engines. MCAS is designed to push the nose down and prevent the aircraft from going into a stall. MCAS was intended to deal only with a specific flight risk.

The problems

Here are some of the problems one finds when reviewing the Preliminary Air Accident Investigation Report on the Lion Air crash.

1. MCAS operates by receiving information from a special sensor that measures the flying angle of the plane and takes over the flight controls if the angle is too great – meaning the aircraft could stall. A stall happens when a plane has too low an airspeed and not enough lift and the plane will literally fall out of the air.

There are two sensors that measure the angle of attack or nose-up condition of the Boeing 737 Max, one that provides data to the pilot and another that provides data to the copilot. The sensors are known as Angle of Attack Sensors, or AoA.

In the Lion Air aircraft, the pilot's AoA sensor had been found to be faulty on an earlier flight as reported by the pilot. That AoA sensor was replaced and tested by aircraft maintenance before the fatal flight.

The pilot gets no console or other warnings that his AoA sensor might be faulty. The pilot can ask his copilot what reading he is getting and see if there is a difference. That is exactly what happened on the Lion Air flight.

It would appear that the MCAS software is driven by information from the pilot's sensor. If the sensor itself is not at fault, there could still be wiring and connection problems that could feed bad information to MCAS. These conditions cannot be determined in flight.

If it is true that MCAS relies on information from only one sensor, that could be a design error. Modern aircraft are famous for built-in flight system redundancy, but apparently not in the case of MCAS. In addition, the pilot cannot manually change the MCAS choice of sensor.

2. No one has yet explained why the pilot's stick shaker was running on from the start of the flight and never stopped. The stick shaker is a motor with an unbalanced flywheel that is attached to the pilot's control stick, and another is attached to the co-pilot's stick. The stick shaker is supposed to warn the pilot of a potential stall. But why was it on nearly the whole time? And why was the co-pilot's stick shaker not on?

3. The pilots are supposed to be able to shut down MCAS, which only operates when the aircraft is manually operated, by switching the electronic trim control to off. The trim control is what MCAS uses to change the nose pitch of the 737 Max. But in the Lion Air case, we know the pilots turned off the electronic trim control. But MCAS kept adjusting the trim nose down, against the pilots' wishes. Or possibly something else was driving the trim control nose down, such as a shorted circuit or bad wiring.

4. The pilots also tried turning the aircraft's autopilot on, according to the report. MCAS is only supposed to work when the autopilot is off, that is only when the plane is operated under manual pilot control. The autopilot should have disabled MCAS but apparently it did not – in fact, the Lion Air autopilot would not turn on. There is no explanation for this. Was the autopilot locked out by MCAS? Or was there some other software or hardware foul up?

5. Pilots also had a very difficult time handling the aircraft stick, meaning that the flight control stick required a great deal of force to operate, especially when the pilots were, repeatedly, trying to recover the plane that was headed nose down, gaining speed and losing altitude. Stick force "feel" in 737s is artificial and is controlled by a couple of pitot tube sensors at the rear of the aircraft above the horizontal stabilizer.

There have been repeated problems on older 737s with the planes forward and rear pitot tubes, due partly to icing conditions and to pitot tube heater problems which are supposed to remove ice. Some pitot tubes have failed because of fouling. Pitot tubes detect aircraft speed and they do this by comparing the force of incoming air on the pitot tubes to what are called static ports located elsewhere on the plane. Accidents have been attributed to faulty or fouled pitot tubes.

It is not clear how the flight speed information from the pitot tubes is integrated into the MCAS if it is. But speed information is fed into the flight computer and if it is faulty it could create ambiguities in the MCAS and the flight computer.

6. Would better pilot training have helped pilots avoid disaster? Boeing has been criticized for not initially providing information about MCAS to Max pilots, and only later issuing a bulletin on how to deal with some MCAS anomalies. Boeing also apparently did not offer any additional pilot training, leaving pilots to find their way through a morass of complex problems made worse by possible hardware and software faults.

As it is, it appears the Lion Air pilots acted in the best way they could but were unable to overcome the instability of the aircraft as it headed nose down to disintegrate in the ocean. We don't yet know how the Ethiopian Airline pilots performed, but they had the advantage of advisories from Boeing and the FAA. Still, the same final result.

What is clear is that there is more than one single cause for the two aircraft crashes. And we know that other planes experienced control problems but recovered. These disasters suggest there was a complex of problems that caused the two disasters.

Boeing's engineers need to assess the entire flight control system, the electronics and mechanics, before a satisfactory solution is at hand.

[Mar 20, 2019] John McCain Associate Provided Dossier to Obama National Security Council Breitbart

Mar 20, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

David Kramer, a long-time advisor to late Senator John McCain, revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.

In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander.

In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department. Senator McCain asked me to meet with both of them to see if this was being taken seriously in the government," Kramer said.

"And Senator McCain asked you to meet with them?" Kramer was asked to clarify.

"Yes, just to see if this was being taken seriously. I think he wanted to do -- this was his kind of due diligence before he went to Director Comey."

Kramer testified that in his conversations with Nuland and Wallander he was told by both of them that each were aware of the dossier and that Nuland "thought Steele was a serious person."

Kramer revealed that he gave a copy of the dossier to Wallander, who was familiar with the contents but did not have a copy.

"I had a subsequent conversation with Ms. Wallander in which I gave her a copy of the document. That was probably around New Year's," he said.

"She had not seen it herself until I had shown it to her," Kramer added. "She had heard about it. And she didn't know the status of it."

In the same testimony, the McCain associate revealed that he held a meeting about the dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.

BuzzFeed infamously published Steele's full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey but he refused repeated requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office by this reporter.

In his book published last year, McCain maintained he had an "obligation" to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he would even do it again. "Anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell," McCain exclaimed.

Kramer, meanwhile, also said that he briefed others reporters on the dossier contents, including CNN's Carl Bernstein, in an effort to have the anti-Trump charges verified.

The same day BuzzFeed released the full dossier, CNN first reported the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified documents presented one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.

Kramer said that he believed McCain was sought out in order to provide credibility to the dossier claims.

"I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat, I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack," Kramer stated.

The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm.

Kramer's testimony sheds a new light on the role of the Obama administration in disseminating the largely-discredited dossier that was reportedly involved in the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump campaign and unsubstantiated claims of Russian collusion. Also Comey cited the dossier as evidence in a successful FISA application to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a former adviser to President Trump's 2016 campaign. The testimony also revealed how McCain was utilized to give the wild dossier charges a credibility boost.

Nuland and dossier

Nuland's specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.

In their book , "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," authors and reporters by Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier's claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.

Steele sought out Rome-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, with whom he had worked on a previous case. Before Gaeta met with Steele on July 5, 2016, the book relates that the FBI first secured the support of Nuland, who at the time was assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs specializing in Russia.

Regarding the arrangements for Steele's initial meeting with the FBI about the dossier claims, Isikoff and Corn report:

There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria Nuland's office at the State Department : Do you support this meeting ? Nuland, having found Steele's reports on Ukraine to have been generally credible, gave the green light.

Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele's office near Victoria station . Steele handed him a copy of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read . He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing . Then he remarked, "I have to report this to headquarters."

The book documents that Nuland previously received Steele's reports on the Ukrainian crisis and had been familiar with Steele's general work.

Nuland faced confirmation questions prior to her appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her reported changes sought to protect Clinton's State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi.

Nuland's name surfaced in a flurry of news media reports last year about the dossier and Kerry's State Department.

Sidney Blumenthal

An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named another former official from Kerry's State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The magazine reported that Kerry's chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.

Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an "old friend." Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.

Nuland, Winer Give Conflicting Accounts

There are seeming discrepancies between Winer and Nuland about actions taken involving the dossier.

Nuland described in a Politico podcast interview what she claimed was her reaction when she was presented with Steele's dossier information at the State Department.

She said that she offered advice to "those who were interfacing with" Steele, immediately telling the intermediary or intermediaries that Steele "should get this information to the FBI." She further explained that a career employee at the State Department could not get involved with the dossier charges since such actions could violate the Hatch Act, which prevents employees in the executive branch of the federal government from engaging in certain kinds of political activities.

In a second interview, this one with CBS's Face The Nation, Nuland also stated that her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.

Here is a transcript of the relevant section of her February 5 interview with Susan B. Glasser, who described Nuland as "my friend" and referred to her by her nickname "Toria":

Glasser: When did you first hear about his dossier?

Nuland: I first heard -- and I didn't know who his client was until much later, until 2017, I think, when it came out. I first heard that he had done work for a client asserting these linkages -- I think it was late July, something like that.

Glasser: That's very interesting. And you would have taken him seriously just because you knew that he knew what he was talking about on Russia?

Nuland: What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics. So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate whether they thought it was credible.

Glasser: Did you ever talk about it with anyone else higher up at the department? With Secretary Kerry or anybody else?

Nuland: Secretary Kerry was also aware. I think he's on the record and he had the same advice.

Nuland stated that Kerry "was also aware" of the dossier, but she did not describe how he was made aware. She made clear that she told "those who were interfacing" with Steele to go to the FBI since any State Department involvement could violate the Hatch Act.

Her Politico podcast interview was not the only time she claimed that her reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.

On Face The Nation on February 4, Nuland engaged in the following exchange in which she stated her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI (emphasis added):

MARGARET BRENNAN: The dossier.

VICTORIA NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction to that was, "This is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- we can't evaluate this. And frankly, if every member of the campaign who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess we're in today.

Nuland gave the two interviews after her name started surfacing in news media reports involving Kerry's State Department and the dossier. Her name also came up in relation to a criminal referral of Steele to the Justice Department in the form of a letter authored last year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

The Grassley-Graham criminal referral contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in contact with a "foreign sub-source" who was in touch with a redacted name described as a "friend of the Clintons."

Numerous media reports have since stated that the source of information provided to the State Department that was in turn passed on to Steele was Cody Shearer, a controversial figure tied to the Clintons who is also an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal. According to sources who spoke to CNN, Shearer's information was passed from Blumenthal to Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya working under Kerry. Winer says that Kerry personally recruited him to work at the State Department.

It is Winer's version of events that seems to conflict with Nuland's.

In an oped published in the Washington Post, Winer identified Nuland as the State Department official with whom he shared Steele's information. Winer writes that Nuland's reaction was that "she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material." He does not relate any further reaction from Nuland.

Winer wrote in the Washington Post (emphasis added):

In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

That was the extent of Winer's description of Nuland's reaction upon being presented with Steele's dossier claims. Nuland's public claim that her "immediate" response was to refer Steele to the FBI since State involvement could violate the Hatch Act seems to conflict with the only reaction that Winer relates from Nuland – that she felt Kerry should be made aware of the dossier information.

In Winer's Washington Post oped, he writes that Steele had a larger relationship with the State Department, passing over 100 reports relating to Russia to the U.S. government agency through Winer. Winer wrote that Nuland found Steele's reports to be "useful" and asked Winer to "continue to send them."

He wrote:

In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it. I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters, and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of events in Russia.

Kramer and the dossier

In his book, "The Restless Wave," McCain provided an inside account of how he says he came across the dossier.

He wrote that he was told about the claims in the document at a security conference in Canada in November 2016, where he was approached by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow and friend of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.

McCain wrote that Wood told him Steele "had been commissioned to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian agents as well as potentially compromising information about the President-elect that Putin allegedly possessed."

McCain, however, did not address the obvious question of whether he was told exactly who "commissioned" Steele to "investigate" the alleged Russian ties. The dossier was paid for by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.

McCain goes on to describe Wood as telling him Steele's work "was mostly raw, unverified intelligence, but that the author strongly believed merited a thorough examination by counterintelligence experts."

The politician says the dossier claims described to him were "too strange a scenario to believe, something out of a le Carré novel, not the kind of thing anyone has ever actually had to worry about with a new President, no matter what other concerns."

Still, McCain says he reasoned that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian extortion had to be investigated."

McCain concedes Wood told him he had not actually read the dossier himself, and writes that he wasn't sure if he ever met Wood before and couldn't recall previously having a conversation with Wood. Still, McCain took Wood's word for it when Wood vouched for Steele's credibility. "Steele was a respected professional, Wood assured us, who had good Russian contacts and long experience collecting and analyzing intelligence on the Kremlin," McCain wrote.

Present at the meeting with Wood and McCain was Kramer, who McCain writes agreed to "go to London to meet Steele, confirm his credibility and report back to me."

McCain doesn't detail Kramer's visit to London beyond simply writing, "When David returned, and shared his impression that the former spy was, as Sir Andrew had vouched, a respected professional, and not to outward appearances given to hyperbole or hysteria, I agreed to receive a copy of what is now referred to as 'the dossier.'''

McCain leaves out exactly where Kramer obtained his dossier copy.

The Washington Post reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it. Those details marked the clearest indication that McCain may have known that the dossier originated with Fusion GPS, meaning that he may have knowingly passed on political material to the FBI.

Also, in a New York Times oped in January, GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritch wrote that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence community via an unnamed "emissary."

In his own testimony, Kramer relates conversations with Simpson about the dossier.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

[Mar 20, 2019] The Reaction against pro-Zionist, anti-war forces in the US foreign policy became stronger and involves larger swats fo the US society

The comments below is just a small secion of almost 200 comment for the article. Moststrong opinions are deliberately omitted...
Many people now realize that they live in occupied by neocons for 40 years county and want to get thier state back. Tulsi Gabbard in this sense is just the pit of the iceberg.
Looks like alt-Right is now turned completely anti-Israeli.
Notable quotes:
"... Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body. ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Colin Wright says: March 19, 2019 at 4:50 am GMT 100 Words

@Willie ' They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.'

What a farcical distortion. The last actual Jewish civilian actually killed within the actual borders of Israel died over two years ago. It's not a battle for 'Jewish self-determination' but an endless exercise in vicious oppression. It's about as morally edifying as the Nazi occupation of Poland.

And you support it.

Robert Dolan , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:21 am GMT

Israel is a racist apartheid state and I resent that my tax dollars are sent there to buy bombs to slaughter Palestinians that have never done anything to harm me.
Moishe , says: March 19, 2019 at 5:50 am GMT
" They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.'"

The cure is diversity, mass immigration and equality. That is what the Jewish media, academia, judiciary, US rabbis say, yes to their white hosts in the diaspora. It is virtuous and noble to listen to Jewish media and do exactly as they wish.

Israel, do unto thy selves as your diaspora insists is the moral thing to do. Make yourselves a minority in Eretz Yisroel as you wish unto white goyim. KILL YOURSELF.

... ... ...

Wizard of Oz , says: March 19, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT
Recognising the West Bank as part of Israel without risking Arab numbers and fertility having the consequences to be expected in a modern democratic country would make it impossible for Israel to escape the description of apartheid state. How is that consideration going to affect outcomes in the near future?
Anonymous [246] Disclaimer , says: March 19, 2019 at 7:39 am GMT
The Jewish Firster colonization of the United States has been incremental. It is now nearing completion. Few countries if any, colonized by other (usually more powerful) countries appear to have accepted colonization with such alacrity as have many Americans in their colonization by Israel. Most have resisted colonial rule and even launched wars to rid themselves of their colonial masters.

Question is, if Israel were to be a 51st American state, would she get away with so many crimes as she does outside the Union? Or is this a case of an informal union of two criminal gangster nations? We have read in the UR of the compelling evidence of Jewish collusion in history's two most devastating world wars. The Third one -- and mother of all wars, is sure to be instigated by Zionist Israel. BTW, this post is not addressed to paid Hasbara trolls.

Anonymous [577] Disclaimer , says: March 19, 2019 at 7:51 am GMT
Zionist pigs are nothing but FAKE Jews, they are the STATE, and DO NOT represent the majority of the Israeli people. This action is nothing more than criminal FASCISM with an Imperialist agenda!

It is not the pig that is disgusting and filthy, it is the Zionist State and the rodents that control it, such as the Premier. The USA is nothing more than a filthy shit bag whore to Israel, as is the rest of the West!

Where is the UN and ICC? Eating their pork chops laughing all the way to bank. The sooner Israel is bombed to rubble, the better the world will be. Hitler new the truth about these filthy scum, that is why he wanted to remove them from planet earth. The Lords day is coming, but the Zionist scum's are coming to an end!

mark green , says: March 19, 2019 at 8:01 am GMT
AIPAC's annual star-studded gala demonstrates once again that Zio-Israeli influence in American life is alive and well and operating unopposed.

No foreign or domestic lobby comes even close to The Lobby's baleful impact on American independence. This includes its shameless role in the manufacture of Zionist-friendly Fake News, Congressional waste and murderous appropriations, as well as Zio-Washington's blood-soaked war machinery that rewards one 'democratic ally' way over yonder while it relentlessly targets that same ally's foes, rivals, and outcasts.

Is this any way to run an Empire?

In any case, one is expected to not examine this phenomena too critically as it's already Badthink to do so (and possibly even verging on 'anti-Semitism'!)

Just. Don't. Go. There.

Thus the great majority of middle-of-the-road, 'centrist-seeking' Americans have learned to bow their collective heads in a show of deference when the activist offspring and well-heeled advocates of a certain downtrodden tribe of Glorious Survivors gather in DC to make political whoopee by praising the Zionist juggernaut and raising boatloads of influence-buying shekels for America's next class of political prostitutes. It's who we are.

And as for you HATERS out there, we have this to say:

Six Million! Six million you Nazi scum! We are coming for you!

Understand?

Therefore Do Not talk back. Do Not get out of line.

Bear in mind that those who do get out of line tend to disappear rapidly from public life. (worth keeping in mind, eh?)

It is advised therefore to not examine this phenomena too aggressively. (Just be quiet)

This is America and compromises must be made!

Israel's pampered, moneyed, exclusive, and relentlessly militarized agenda therefore must get special, praised, and privileged treatment on every DC stage and from the mouth of every pundit and tastemaker on every American TV.

It's unanimous! Gotta love em!

(or else).

Why spoil the party with needless dissent, unpleasant facts, or contrary opinions?

Really.

Thus when AIPAC's in town, there's glorious bipartisanship and wondrous unanimity. Zionism is great!

To make political matters even more surreal, Democrat attack-dog, Robert Mueller (with forward assistance of our Israeli-centric news and entertainment media) is still sniffing around Google and still turning over rocks on Facebook and elsewhere in hopes of finding those dastardly Russian fingerprints that will 'prove' (once and for all!) that Putin and a handful of underpaid Russian propagandist tricked the American people into voting the WRONG WAY.

The Russkies stole the whole damn election on behalf of Trump and his deplorable base of rednecks and white supremacists. Just check with the attendees at this season's AIPAC soiree, they'll splain it to ya. It's Russia!

However, when one considers that the Russian/US cold war has only escalated since the election of Donald J. Trump, this far Left conspiracy theory does not entirely hold water.

Oh well.

Thank goodness Israel is intervening here and helping and orchestrating for the good of America (and for democracy in general) and that the Israeli people stand united and for all things righteous and democratic and free.

Go Bibi go!

anon [248] Disclaimer , says: March 19, 2019 at 8:27 am GMT
Circumspect, thoughtful and well done. Unfortunately, religion in general, and its relation to Israel specifically, seem to function as areas of inactivity in our President's otherwise well-functioning intellect.
Ilya G Poimandres , says: March 19, 2019 at 8:30 am GMT
It is not Otzma Yehudit that some fascist fraction of Israel or Judaism, no – exceptionalism is fascism by a simpler name, and those that self declare themselves as the chosen people of God are all fascists.
Germanicus , says: March 19, 2019 at 9:22 am GMT
@Colin Wright Israel has no borders defined.
The jews regard greater Israel the borders, Euphrates and Nile, the two blue strips on their flag.
It is in plain sight, but many can't see it.
Z-man , says: March 19, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT
Depressing as usual Philip Giraldi, thanks for brightening up my day, lol.

Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

A who's who of Zionist lackeys.

It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the usual scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles should not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be otherwise occupied.

I live in the Garden State and can't believe Menendez got re-elected, but really I do.
As for Abrams I have to agree with him there, Jews and Gentiles shouldnt be allowed to intermarry or have children.
There are many reasons for this, some good and some maybe not so good (in your eyes). Let me cut to the chase and be as offensive , to some, as I can. Infesting gentile blood lines (white Christian) with Jew-ish ones only muddies the waters even more in the battle or right and wrong, from deep philosophical and religious grounds, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, to the earthly issue of landing the Zionist Entity right smack on top of Palestine.
Going back to the big picture, I'm may not be a very good Christian but as a follower of Christ and knowing of the Book of Revelation and even less of the works of Nostradamus, it seems that Christian Zionists, for all their stupidity, may be on to something especially with the approximate timelines of Nostradamus.
I will just hope for the best and that 'the truth shall set me free.'

Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website March 19, 2019 at 10:37 am GMT
He has entered into a coalition with the openly racist Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit

Racist and anti-Christian. Its leader, Michael Ben-Ari, tore up a New Testament, describing it as a despicable book which should be in history's trash can. Activist Benzi Gopstein has called for churches in Israel to be burned down and has described Christians as blood-sucking vampires who should be expelled from Israel.

The New Observer has the story . Ben-Ari's racism was too much even for Israel and he has been banned from standing in next month's election.

jacques sheete , says: March 19, 2019 at 11:31 am GMT

Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body.

The US has a record of recognizing scumbag regimes, and here's another example.:

Even after Woody Wilson's attorney general Mitchell Palmer's "Great Red Scare*" of 1919 in the USA and much opposition to International Commienizm, Stalin-stlye, 'Ol FDR couldn't wait to recognize the USSR which is something he did shortly after getting elected in 1933 after getting a meaningless "promise" from Stalin that he'd stop supporting Red terror* in the US. It must not have mattered to him that Lenin and Stalin had been terrorizing their own for over a decade, and in fact, Stalin had just finished engineering a slow death-by-starvation holocaust of up to 10 million Ukrainians. He also deported many adults, leaving their children to starve in the streets.

... ... ...

jacques sheete , says: March 19, 2019 at 11:43 am GMT
@Willie

Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they identify with Jews, and feel a kinship*.

My, how tender. But keep dreaming and scheming; why else do you think AIPAC et al exist? Thanks for the laughs. It has nothing to do with kinship, but rather much to do about knowing who's "boss," at least for now.

[Mar 20, 2019] AIPAC Is Coming To Town - Again! by Philip Giraldi

Mar 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

AIPAC is a seriously threatening organization with income of more than $100 million per annum, nearly 400 employees, 100,000 members, seventeen regional offices, and a "vast pool of donors." It clearly includes a lot of smart and savvy folks who know a lot about what is going on in the Middle East, but its panels will not include a single word about shooting unarmed protesters, declaring Israel to be a "nation state for Jews alone," its own acceptance of laws attacking freedom of speech, or its use of Jewish donated money to corrupt the American political system encouraging "allegiance to a foreign country" on the part of U.S. citizens. Bibi will undoubtedly pick up on AIPAC's cozy theme of inclusiveness by taking the opportunity to burnish his credentials as the leader who can continue to deliver on unlimited and uncritical support from the United States. He will almost certainly meet with President Donald Trump and the two will undoubtedly mention the terrible wave of anti-Semitism that is sweeping the globe, justifying still more ethnic cleansing of the diminishing number of Arabs living in Greater Israel and the bombing of Iran.

Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the usual scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles should not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be otherwise occupied.

A number of the "American" government attendees at the event are actually Israeli citizens. Sigal Mandelker, a committed Zionist who holds the perpetually Jewish position of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the United States Department of Treasury, is an Israeli by birth and it is widely believed that a number of Jewish congressmen and government officials who will be attending the AIPAC conference have dual citizenship. On the conference website's roster of attendees, it is amusing to see the official photos in which the U.S. legislators and officials are standing in front of the American flag, seemingly disinterested in the irony that what AIPAC is doing is destructive of democracy in America and a sell-out to Israeli interests, undermining those of the United States.

Netanyahu's most serious opposition in the election appears to be a centrist coalition headed by former Israeli Defense Force chief General Benny Gantz, who has spoken of his pride in killing 1,364 "terrorists" in Gaza, and former Finance Minister Yair Lapid. It is the principal challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election hopes. Israeli courts have also meanwhile banned several Arab parties while allowing extreme right-wing Jewish parties to appear on the ballot


Willie , says: March 19, 2019 at 3:14 am GMT

Well they are swinging for the fences, what would you like them to do, invite Hezbollah for tea, these Islamist make no small talk about destroying the Jewish state completely IE the Jews.
So what would you have them do. If you are in favor of the Jewish state going down, you are in the minority not because of dual loyalty evil AIPAC.
Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they identify with Jews, and feel a kinship. Jews fought in both World wars, I mean search thru a microscope for a muslim, and lets face it Shira is anti capitalist, anti women, and anti separation of church and state.
Nothing like the obvious reasons, yet you like to make it all about the Jews.
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.
Grace Poole , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:06 am GMT
@Willie

They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries,

Such a shame the zionists did not know about that sea of Muslim only countries in 1897 when they started plotting to take over Palestine.
All those Muslims. who knew?

Beefcake the Mighty , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:12 am GMT
Straight from the horse's mouth:

https://m.jpost.com/US-Elections/US-Jews-contribute-half-of-all-donations-to-the-Democratic-party-468774

RobinG , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT
@Willie

So what would you have them do.

RFLMAO. That's EXACTLY the line the PR advisers coached you to say, right?
Good boy, Willie. LOL. There's a great film about Israeli propaganda, FREE online. Watch the Israeli spokesman bleat, "What would you do?"

THE OCCUPATION OF THE AMERICAN MIND
__________________________________
Israel's Public Relations War in the United States

Full length or 20 min. version –
https://www.occupationmovie.org/

RobinG , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:41 am GMT
Netanyahu rival thinks Trump could recognize Golan Heights to swing Israeli election
https://www.axios.com/netanyahu-benny-gantz-trump-golan-heights-israel-election-fce81fd9-7290-4e1d-95fd-8330dac3a921.html

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's main political opponent Benny Gantz, who is heading the "Blue and White" party that leads in the polls, thinks President Trump could recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights in order to help Netanyahu win the April 9 elections, three Gantz aides told me.

Why it matters: Israel has occupied the Golan Heights from Syria since 1967. U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights would be a huge diplomatic win for Netanyahu -- no less significant than the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In the last year, Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, including Gantz's political ally Yair Lapid, have started calling for U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights.

•Gantz's aides told me they think Trump could announce U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights during Netanyahu's visit to the White House two weeks from now. Gantz's aides told me that if Trump does this, it will give Netanyahu a huge achievement to campaign on.

****
Driving the news: Netanyahu discussed the possibility of U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights during a visit to the territory on Monday with Sen. Lindsey Graham. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman attended all of Netanyahu's talks with Graham.
•After the talks, Graham stood next to Netanyahu in front of cameras and said that once he arrives back to Washington, he will help push Sen. Ted Cruz's initiative to pass a bill in the Senate for U.S. recognition in the Golan Heights.

****
The White House refrained from commenting and a State Department official told me there is no change to the U.S. position on the Golan Heights for the moment.

Colin Wright , says: March 19, 2019 at 4:42 am GMT
We could recognize the West Bank as part of Israel -- then demand that Israel give the inhabitants the vote.

You know, they're being a democracy and all.

[Mar 19, 2019] Trump Forced to Ban Boeing Poor Quality of American Planes to Affect Russian Airlines the Least! - YouTube

350 planes were grounded.
Notable quotes:
"... The United States held out to the last. Trump personally requested to ground the flagship aircraft of the American company only late evening yesterday, when Canada joined the interdiction. ..."
Mar 16, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Subscribe to Vesti News https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8M...

Today, Russia, following Europe and America, banned the flights of Boeing 737 MAX. Dozens of countries have stopped using this aircraft after the Sunday crash in Ethiopia.

The United States held out to the last. Trump personally requested to ground the flagship aircraft of the American company only late evening yesterday, when Canada joined the interdiction.


Putin The Great , 2 days ago (edited)

737 is out of date considering the modern bigger fuel efficient engines don't fit it.They're just applying band aid to fix it's short coming. Airbus A320 has no problems with these new engines as it sits higher.

orderoutofchaos621 , 2 days ago

Sukhoi superjet 100 and MC 21 should be prioritised by Russian airlines.

Richie Blackmore. , 3 days ago

40 countries banned these aircraft from their airspace..... Comparable to the vicious, aggressive, malign, thoughtless, selfish and self aggrandising SANCTIONS the US regime and its vassals slap on innocent countries in attempts to impoverish or/and change their governments!!!!!!!!!

But this is self inflicted!!!!!! I hope the US regime can see the irony in this!!!!

0pTicaL823 , 2 days ago

Boeing should thank China for being the first to ground it's entire fleet, if one of the 96 planes that China operated, god forbid, had gone down, Boeing is done, 3-strikes you're out

statinskill , 2 days ago (edited)

Something is wrong with these planes and it is a good thing that they're being grounded world-wide until the problem is fixed. It is prudent both from the side of Rosaviatsiya and the FAA to not permit these planes to fly in the meanwhile to prevent further potential tragedies. However this is no reason to simply write off the huge fleet of Boeing 737 MAX planes in service world-wide. Right now engineers at Boeing are working on the problem and then those planes will be retrofitted asap. Personally I have no particular concerns flying in a Boeing 737 MAX once the problem is fixed.

[Mar 18, 2019] Boeing (BA) Secures $250M Deal to Support LRSO Cruise Missile

Mar 18, 2019 | finance.yahoo.com

Zacks Equity Research , Zacks March 18, 2019

The Boeing Company BA recently won a $250 million contract to offer weapon system integration for the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) Cruise Missile. Work related to the deal is scheduled to be completed by Dec 31, 2024.

The contract was awarded by the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Per the terms of the deal, this aerospace giant will provide aircraft and missile carriage equipment development and modification, engineering, testing, software development, training, facilities and support necessary to fully integrate the LRSO Cruise Missile on the B-52H bomber platform.

Attributes of LRSO

The LRSO is a nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile, under development. It is set to replace the current AGM-86 air launched cruise missile (ALCM). LRSO, might be up to about 50% longer than Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and still be suitable for internal carriage by the B-2 and B-52.

Our View

AGM-86 ALCM has been serving the U.S. Air Force quite efficiently. However, with increasingly sophisticated air defense systems developed by America's nemeses, especially Russia, demand for a new stealth nuclear-armed cruise missile capable of either destroying these defenses or penetrating them has been increasing consistently. In this scenario, the LRSO comes as the most credible stealthy and low-yield option available to the United States (according to Strategic Studies Quarterly Report).

Boeing's B-52, which has been the U.S. Air Force's one of the most preferred bombers, is completely dependent on long-range cruise missiles and cannot continue in the nuclear mission beyond 2030 without LRSO. As B-52 is expected to play a primary role in the U.S. nuclear mission for at least next decade and ALCM is already well beyond its originally planned end of life, we may expect more contracts similar to the latest one to usher in from the Pentagon in the coming days. This, in turn, should prove conducive to Boeing.

Price Performance

In a year's time, shares of Boeing have gained about 16.5% against the industry's 2.2% decline.

[Mar 18, 2019] Boeing Tumbles On Grand Jury Subpoena Probing 737 MAX Approval

Mar 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In the latest blow to both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, the WSJ reported overnight that Federal prosecutors and Department of Transportation officials are scrutinizing the development of Boeing 737 MAX jetliners and in particular its anti-stall (MCAS) system, inquiries described as "unusual" and which come amid probes of regulators' safety approvals of the new plane.

The Seattle Times separately reported that Boeing's safety analysis of a new flight control system on 737 MAX jets had several crucial flaws.

According to the WSJ , a "grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a broad subpoena dated March 11 - a day after the Ethiopian Airlines crash a week ago - to at least one person involved in the 737 MAX's development, seeking related documents, including correspondence, emails and other messages." The subpoena, with a prosecutor from the Justice Department's criminal division listed as a contact, sought documents to be handed over later this month.

It wasn't immediately clear if the Justice Department's probe is related to scrutiny of the FAA by the DOT inspector general's office, reported earlier Sunday by The Wall Street Journal and that focuses on a safety system that has been implicated in the Oct. 29 Lion Air crash that killed 189 people, according to a government official briefed on its status. Aviation authorities are looking into whether the anti-stall system may have played a role in last week's Ethiopian Airlines crash, which killed all 157 people on board . The WSJ sources add that the inspector general's inquiry focuses on ensuring relevant documents and computer files are retained.

The Justice Department probe involves a prosecutor in the fraud section of the department's criminal division, a unit that has brought cases against well-known manufacturers over safety issues, including Takata Corp.

The news comes at a sensitive time for both the FAA, which was among the last regulators to ground the 737 Max following a broad global response (led by China) and for Boeing, whose stock has tumbled in the aftermath of the latest crash, and as the WSJ notes, "it is highly unusual for federal prosecutors to investigate details of regulatory approval of commercial aircraft designs, or to use a criminal probe to delve into dealings between the FAA and the largest aircraft manufacturer the agency oversees."

Probes of airliner programs or alleged lapses in federal safety oversight typically are handled as civil cases, often by the DOT inspector general. The inspector general, however, does have authority to make criminal referrals to federal prosecutors and has its own special agents.

Ironically, over the years, U.S. aviation companies and airline officials have been sharply critical of foreign governments, including France, South Korea and others, for conducting criminal probes of some plane makers, their executives and in some cases, even individual pilots, after high-profile or fatal crashes. The FAA's current enforcement policy stresses enhanced cooperation with domestic airlines and manufacturers -- featuring voluntary sharing of important safety data -- instead of seeking fines or imposing other punishment.

News of the U.S. government scrutiny comes shortly after Ethiopia's transport minister, Dagmawit Moges, said there were "clear similarities" between the two crashes. U.S. officials cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions because data from the black boxes of the Ethiopian Airlines plane still need to be analyzed. The two crashes - which may be linked to the same structural defect on the airliner - have sparked the biggest crisis Boeing has faced in about two decades, threatening sales of a plane model that has been the aircraft giant's most stable revenue source and potentially making it more time consuming and difficult to get future aircraft designs certified as safe to fly.

The FAA said Sunday that the 737 MAX, which entered service in 2017, was approved to carry passengers as part of the agency's "standard certification process," including design analyses; ground and flight tests; maintenance requirements; and cooperation with other civil aviation authorities. Agency officials in the past have declined to comment on various decisions regarding specific systems. Sunday's statement said the agency's "certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft."

Earlier, a Boeing spokesman said: "The 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the identical FAA requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives. The FAA considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements."

Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement Sunday the company continues to support the Ethiopian investigation, "and is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available." Muilenburg added: "As part of our standard practice following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate, institute product updates to further improve safety."

Governments world-wide have grounded the MAX, an updated version of the decades-old 737, while investigators and engineers seek clues.

And so, as 737 Max scrutiny grows and as Boeing and the FAA now seek to deflect increased government attention to one another - Boeing stock is once again tumbling, and is down 3% in premarket trading...

[Mar 18, 2019] Tulsi Smashes CNN's Pro War Horribleness

CNN is just mouthpiece for intelligence community and MIC
The question of a type "did you finished to beat your wife" are very difficult to ask. So how skillfully Tulsi handled those "sinking" question comment her skills.
Mar 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Become a Patron/Premium Member: https://www.patreon.com/jimmydore & http://bit.ly/JDPremium Schedule of Live Shows: http://bit.ly/2gRqoyL

PeterMX , says: March 16, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT

The problem with Jimmy Dore is he has some kind of mental block or is somehow completely unaware of the reasons we bomb countries that are hostile to Israel and located right on their border or at least near them. You also have to be completely unaware of the power of the Jewish lobbies and their obvious bias towards their own interests to ignore Jews role in promoting wars that benefit Israel. It's not the "military industrial complex" Jimmy, it's who controls that complex. Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN is a Jew, that like Jake Tapper (also a Jew) sees any destruction of Syria as beneficial to Israel. The neo-Con Max Boot was born in Russia and still wants to bomb Russia because he's a Jew that doesn't want Putin preventing Jewish controlled US from destroying Syria. I can level some similar criticism at Jimmy that he levels at the mainstream media.

[Mar 18, 2019] Something about MadCow or this hilarious video which wasn't meant to be funny

Reminder why should never listen to MadCow show ;-). And BTW MadCow is paid 30K a day... You decide whether she is lazy and incompetent, or bought and evil...
Dec 09, 2016 | www.unz.com

Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down. Subscribe...

[Mar 16, 2019] Boeing 737 Crashes Raise Tough Questions on Aircraft Automation - Bloomberg

Mar 16, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Tom Enders just couldn't resist the swipe at the competition. It was June 2011, and the chief executive officer of Airbus SE was on a stage at the Paris air show after the planemaker won in a matter of days an unprecedented 600 orders for its upgraded A320neo airliner, while Boeing Co. stood on the sidelines.

"If our colleagues in Seattle still maintain we're only catching up with their 737, I must ask myself what these guys are smoking," Enders blurted out, to the general amusement of the audience, while Boeing representatives at the back of the room looked on.

Boeing had wavered on its decision whether to follow Airbus's lead and re-engine the 737 or go with an all-new aircraft. Customers were willing to wait for "something more revolutionary," as Jim Albaugh, at the time Boeing's head of commercial aircraft, said then.

But the European manufacturer's blow-out success with the A320neo, essentially a re-engined version of its popular narrow-body family, would soon force Boeing's hand.

As the A320neo became the fastest-selling plane in civil aviation history as Airbus picked off loyal Boeing customers like American Airlines Group Inc. , the U.S. company ditched the pursuit of an all-new jet and responded in July 2011 with its own redesign, the 737 Max.

"The program was launched in a panic," said Sash Tusa, an analyst at Agency Partners , an equity research firm in London. "What frightened Boeing most of all was losing their biggest and most important customer. American Airlines was the catalyst."

It turned out that Chicago-based Boeing wasn't too late to the party in the end: While the Max didn't quite replicate the neo's order book, it did become the company's fastest seller as airlines scrambled to cut their fuel bills with new engines that promised savings of 20 percent or more. All told, the Max raked in about 5,000 orders, keeping the playing field fairly level in the global duopoly between Airbus and Boeing.

Close Scrutiny

Now the 737 Max is grounded globally, after two almost factory-fresh jets crashed in rapid succession. As a result, the repercussions of Boeing's response to Airbus's incursion are under the microscope. Getting particular scrutiny are the use of more powerful, fuel-saving engines and automated tools to help pilots control the aircraft.

After the grounding, Boeing said that it "continues to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 Max, and that it was supporting the decision to idle the jets "out of an abundance of caution." The company declined to comment beyond its public statements.

In late October, a plane operated by Lion Air went down minutes after taking off in Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Then on March 10, another 737 Max crashed, this time in Ethiopia en route to Kenya. Again, none of the 157 people on board survived the impact.

There are other similarities that alarmed airlines and regulators and stirred public opinion, leading to the grounding of the 737 Max fleet of more than 350 planes. According to the Federal Aviation Administration , "the track of the Ethiopian Airlines flight was very close and behaved very similar to the Lion Air flight."

How Boeing Safety Feature Became a Suspect in Crashes: QuickTake

After decades of steadily declining aircraft accidents, the question of how two identical new planes could simply fall out of the sky minutes after takeoff has led to intense scrutiny of the 737 Max's systems. Adding to the chorus in the wake of the crash was President Donald Trump, who lamented the complexities of modern aviation, suggesting that people in the cockpit needed to be more like nuclear physicists than pilots to command a jet packed with automated systems.

"Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT," the president said in the first of a pair of tweets on March 12, darkly warning that "complexity creates danger."

Analog Machine

Automation plays a limited role in the 737 Max. That's because the aircraft still has essential analog design and layout features dating back to the 1960s, when it was conceived. It's a far older concept than the A320, which came to market at the end of the 1980s and boasted innovations like fly-by-wire controls, which manipulate surfaces such as flaps and horizontal tail stabilizers with electrical impulses and transducers rather than heavier hydraulic links.

Upgrading the 737 to create the Max came with its own set of issues. For example, the 737 sits considerably lower to the ground, so fitting the bigger new engines under the wings was a structural challenge (even with the squished underbelly of the engine casing). In response, Boeing raised the front landing gear by a few inches, but this and the size of the engines can change the plane's center of gravity and its lift in certain maneuvers.

Boeing's technical wizardry for the 138- to 230-seat Max was a piece of software known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. It intervenes automatically when a single sensor indicates the aircraft may be approaching a stall. Some pilots complained, though, that training on the new system wasn't sufficient and properly documented.

"The benefits of automation are great, but it requires a different level of discipline and training,'' said Thomas Anthony, director of the Aviation Safety and Security Program at the University of Southern California. Pilots must make a conscious effort to monitor the plane's behavior. And reliance on automation means they will take back control only in the worst situations, he said.

Errant Sensor

With the Lion Air crash, data from the recovered flight recorders points to a battle in the cockpit between the software and the pilots who struggled in vain to keep control. The data showed that an errant sensor signaled the plane was in danger of stalling and prompted the MCAS to compensate by repeatedly initiating a dive. The pilots counteracted by flipping a switch several times to raise the nose manually, which temporarily disabled MCAS. The cycle repeated itself more than two dozen times before the plane entered its final deadly dive, according to the flight data.

With the flight and cockpit voice recorders of the Ethiopian plane now in France for analysis, the interaction between the MCAS system and the pilots will again be under close scrutiny, probably rekindling the broader debate about who or what is in control of the cockpit.

That man-versus-machine conundrum has been central to civil aviation for years. Automation has without doubt made commercial flying much safer, as planemakers added systems to help pilots set engine thrust, navigate with greater precision and even override human error in the cockpit.

For example, automation on modern aircraft keeps pilots within a so-called flight envelope to avoid erratic maneuvers that might destabilize the aircraft. Analyses of flight data show that planes have more stable landings in stormy, low-visibility conditions when automation is in charge than on clear days when they land by sight.

Sully's Miracle Landing

The most daring descent in recent memory, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in early 2009, is Exhibit A of how an interconnected cockpit worked hand-in-hand with an experienced pilot. Automatic pitch trim and rudder coordination assisted manual inputs and kept the Airbus A320 steady on its smooth glide into the icy water. The drama showed that automation can play a crucial support function, provided a pilot is fully trained and the aircraft properly maintained.

"Some people are saying modern aircraft such as the 737 Max are too complex," said Dave Wallsworth, a British Airways captain on the Airbus A380 double-decker. "I disagree. The A380 is a far more complex aircraft and we fly it very safely every day. Pilots are capable of understanding aircraft systems so long as the manuals contain the information we need."

Airbus traditionally has pushed the envelope on automation and a more modern cockpit layout, with larger screens and steering by joystick rather than a central yoke, turning pilots into something akin to systems operators. Boeing's philosophy, on the other hand, has been to leave more authority in the hands of pilots, though newer designs also include some computerized limits. Like Airbus planes, the latest aircraft from Seattle -- where Boeing makes most of its jetliners -- are equipped with sophisticated autopilots, fly-by-wire controls or systems to set speed during landings.

"The big automation steps came in the 1980s with the entry into service of the A320 and the whole fly-by-wire ethos," said John Strickland, an independent aviation analyst. "I don't think automation per se is a problem, we see it in wide-scale use in the industry, and as long as it is designed to work hand-in-hand with pilots and pilots understand how to use it, it shouldn't be an issue."

Erratic Movements

But the counter-argument is that increasingly complex systems have led computers to take over, and that many pilots may have forgotten how to manually command a jet -- particularly in a moment of crisis. That criticism was leveled at Airbus, for example, after the mid-Atlantic crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009 that killed all 228 people on board. Analysis of the flight recorders showed the crew was confused by stall warnings and unreliable speed readings, leading to erratic maneuvers that ended in catastrophe.

>

"I grew up on steam gauges and analog, and the modern generation on digital and automation," said Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association and a Boeing 737 captain for the Dallas-based airline. "No matter what you grew up on, you have to fly the plane. If the automation is doing something you don't want it to do or that you don't understand, you have to disconnect it and fly the plane."

A 2013 report by the FAA found more than 60 percent of 26 accidents over a decade involved pilots making errors after automated systems abruptly shut down or behaved in unexpected ways. And the 2016 inspector general's report at the FAA noted that as the use of automation increases, "pilots have fewer opportunities to use manual flying skills."

"As a result, the opportunities air carrier pilots have during live operations to maintain proficiency in manual flight are limited and are likely to diminish," the report found.

The grounding of the 737 Max fleet has left Boeing in crisis. The company couldn't get through with its message that the plane was safe to fly, as the group of regulators and airlines idling the jet kept expanding. The 737 program is Boeing's cash cow, accounting for a third of its profit, and Boeing's stock dropped sharply in the days after the disaster.

Get in Line

The Max gave Boeing a relatively cheap path back into the narrow-body game that it was at risk of losing to the Airbus neo. At the time, Boeing had to make a quick decision, as it was still burdened financially by the 787 Dreamliner wide-body that was over budget and behind schedule.

Both manufacturers have said they won't come out with an all-new single-aisle model until well into the next decade, preferring to wait for further technological advancements before committing to massive spending. The success of both the neo and the Max bought the companies that extra time, with orders books stretching years into the future.

Half a century after it was launched almost as an afterthought, the 737 program has become the lifeblood of Boeing that helps finance the rest of the corporation -- the biggest U.S. exporter. It's the one aircraft that Boeing cannot afford to give up.

"The Max was the right decision for the time," said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the consultancy Teal Group . "Yes, there may be an issue with MCAS needing a software patch. Yes, there may need to be some additional training. But these are not issues that cause people to change to the other guys' jet. The other guys have a waiting line, and when you get to the back of that line, you burn more fuel."

-- With assistance by Alan Levin, Benjamin D Katz, Margaret Newkirk, Michael Sasso, and Mary Schlangenstein

[Mar 15, 2019] Patriots Turning To #YangGang In Response To Trump, Conservatism Inc. Failure by James Kirkpatrick

Mar 15, 2019 | www.unz.com

The dark horse candidate of the 2020 Democratic primary is entrepreneur Andrew Yang , who just qualified for the first round of debates by attracting over 65,000 unique donors. [ Andrew Yang qualifies for first DNC debate with 65,000 unique donors , by Orion Rummler, Axios, March 12, 2019]

Yang is a businessman who has worked in several fields, but was best known for founding Venture for America , which helps college graduates become entrepreneurs. However, he is now gaining recognition for his signature campaign promise -- $1,000 a month for every American.

ORDER IT NOW

Yang promises a universal entitlement, not dependent on income, that he calls a "freedom dividend." To be funded through a value added tax , Yang claims that it would reduce the strain on "health care, incarceration, homeless services, and the like" and actually save billions of dollars. Yang also notes that "current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally."

As Yang himself notes, this is not a new idea, nor one particularly tied to the Left. Indeed, it's been proposed by several prominent libertarians because it would replace the far more inefficient welfare system. Charles Murray called for this policy in 2016. [ A guaranteed income for every American , AEI, June 3, 2016] Milton Friedman suggested a similar policy in a 1968 interview with William F. Buckley, though Friedman called it a "negative income tax."

He rejected arguments that it would cause indolence. F.A. Hayek also supported such a policy; he essentially took it for granted . [ Friedrich Hayek supported a guaranteed minimum income , by James Kwak, Medium, July 20, 2015]

It's also been proposed by many nationalists, including, well, me. At the January 2013 VDARE.com Webinar, I called for a "straight-up minimum income for citizens only" among other policies that would build a new nationalist majority and deconstruct Leftist power. I've retained that belief ever since and argued for it here for years.

However, I've also made the argument that it only works if it is for citizens only and is combined with a restrictive immigration policy. As I previously argued in a piece attacking Jacobin's disingenuous complaints about the "reserve army of the unemployed," you simply can't support high wages, workers' rights, and a universal basic income while still demanding mass immigration.

Yang is justifying the need for such a program because of automation . Again, VDARE.com has been exploring how automation may necessitate such a program for many years . Yang also discussed this problem on Tucker Carlson's show , which alone shows he is more open to real discussion than many progressive activists.

Yang is also directly addressing the crises that the Trump Administration has seemly forgotten. Unlike Donald Trump himself, with his endless boasting about "low black and Hispanic unemployment," Yang has directly spoken about the demographic collapse of white people because of "low birth rates and white men dying from substance abuse and suicide ."

Though even the viciously anti-white Dylan Matthews called the tweet "innocuous," there is little doubt if President Trump said it would be called racist. [ Andrew Yang, the 2020 long-shot candidate running on a universal basic income, explained , Vox, March 11, 2019]

Significantly, President Trump himself has never once specifically recognized the plight of white Americans.

Of course, Yang has foolish, even flippant policies on other issues. He wants to make Puerto Rico a state . He supports a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, albeit with an 18-year waiting period and combined with pledges to secure the border and deport illegals who don't enroll in the citizenship program. He wants to create a massive bureaucratic system to track gun owners, restrict gun ownership , and require various "training" programs for licenses. He wants to subsidize local journalists with taxpayer dollars, which in practice would mean just paying Leftist activists to dox people in their communities.

(Though as some have pointed out, with a thousand dollars a month no matter what, right-wingers wouldn't have to worry as much about being targeted by journofa ).

Indeed, journalists, hall monitors that they are, have recognized that President Trump's online supporters are flocking to Yang, bringing him a powerful weapon in the meme wars. (Sample meme at right.) And because many of these online activists are "far right" by Main Stream Media standards, or at least Politically Incorrect, there is much hand-waving and wrist-flapping about the need for Yang to decry "white nationalists." So of course, the candidate has dutifully done so, claiming "racism and white nationalism [are] a threat to the core ideals of what it means to be an American". [ Presidential candidate Andrew Yang has a meme problem , by Russell Brandom, The Verge, March 9, 2019]

But what does it mean to be an American? As more and more of American history is described as racist, and even national symbols and the national anthem are targets for protest, "America" certainly doesn't seem like a real country with a real identity. Increasingly, "America" resembles a continent-sized shopping mall, with nothing holding together the warring tribes that occupy it except money.

President Trump, of course, was elected because many people thought he could reverse this process, especially by limiting mass immigration and taking strong action in the culture wars, for example by promoting official English. Yet in recent weeks, he has repeatedly endorsed more legal immigration. Rather than fighting, the president is content to brag about the economy and whine about unfair press coverage and investigations. He already seems like a lame duck.

The worst part of all of this is that President Trump was elected as a response not just to the Left, but to the failed Conservative Establishment. During the 2016 campaign, President Trump specifically pledged to protect entitlements , decried foreign wars, and argued for a massive infrastructure plan. However, once in office, his main legislative accomplishment is a tax cut any other Republican president would have pushed. Similarly, his latest budget contains the kinds of entitlement cuts that are guaranteed to provoke Democrat attack ads. [ Trump said he wouldn't cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare . His 2020 budget cuts all 3 , by Tara Golshan, Vox, March 12, 2019] And the president has already backed down on withdrawing all troops from Syria, never mind Afghanistan.

Conservatism Inc., having learned nothing from candidate Donald Trump's scorched-earth path to the Republican nomination, now embraces Trump as a man but ignores his campaign message. Instead, the conservative movement is still promoting the same tired slogans about "free markets" even as they have appear to have lost an entire generation to socialism. The most iconic moment was Charlie Kirk, head of the free market activist group Turning Point USA, desperately trying to tell his followers not to cheer for Tucker Carlson because Carlson had suggested a nation should be treated like a family, not simply a marketplace .

President Trump himself is now trying to talk like a fiscal conservative [ Exclusive -- Donald Trump: 'Seductive' Socialism Would Send Country 'Down The Tubes' In a Decade Or Less , by Alexander Marlow, Matt Boyle, Amanda House, and Charlie Spierling, Breitbart, March 11, 2019]. Such a pose is self-discrediting given how the deficit swelled under united Republican control and untold amounts of money are seemingly still available for foreign aid to Israel, regime change in Iran and Venezuela, and feminist programs abroad to make favorite daughter Ivanka Trump feel important. [ Trump budget plans to give $100 million to program for women that Ivanka launched , by Nathalie Baptiste, Mother Jones, March 9, 2019]

Thus, especially because of his cowardice on immigration, many of President Trump's most fervent online supporters have turned on him in recent weeks. And the embrace of Yang seems to come out of a great place of despair, a sense that the country really is beyond saving.

Yang has Leftist policies on many issues, but many disillusioned Trump supporters feel like those policies are coming anyway. If America is just an economy, and if everyone in the world is a simply an American-in-waiting, white Americans might as well get something out of this System before the bones are picked clean.

National Review ' s Theodore Kupfer just claimed the main importance of Yang's candidacy is that it will prove meme-makers ability to affect the vote count "has been overstated" [ Rise of the pink hats , March 12, 2019]. Time will tell, but it is ominous for Trump that many of the more creative and dedicated people who formed his vanguard are giving up on him.

[Mar 15, 2019] Will Democrats Go Full Hawk The American Conservative

Mar 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

In 2019, it is.

When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would damage women's rights in Afghanistan.

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The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.

Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."

The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept. Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.

[Mar 14, 2019] Boeing 737 Max an artificial intelligence event by James Thompson

Mar 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Conventional wisdom is that it is too early to speculate why in the past six months two Boeing 737 Max 8 planes have gone down shortly after take off, so if all that follows is wrong you will know it very quickly. Last night I predicted that the first withdrawals of the plane would happen within two days, and this morning China withdrew it. So far, so good. (Indonesia followed a few hours ago).

Why should I stick my neck out with further predictions? First, because we must speculate the moment something goes wrong. It is natural, right and proper to note errors and try to correct them.(The authorities are always against "wild" speculation, and I would be in agreement with that if they had an a prior definition of wildness). Second, because putting forward hypotheses may help others test them (if they are not already doing so). Third, because if the hypotheses turn out to be wrong, it will indicate an error in reasoning, and will be an example worth studying in psychology, so often dourly drawn to human fallibility. Charmingly, an error in my reasoning might even illuminate an error that a pilot might make, if poorly trained, sleep-deprived and inattentive.

I think the problem is that the Boeing anti-stall patch MCAS is poorly configured for pilot use: it is not intuitive, and opaque in its consequences.

By the way of full disclosure, I have held my opinion since the first Lion Air crash in October, and ran it past a test pilot who, while not responsible for a single word here, did not argue against it. He suggested that MCAS characteristics should have been in a special directive and drawn to the attention of pilots.

I am normally a fan of Boeing. I have flown Boeing more than any other plane, and that might make me loyal to the brand. Even more powerfully, I thought they were correct to carry on with the joystick yoke, and that AirBus was wrong to drop it, simply because the position of the joystick is something visible to pilot and co-pilot, whereas the Airbus side stick does not show you at a glance how high the nose of the plane is pointing.

http://www.unz.com/jthompson/fear-of-flying-and-safety-of-gruyere/

Pilots are bright people, but they must never be set a badly configured test item with tight time limits and potentially fatal outcomes.

The Air France 447 crash had several ingredients, but one was that the pilots of the Airbus A330-203 took too long to work out they were in a stall. In fact, that realization only hit them very shortly before they hit the ocean. Whatever the limitations of the crew (sleep deprived captain, uncertain co-pilot) they were blinded by a frozen Pitot air speed indicator, and an inability to set the right angle of attack for their airspeed.

For the industry, the first step was to fit better air speed indicators which were less likely to ice up. However, it was clear that better stall warning and protection was required.

Boeing had a problem with fitting larger and heavier engines to their tried and trusted 737 configuration, meaning that the engines had to be higher on the wing and a little forwards, and that made the 737 Max have different performance characteristics, which in turn led to the need for an anti-stall patch to be put into the control systems.

It is said that generals always fight the last war. Safety officials correct the last problem, as they must. However, sometimes a safety system has unintended consequences.

The key of the matter is that pilots fly normal 737s every day, and have internalized a mental model of how that plane operates. Pilots probably actually read manuals, and safety directives, and practice for rare events. However, I bet that what they know best is how a plane actually operates most of the time. (I am adjusting to a new car, same manufacturer and model as the last one, but the 9 years of habit are still often stronger than the manual-led actions required by the new configuration). When they fly a 737 Max there is a bit of software in the system which detects stall conditions and corrects them automatically. The pilots should know that, they should adjust to that, they should know that they must switch off that system if it seems to be getting in the way, but all that may be steps too far, when something so important is so opaque.

What is interesting is that in emergencies people rely on their most validated mental models: residents fleeing a burning building tend to go out their usual exits, not even the nearest or safest exit. Pilots are used to pulling the nose up and pushing it down, to adding power and to easing back on it, and when a system takes over some of those decisions, they need to know about it.

After Lion Air I believed that pilots had been warned about the system, but had not paid sufficient attention to its admittedly complicated characteristics, but now it is claimed that the system was not in the training manual anyway. It was deemed a safety system that pilots did not need to know about.

This farrago has an unintended consequence, in that it may be a warning about artificial intelligence. Boeing may have rated the correction factor as too simple to merit human attention, something required mainly to correct a small difference in pitch characteristics unlikely to be encountered in most commercial flying, which is kept as smooth as possible for passenger comfort.

It would be terrible if an apparently small change in automated safety systems designed to avoid a stall turned out have given us a rogue plane, killing us to make us safe.


Anatoly Karlin , says: Website March 11, 2019 at 2:36 pm GMT

Pilots are used to pulling the nose up and pushing it down, to adding power and to easing back on it, and when a system takes over some of those decisions, they need to know about it.

I have read that Boeing kept MCAS out of the limelight as otherwise the 737 MAX would need to be certified as a new plane and airlines would need to do $$$ pilot retraining, making their product less competitive.

James Thompson , says: Website March 11, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin Interesting. It is certainly hard to understand why MCAS was shrouded in secrecy, when it was potentially lethal.
Captain 737 , says: March 11, 2019 at 7:38 pm GMT
Interesting response from a "by-stander", who compares a sophisticated aircraft with a new model car !!!

As an experienced captain on 737s (not the MAX) I say, let the investigation begin; and let us not have by-standers giving their penny worth. A normal 737 . is there also an abnormal 747 or 777 or 787, or a 737 ??

Pilots carry the can . but, are the most respected profession in the world. What ever happened, let the investigation decide the outcome, and not the "un-trained" (is there such a term !!!!).

If one takes a look at the (released to date) information about the Lion Air crash – "unreliable airspeeds" (the airspeed indicator is providing erroneous information during a critical phase of flight (like climb out after take-off)) could have been the cause of that aircraft crash – not AI.

A simple explanation – the airspeed indicator is "unreliable", as one moment the indication is under-speed, then overspeed, followed by under-speed, and so it goes; like a yoyo going up and down; the indicated speed is erroneous and the pilots cannot rely on what is presented on the airspeed indicator. Pilots, according to the Boeing Training Manual, are trained to handle unreliable airspeeds – the key is to fly the plane based solely on pitch attitude and thrust (there are memory items for unreliable airspeed occurrences, along with the reference items in aircraft's Quick Reference Handbook – the QRH (Boeing term) is the pilots "bible" for any issues and problems when the aircraft is in the air !! ).

The point of the above paragraph is to enlighten the 'un-trained' as to not speculate too soon with ideas and a "hypothesis" of what may have happened, until the knowledgeable ones – the aircraft manufacturer (probably being the most knowledgable), the country's aviation authority, the engine manufacturer, and (dear I say) the FAA (the Yanks just cannot help themselves delving into other countries' affairs; when for 9/11 not one minutes was spent by anyone (FAA, Boeing, no one) investigating the so-called crashes of four aircraft – on one day, within one and a half hours of each other, and in the most protected airspace in the world (got the hint !!) – I have digressed, though for reason .. have completed their investigations.

I can assure you that no pilot wants to crash a plane we (pilots) all want to live to 100, and beyond.

Humans make mistakes, but technology needs humans to correct technology's mistakes. Boeing build reliable and trustworthy aircraft; pilots undertake their duties in a safe and controlled manner (according to training and aircraft manufacturer stipulated standards); but errors happen – and the investigator is there to establish what happened, so that these do not happen again. Unfortunately, it is just possible that the cause of the first MAX accident is the same as the second. But, let the knowledgable ones determine that fact – and let me, and us, not speculate.

AI in the MAX hhmmmmm – let Boeing release that information, before we start speculating again (on AI – is an auto pilot AI; the B737 I fly has two auto pilots; is that double AI ??).

To the rest of the travelling public – airline travel remains, and has been, the safest form of transport for decades. I am confident that the status quo will remain.

Time will reveal the answers to these two accidents, when the time is right – when the investigators (for both) have concluded their deliberations.

My guess is, the majority of people will have forgotten these two MAX events (but, for those who have lost loved ones), as some other crisis/event will have occurred in their lives and/or in the world.

Dieter Kief , says: March 11, 2019 at 7:38 pm GMT
@Anatoly Karlin

737 MAX would need to be certified as a new plane and airlines would need to do $$$ pilot retraining, making their product less competitive.

Short sighted businessmen – Nothing lasts for long

Joni Mitchell – – – Chinese Cafè on Wild Things Run Fast

The Anti-Gnostic , says: Website March 11, 2019 at 7:45 pm GMT
I think the problem is that the Boeing anti-stall patch MCAS is poorly configured for pilot use: it is not intuitive, and opaque in its consequences.

I think that's the case with a lot of current technology. Human factors and tactileness don't seem to get much weight in current engineering.

Simply Simon , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT
@Captain 737 I respect your analysis especially coming from a seasoned 737 captain. I have over 5,000 flying hours in single and twin-engine, conventional and jet, all military. I have not flown since 1974 so the advances in auto-pilot technology are beyond my comprehension. My question to you is simple–I think. If the aircraft took off in VFR conditions I assume the pilots knew the pitch attitude all during the takeoff phase. Is there no way to manually overpower the auto-pilot once the pilots knew the pitch attitude was dangerously high or low?
kauchai , says: March 12, 2019 at 2:37 am GMT
If this is a made in china airplane, the empire would mobilize the whole world to ground the entire fleet. The diatribes, lies, cruel sick jokes, lawsuits, etc, etc, would fly to the heavens.

But NO, this is an empire plane. Designed, built and (tested?) in the heart of the empire. And despite the fact that more than 300 people had died, IT IS STILL SAFE to fly!

LOL! LOL!

Anonymous [414] Disclaimer , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:41 am GMT
Quite a short and to-the-point article, although the link to "artificial intelligence" is tenuous at best.

What is sold as Artificial Intelligence nowadays is massive statistical processing in a black box (aka as "Neural Network Processing"), it's not intelligent. The most surprising fact is that it works so well.

Neural Networks won't be in high-assurance software soon. No-one knows what they really do once configured (although there are efforts underway to attack that problem ). They are impossible to really test or design to specification. Will someone underwrite that a system incorporating them does work? Hardly. You may find them in consumer electronics, research, "self driving cars" that never really self-drive without surprises and possibly bleeding edge military gear looking for customers or meant to explode messily anyway.

But not in cockpits. (At least I hope).

Check out this slideshow about the ACAS-X Next Generation Collision Airborne Collision Avoidance System. It has no neural network in sight, in fact if I understand correctly it doesn't even have complex decision software in-cockpit: it's all decision tables precomputed from a high-level, understandable description (aka. code, apparently in Julia) to assure safe outcome in a fully testable and simulatable approach.

In this accident, we may have a problem with the system, as opposed to with the software. While the software may work correctly and to specification (and completely unintelligently) the system composed of software + human + physical machinery will interact in interesting, unforeseen, untested ways, leading to disaster. In fact the (unintelligent software + human) part may disturbingly behave like those Neural Networks that are being sold as AI.

Anonymous [414] Disclaimer , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
A disquieting item on your morning cereal box:

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/boeing-cited-by-pentagon-over-quality-concerns-going-back-years-1.522343

https://www.stripes.com/news/air-force/air-force-won-t-accept-any-more-boeing-tankers-until-manufacturing-process-is-cleaned-up-1.571108

Anonymous [427] Disclaimer , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT
@Anatoly Karlin I'm guessing that it would require a change in the TCDS and possibly a different type rating, which would be anathema for sales.

I'm a little airplane person, not a big airplane person (and the 737 is a Big Airplane even in its smallest configuration) but I know there have been several instances where aircraft had changes that required that pilots of the type have a whole different type rating, even though the changes seemed minor. I'm guessing airlines are training averse and don't want to take crews off revenue service beyond what is statutorily required. The margins in airline flying are apparently much leaner now than in the glory days.

I never approved of allowing fly by wire in commercial airliners, I never even really liked the idea of FADEC engine control (supervisory DEC was fine) because a classical advantage of gas turbines (and diesels) was that they could run in an absolutely electrically dead environment once lit. Indeed, the J-58 (JT11-D in P&W parlance) had no electrical system to speak of beyond the instrumentation: it started by mechanical shaft drive and ignited by triethyl borane chemical injection. The Sled could make it home on needle-ball and alcohol compass, and at least once it did. Total electrical failure in any FBW aircraft means losing the airplane. Is the slight gain in efficiency worth it? I'm told the cables, pulleys, fairleads and turnbuckles add 200 pounds to a medium size airliner, the FBW stuff weighs 80 or so.

The jet transports we studied in A&P school had a pitot head and static port on either side of the flight deck and the captain and F/O had inputs from different ones, though IIRC the altimeter and airspeed were electrically driven from sensors at the pitot head or inboard of it. I have a 727 drum-pointer (why are three pointer altimeters even legal anymore??) altimeter and it has no aneroids, just a couple of PCBs full of TTL logic and op amps and a DB style connector on the back. Do crews not cross check airspeed and altitude or is there no indicator to flag them when the two show something different?

Also, not being a jet pilot myself, my understanding is that anyone with T-38 experience is forever after thinking in terms of AOA and not airspeed per se, because that airplane has to be flown by AOA in the pattern, and classically a lot of airline pilots had flown Talons. Is there no AOA indicator in the 737? Flying in the pattern/ILS would make airspeed pretty dependent on aircraft weight, and on a transport that can change a lot with fuel burn, do they precisely calculate current weight from a totalizer and notate speeds needed? (I presume airliners don't vary weight other than fuel burn, not being customarily in the business of throwing stuff out of the airplane, although they used to fly jumpers out of a chartered 727 at the parachute meet in Quincy)

dearieme , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:00 pm GMT
@Captain 737 Why are you pretending to be a pilot, and a pompous one at that?
dearieme , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:06 pm GMT
Many problems in the world arise because many computing people reckon themselves very clever when they are merely rather clever. And often they combine what cleverness they have with a blindness about humans and their ways. I shouldn't be at all surprised if programmers at Boeing decided that they always knew better than pilots and doomed the planes accordingly.

I saw recently an expression that made me grin: "midwits". It describes rather well many IT types of my acquaintance.

dearieme , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:51 pm GMT
Another human cost of midwittery:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6797193/More-500-village-postmasters-wrongly-hounded-stealing-millions-system.html

Fabian Forge , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:55 pm GMT
@fish And that's the problem, as Mr. Kief also points out. The individuals at the decision making level (let's call them "executives") don't or can't think that far ahead, at least when the corporation they run is concerneed.

It really is a time-preference problem.

Fabian Forge , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:06 pm GMT
@dearieme One corollary is that the Midwits take such joy in their cleverness that they assume their wit has value in and of itself. This is most evident when they design clever solutions to invented problems. Billions of dollars of venture capital have been set on fire in that way, when technical and financial midwittery combine.
Dieter Kief , says: March 12, 2019 at 10:55 pm GMT
@Andrei Martyanov It's almost nitpicking. But – James Thompson says it above: The MCAS in this Boing model 737 MAX 8 is used to cover up a basic construction flaw. This has undoubtedly worked for quite some time – but it came with a risk. And this risk might turn out to have caused numerous deaths. In this case, if it will turn out, that the MACS system didn't do what it was supposed to do and thus caused numerous deaths – will this then be looked upon as a problem of the application of artificial intelligence? Yes, but not only . It was a combination of a poorly built (constructed) airliner and software, which might not have been able to compensate for this flawed construction under all conditions.

It's cheaper to compensate via software – and this might (might) turn out to be a rather irresponsible way to save money. But as I said: Even in this case, the technical problem would have to be looked upon as twofold: Poor construction plus insufficient software compensation. I'd even tend to say, that poor construction would then be the main (=basic) fault. With the zeitgeisty (and cheap!) software-"solution" for this poor construction a close second.

Eagle Eye , says: March 12, 2019 at 11:25 pm GMT
@Captain 737 Curiously, this is "Captain 737″'s first and only comment here.

It's almost as if Boeing hired a high-priced PR firm whose offerings include pseudonymous online "messaging" to "shape opposition perceptions" etc. Note the over-obvious handle. (Just like globalist shills like to pretend to be regular blue-collar guys in small fly-over towns.)

By their words shalt ye know them.

PREDICTION: In 3-4 years, we will "discover" a long paper trail of engineers warning early on about the risk of hastily kludging a half-assed anti-stall patch MCAS onto a system that had undergone years of testing and refinement WITHOUT the patch.

Only somebody PAID not to see the problem could fail to perceive that this means that as so altered, the ENTIRE SYSTEM goes back to being technically immature.

Anonymous [427] Disclaimer , says: March 13, 2019 at 12:00 am GMT
@Dieter Kief What "basic construction flaw" are we discussing here? The 737 airframe is pretty well established and has a good record-there have been incidents but most have been well dealt with.
Dieter Kief , says: March 13, 2019 at 12:39 am GMT
@Anonymous I've read today, that in the aviation world there is a consensus, that what James Thompson says in his article is right:
"Boeing had a problem with fitting larger and heavier engines to their tried and trusted 737 configuration, meaning that the engines had to be higher on the wing and a little forwards, and that made the 737 Max have different performance characteristics, which in turn led to the need for an anti-stall patch to be put into the control systems."

– A German engineer wrote in a comment in the Berlin daily Die weLT, this construction flaw makes the 737 MAX 8 something like a flying traktor . He concluded, that Boing proved, that you can make a tractor fly, alright. But proper engineering would have looked otherwise – and would for sure had come at a higher cost.
(The different performance charactersitics mentioned by James Thompson is an extraordinarily nice way to express, that the 737 MAX 8 is a tad more likely to stall, just because of the very design-changes, the bigger turbines made necessary. And this is a rather nasty thing to say about an airplane, that a new design made it more likely to stall! ).

Sparkon , says: March 13, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
@Anonymous

What "basic construction flaw" are we discussing here? The 737 airframe is pretty well established and has a good record.

I 'm not so sure about the good record, and I too suspect the underlying problem is the 737 itself – the entire 737 airframe and avionics.

Worst crash record

LET 410 – 20
Ilyushin 72 – 17
Antonov AN-1 – 17
Twin Otter – 18
CASA 212 – 11
DC-9/MD80 – 10
B737-100 / 700 – 10
Antonov 28 – 8
Antonov 32- 7
Tupolev 154- 7

[a/o 2013 – my bold]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Least-safe-aircraft-models-revealed/

The 737 family is the best selling commercial airliner series in history with more than 10,000 units produced. However, this airplane in its various configurations has had many crashes since it first entered service in 1968.

[Mar 14, 2019] Was Boeing 737-MAX crash an artificial intelligence event or an artificial lack of intelligence event

Mar 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

fenestol , says: March 12, 2019 at 11:07 am GMT

An Artificial Intelligence Event?

No, a lesson in the perils of kludge engineering. The 737-MAX is the equivalent of a 1990 Mexican VW Beetle retrofitted with a modern V8 and electronic stability control.

[Mar 13, 2019] Boeing, The FAA, And Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed

Notable quotes:
"... To implement a security relevant automatism that depends on only one sensor is extremely bad design. To have a flight control automatism engaged even when the pilot flies manually is also a bad choice. But the real criminality was that Boeing hid the feature. ..."
"... The Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed went down in a similar flight profile as the Indonesian plane. It is highly likely that MCAS is the cause of both incidents. While the pilots of the Ethiopian plane were aware of the MCAS system they might have had too little time to turn it off. The flight recorders have been recovered and will tell the full story. ..."
"... The FAA certifies all new planes and their documentation. I was for some time marginally involved in Airbus certification issues. It is an extremely detailed process that has to be followed by the letter. Hundreds of people are full time engaged for years to certify a modern jet. Every tiny screw and even the smallest design details of the hardware and software have to be documented and certified. ..."
"... How or why did the FAA agree to accept the 737 MAX with the badly designed MCAS? How could the FAA allow that MCAS was left out of the documentation? What steps were taken after the Indonesian flight crashed into the sea? ..."
"... That the marketing department has more say than the engineers who design and test the hardware and the software in passenger jets tells us a great deal about the Potemkin-style workplace culture that prevails in Boeing and similar large US corporations. The surface sheen is more important than the substance. The marketing brochures and manuals are no different from mainstream news media in the level of BS they spew. ..."
"... The Indonesian pilots did not have the time to figure out and realise that something else was controlling the plane's flight, much less deactivate what is effectively a second autopiloting system. ..."
"... B is right. This is a criminal act of deception and fraud thats cost hundreds their lives. Boeing executives responsible should be prosecuted and then jailed. ..."
"... while all the technical discussion around how to fly a plane is truly interesting, what's really at issue here is corporate and institutional betrayal of trust. ..."
"... The corporate aspect is Boeing, obviously. The institutional aspect is FAA, which used to lead the world in trust when it came to life and death matters. ..."
"... But now, in what Bloomberg, even while trying to support FAA, has no choice but to report as a "stunning rebuff" to FAA's integrity, countries around the world are grounding this flawed plane. Germany, among others, has closed its airspace to the 737. ..."
"... "Should anyone be flying 737MAXes before the black box data has been evaluated?" ..."
"... Before, the civilian airliners were falling out of the sky because of an immature technology, that is because of the learning curve. Now that the technology involved is fully mature the airliners are falling out of the sky for profit taking. ..."
"... Is it really so hard to connect the secrecy about MCAS and why it was needed in the first place? The lawyers will have a ball of the decade with this: the defendant created a secret software solution to turn a Lego airplane into a real airplane, made the software dependent on a single sensor, and made it difficult to switch the software off. ..."
"... I cannot believe that Boeing shares dropped only 7.5%, this is a statement of how untouchable Boeing is and how protected it will be by the Corrupt. ..."
Mar 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Boeing, The FAA, And Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed psychohistorian , Mar 12, 2019 4:55:32 PM | link

On Sunday an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing all on board. Five month earlier an Indonesian Lion Air jet crashed near Jakarta. All crew and passengers died. Both airplanes were Boeing 737-8 MAX. Both incidents happened shortly after take off.

Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are now grounded about everywhere except in the United States. That this move follows only now is sad. After the first crash it was already obvious that the plane is not safe to fly.

The Boeing 737 and the Airbus 320 types are single aisle planes with some 150 seats. Both are bread and butter planes sold by the hundreds with a good profit. In 2010 Airbus decided to offer its A-320 with a New Engine Option (NEO) which uses less fuel. To counter the Airbus move Boeing had to follow up. The 737 would also get new engines for a more efficient flight and longer range. The new engines on the 737 MAX are bigger and needed to be placed a bit different than on the older version. That again changed the flight characteristics of the plane by giving it a nose up attitude.

The new flight characteristic of the 737 MAX would have require a retraining of the pilots. But Boeing's marketing people had told their customers all along that the 737 MAX would not require extensive new training. Instead of expensive simulator training for the new type experienced 737 pilots would only have to read some documentation about the changes between the old and the new versions.

To make that viable Boeing's engineers had to use a little trick. They added a 'maneuver characteristics augmentation system' (MCAS) that pitches the nose of the plane down if a sensor detects a too high angle of attack (AoA) that might lead to a stall. That made the flight characteristic of the new 737 version similar to the old one.

But the engineers screwed up.

The 737 MAX has two flight control computers. Each is connected to only one of the two angle of attack sensors. During a flight only one of two computer runs the MCAS control. If it detects a too high angle of attack it trims the horizontal stabilizer down for some 10 seconds. It then waits for 5 seconds and reads the sensor again. If the sensor continues to show a too high angle of attack it again trims the stabilizer to pitch the plane's nose done.

MCSA is independent of the autopilot. It is even active in manual flight. There is a procedure to deactivate it but it takes some time.

One of the angle of attack sensors on the Indonesian flight was faulty. Unfortunately it was the one connected to the computer that ran the MCAS on that flight. Shortly after take off the sensor signaled a too high angle of attack even as the plane was flying in a normal climb. The MCAS engaged and put the planes nose down. The pilots reacted by disabling the autopilot and pulling the control stick back. The MCAS engaged again pitching the plane further down. The pilots again pulled the stick. This happened some 12 times in a row before the plane crashed into the sea.

To implement a security relevant automatism that depends on only one sensor is extremely bad design. To have a flight control automatism engaged even when the pilot flies manually is also a bad choice. But the real criminality was that Boeing hid the feature.

Neither the airlines that bought the planes nor the pilots who flew it were told about MCAS. They did not know that it exists. They were not aware of an automatic system that controlled the stabilizer even when the autopilot was off. They had no idea how it could be deactivated.

Nine days after the Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 ended in a deadly crash, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive.


bigger

The 737 MAX pilots were aghast. The APA pilot union sent a letter to its members:

"This is the first description you, as 737 pilots, have seen. It is not in the AA 737 Flight Manual Part 2, nor is there a description in the Boeing FCOM (flight crew operations manual)," says the letter from the pilots' union safety committee. "Awareness is the key with all safety issues."

The Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed went down in a similar flight profile as the Indonesian plane. It is highly likely that MCAS is the cause of both incidents. While the pilots of the Ethiopian plane were aware of the MCAS system they might have had too little time to turn it off. The flight recorders have been recovered and will tell the full story.

Boeing has sold nearly 5,000 of the 737 MAX. So far some 380 have been delivered. Most of these are now grounded. Some family members of people who died on the Indonesian flight are suing Boeing. Others will follow. But Boeing is not the only one who is at fault.

The FAA certifies all new planes and their documentation. I was for some time marginally involved in Airbus certification issues. It is an extremely detailed process that has to be followed by the letter. Hundreds of people are full time engaged for years to certify a modern jet. Every tiny screw and even the smallest design details of the hardware and software have to be documented and certified.

How or why did the FAA agree to accept the 737 MAX with the badly designed MCAS? How could the FAA allow that MCAS was left out of the documentation? What steps were taken after the Indonesian flight crashed into the sea?

Up to now the FAA was a highly regarded certification agency. Other countries followed its judgment and accepted the certifications the FAA issued. That most of the world now grounded the 737 MAX while it still flies in the States is a sign that this view is changing. The FAA's certifications of Boeing airplanes are now in doubt.

Today Boeing's share price dropped some 7.5%. I doubt that it is enough to reflect the liability issues at hand. Every airline that now had to ground its planes will ask for compensation. More than 330 people died and their families deserve redress. Orders for 737 MAX will be canceled as passengers will avoid that type.

Boeing will fix the MCAS problem by using more sensors or by otherwise changing the procedures. But the bigger issue for the U.S. aircraft industry might be the damage done to the FAA's reputation. If the FAA is internationally seen as a lobbying agency for the U.S. airline industry it will no longer be trusted and the industry will suffer from it. It will have to run future certification processes through a jungle of foreign agencies.

Congress should take up the FAA issue and ask why it failed.

Posted by b on March 12, 2019 at 04:39 PM | Permalink

Comments next page " @ b who wrote
"
But the engineers screwed up.
"

I call BS on this pointing of fingers at the wrong folk

Engineers get paid to build things that accountants influence. The West is a world in which the accountants have more sway than engineers.

It is all about the money b and to lead folks in some other direction is not like what I think of you.

The elite that own global private finance and everything else killed those people in the planes because they set the standards that the accountants follow and then force the engineers to operate within

The profit narrative is bad for humanity.


bj , Mar 12, 2019 4:57:15 PM | link

A whistleblower at Boeing would have been nice.
bevin , Mar 12, 2019 5:00:23 PM | link
"Congress should take up the FAA issue and ask why it failed."
If there had been any chance of that happening, the planes would probably still be flying and dead passengers alive.
This, if you are right and I suspect that you are, is symptomatic of an empire dying of corruption. It is no accident that both the new secretary of defence and the neo-con cult itself were born of Boeing. A fact memorialised in the UK where the Blairites rally in the Henry Jackson society.
Lochearn , Mar 12, 2019 5:00:42 PM | link
Last night I wrote on a previous thread:
Over the space of a few months 2 almost new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft have crashed. Rather than going to the expense of designing an entirely new fuselage and normal length landing gear for its larger and much more powerful 737 MAX engines Boeing stuck with the now ancient 737 fuselage design that sits only 17 inches from the ground – necessitating changes to the positioning of the engines on the wing, which together with the vast increase in power, created aerodynamic instability in the design that Boeing tried to correct with software, while not alerting pilots to the changes.
Through the 1980s and early 1990s Boeing executives had largely resisted pressure from Wall Street to cut staff numbers, move plant to non-union states and outsource. The 777 was the last real Boeing, though significant outsourcing did take place – but under the strict control and guidance of Boeing engineers. After the "reverse" takeover of MacDonnell Douglas in 1997 the MDD neoliberal culture swamped Boeing and its HQ was moved from the firm's home near Seattle to Chicago so executives could hobnob with speculators. Wall Street had taken down another giant.
David Park , Mar 12, 2019 5:01:36 PM | link
The story I have most interest in, at the moment, is the state of the power blackout in Venezuela and whether this was a cyber attack by the United States. If it was, it is, in my opinion, a weapon of mass destruction and a very major war crime. The story seems to be fading from the news so I'm hoping b. will be able to gather more information about it.

But I find every story by b, worthwhile!

Ghost Ship , Mar 12, 2019 5:04:07 PM | link
I don't know if this is true by my sister who was an engineer working on military jets said that she'd heard that because of various design requirements, the 737-MAX was inherently unstable but stability was provided by the fly-by-wire system. In military jets, this feature provides greater maneuverability and survivability but has no place on civilian aircraft as the outcome of a system failure would be catastrophic with the pilots being unable to do anything about it. Anyone heard anything similar?
james , Mar 12, 2019 5:09:31 PM | link
b - thanks for addressing this.. subservient canada is also flying them still..) canada is going the same way as the usa-faa - into a ditch long term... it is really sad for the people who have died and for the fact that as @1 psychohistorian notes - the decisions are being put in the hands of the wrong people...
Barbara Ann , Mar 12, 2019 5:11:56 PM | link
Excellent piece b.
karlof1 , Mar 12, 2019 5:13:53 PM | link
Gotta agree with psychohistorian @1, that the engineers aren't totally responsible. Deregulation pukes at FAA, bean counters at Boeing and their managers who approved it all are morally culpable. Airline executives aren't immune either, although many will likely plead ignorance.
mourning dove , Mar 12, 2019 5:17:18 PM | link
If the US were a sane country, a Congressional investigation would follow, but it's not, and Congress is going to be more concerned with Boeing's bottom line than in public safety or the integrity of the FAA. That's probably why the planes haven't been grounded in the US. Congress is much more likely to impede investigation and accountability.
dave , Mar 12, 2019 5:17:28 PM | link

the dreamliner is the plane of the future barack hussein obarmie


The Boeing Broken Dreams Al Jazeera Investigations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

karlof1 , Mar 12, 2019 5:19:49 PM | link
David Park @5--

You'll want to read this !

Steven , Mar 12, 2019 5:26:50 PM | link
You omit important facts: the pilots know by heart how to quickly cut off electronic control of the stabilizers and fly manually. The pilots on the preceding lion air flight had had the same problem, and immediately solved it. The defective sensor should have been immediately replaced, and would have in the United States. On the next flight, the pilots (the copilot being quite unexperienced) spent 10 minutes not doing what they were trained to do in an emergency where the stabilizers are out of control: disable them.

When some flight crews get it right, but others don't, it's not a design flaw but a problem with the flight crews.

I can't agree with your conclusions.

Lochearn , Mar 12, 2019 5:30:48 PM | link
Through the history of Boeing senior executives lived in modest middle-class houses. They traveled on Boeing aircraft to get pilot's responses. But when Phil Condit (Wall Street's man) took over he immediately bought private jets and started living the lifestyle. The difference between productive capitalism and financial capitalism.
Tom Welsh , Mar 12, 2019 5:34:56 PM | link
"How or why did the FAA agree to accept the 737 MAX with the badly designed MCAS?"

Because it would be against the state religion to stop, or delay, a huge corporation earning even more money.

dave , Mar 12, 2019 5:36:39 PM | link
the broken dreams documentary above spells it out very clearly the documentary is from 2014.
it even has undercover folks in the boeing factory saying they would not fly on one.


if you fly you should watch that old al jazeera investigation.
the company does not pay tax and
the head of boeing paid himself 100s of millions of dollars

corporate manslaughter
could be

Zachary Smith , Mar 12, 2019 5:39:20 PM | link
But the bigger issue for the U.S. aircraft industry might be the damage done to the FAA's reputation.

I'd counter this by asking "what reputation?"

I've known for years how it took take a "smoking hole" for the FAA to get off the can and actually do something about a problem with an airplane or airline. But things evolve, and here we have TWO such smoking holes and the FAA still allows it to fly. I'm not trying to pick on the current FAA leader, for the man is utterly typical of the people who are allowed to gain his position. From his wiki:

But the bigger issue for the U.S. aircraft industry might be the damage done to the FAA's reputation.

Elwell joined Airlines for America (A4A) in 2013[3] where he was the Senior Vice President for Safety, Security, and Operations. Elwell left this role in 2015.

(Skipping to the A4A wiki:) Airlines for America
Officially, the A4A has announced five "core elements" of a national airline policy include reducing taxes on the industry, reducing regulation , increased access to foreign markets, making the industry more attractive for investors , and improving the air traffic control system.

I suspect that grounding the 737-MAX would contradict the goal of "making the industry more attractive for investors".

More on the FAA's Tombstone Mentality

About an hour ago I sent out an all-points email suggesting my family members avoid boarding a 737 MAX until the facts are better known and solutions are in place. The FAA may not care about them taking risks, but I sure do.

Tom Welsh , Mar 12, 2019 5:39:22 PM | link
Boeing has a get-out-of-jail-free card.

"Boeing is among the largest global aircraft manufacturers; it is the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world based on 2017 revenue, and is the largest exporter in the United States by dollar value".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing

Jen , Mar 12, 2019 5:39:56 PM | link
I agree with Psychohistorian @ 1 in less forthright terms: the engineers did not "screw up". On the contrary they most likely did what they could with the money and the time deadline they were given to carry out what essentially was a patch-up job that would make Boeing look good, save money and maintain its stock in sharemarkets.

Probably the entire process, in which the engineers played a small part - and that part in which they had no input into whoever was making the decisions - was a disaster from start to finish. The engineers should have been consulted at an early stage in the re-design of the aircraft's flight and safety features. Only when the appropriate re-design has been tested, changed where necessary and given the thumbs-up by relevant pilots' unions and other organisations with regard to passenger safety can the marketing department go ahead and advise airlines who buy the redesigned planes what training their pilots need.

That the marketing department has more say than the engineers who design and test the hardware and the software in passenger jets tells us a great deal about the Potemkin-style workplace culture that prevails in Boeing and similar large US corporations. The surface sheen is more important than the substance. The marketing brochures and manuals are no different from mainstream news media in the level of BS they spew.

One can think of other organisations where the administration has more power in the corporate decision-making process and eats up more of the corporate budget while the people who do the actual work are increasingly ignored in boardrooms and their share of the budget correspondingly decreases. Hospitals and schools come to mind.

Lochearn , Mar 12, 2019 5:45:36 PM | link
@ 19

Boeing got taken over Wall Street, which means cheapest solution to anything. Engineers are stuck with what they are given. What part of that do you still not understand.

viking3 , Mar 12, 2019 5:55:18 PM | link
A mitigating factor to the flightcrew is the take-off to 10,000ft is the busiest time. There is enough going on without having to deal with runaway stab. This is especially true for new crew to a new aircraft. Rode in many cockpits before 9.11.01 when company employees were allowed and the standing rule was no conversations below 10,000 and keep you eyes open for traffic. I also include my Maintenance brethren in that equation. Spent 30 years as a Avionics Tech. on both military and commercial aircraft so I am not really fond of giving flightcrew a break but I might this time.
karlof1 , Mar 12, 2019 5:59:13 PM | link
Jen @19--

Dilbert , the comic strip , from today and yesterday nails the marketing angle. And this isn't the first time Scott Adams has targeted marketers.

ancientarcher , Mar 12, 2019 5:59:44 PM | link
Good point @4 Lochearn

Why is Boeing suffering from this design problem and not A320neo is that 737's wings are much lower to the ground than the A320. Unfortunately, more fuel-efficient engines require a larger air inlet, so the newer generation engines are much larger than the previously installed V2500 or CFM56 (anyone can verify that - the older engines are much, much smaller than the newer ones).

When Airbus introduced the Pratt & Whitney GTF on its A320s (calling it the neo - new engine option), it led to an increase (high single digits %) increase in fuel efficiency. Boeing had to respond to that. If they wanted to increase the height of the wings of the 737 from the ground, they would have had to redesign the fuselage which would have cost billions (and which they should have done, in hindsight). Instead, they listened to the investors and the bean counters as you have called them here and they jiggled the position of the wings a bit and introduced the new automatic stabiliser.

The people at Boeing are good or at least the engineers are. Imagine how many times this problem would have been brought up by someone for him/her to be shut down. It's not like they were not aware of the issue, but they were unwilling to let their bottom line suffer. Instead, they were okay with carrying the risk of killing hundreds of people.

That is what boggles my mind!

dh-mtl , Mar 12, 2019 6:00:43 PM | link
Lochearn | Mar 12, 2019 5:00:42 PM | 4;
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Mar 12, 2019 5:04:07 PM | 6

Agree with both of your comments. It looks like the 55 year old 737 air-frame design, which is very low to the ground when compared to more modern designs, is incompatible with the bigger engines required for fuel efficiency.

Being very low to the ground, Boeing was forced to put the engines out in front, which upset the airplane's balance, making the plane essentially unstable. To counter the instability they added the 'MCAS?' control system.

This solution violates a fundamental tenant of design for safety-critical systems. The tenant of 'fail-safe'. If something goes wrong the system is supposed to fail in a manner that preserves safety. For the 737 Max, when the this stability control system fails, the plane is fundamentally unstable. For this system it is not 'fail-safe'. It is 'fail-crash'.

Why would Boeing do this? Because Bombardier was building a clean sheet design, that would eat the 737's lunch. Boeing (and Airbus) were desperate to do something quick to minimize the 20% fuel burn advantage of the C-series. The more modern Airbus 320 air frame allowed it to re-engine their plane. Boeing's did not. But Boeing went ahead anyway and built an fundamentally unstable airplane, because the alternative was to walk away from their most important market.

To me, this looks like it could be catastrophic for Boeing. It reminds me of G.M.'s 'Corvair' moment (Unsafe at any speed), from the 1960s.

Jen , Mar 12, 2019 6:02:28 PM | link
Steven @ 13: The Indonesian Lion Air jet still crashed with all onboard dying, even after the pilots did as you said. B's post explains why: the MCAS system has to be deactivated separately as it is still active when autopilot is off and the pilots are flying manually. The Indonesian pilots did not have the time to figure out and realise that something else was controlling the plane's flight, much less deactivate what is effectively a second autopiloting system.
james , Mar 12, 2019 6:09:41 PM | link
how is this for reassuring? press release from boeing today... this info is from someone else, and i haven't verified it..

"For the past several months and in the aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610, Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer."

witters , Mar 12, 2019 6:10:37 PM | link
"Boeing got taken over Wall Street, which means cheapest solution to anything. Engineers are stuck with what they are given. What part of that do you still not understand."

Why they colluded with and indeed implemented what they knew to be - and now proven to be - a mass killing system. What do you not understand here?

james , Mar 12, 2019 6:11:02 PM | link
very un- assuring.. https://gizmodo.com/boeing-promises-to-release-software-update-for-737-max-1833224836
Whozhear , Mar 12, 2019 6:15:58 PM | link
Great article B.

There is much more behind the covering up of this "design flaw" from the start. The concept that, in this day and age, sensors used in the aviation field and close to brand new are defective is a stretch of the imagination. The current effort by Boeing to do a software upgrade, I suspect, is cover for something more damaging.

How easy is it these days to access the MAX's operation and flight control computers? Can it be done via WI-fi or Bluetooth from the airfield? We are well aware that in the newer heavies Seattle can take basic control via satellite.

Whozhear , Mar 12, 2019 6:19:12 PM | link
@ 5

You may also find this interesting........ https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/4837334.html

Steven , Mar 12, 2019 6:24:25 PM | link
@jen @james

You clowns don't understand what you're telling me I'm "getting wrong." MCAS ISN'T part of the autopilot, and I never said it was.

737 pilots have to be able to do about 10 procedures in their sleep. One is when the electrical control of the horizontal stabilizers doesn't work; Aa few steps but basically pull a breaker and revert to manual control only, no power assist.

The crew on the previous flight did this and flew on with zero problem.

It's outrageous that lionair didn't find out why emergency procedures had had to be used and fix them before they let the airplane fly again.

If airlines do not adhere to Minimal safety standards, it's not Boeing's fault if it's planes crash.

Jonathan , Mar 12, 2019 6:35:04 PM | link
@35 Steven,

Is Boeing paying you to miss this part:

"This is the first description you, as 737 pilots, have seen. It is not in the AA 737 Flight Manual Part 2, nor is there a description in the Boeing FCOM (flight crew operations manual)," says the letter from the pilots' union safety committee. "Awareness is the key with all safety issues."
Kadath , Mar 12, 2019 6:41:49 PM | link
Well it's good to know that Canada is still allowing this death trap to fly, I couldn't bare the thought that Boeing might lose more stock value merely because of a defective product that kills! Seriously though, the silence from the Canadian media on this subject is deafening. CBC news didn't even cover the banning of these planes in the rest of the world until an hour ago and even then they seemed more concerned about the impact on Boeing then the you know 300 people killed because of this flawed plane. Eventually (before Friday) I think Canada will be forced to ground it's fleet of 737-8s. With the current corruption scandal, Trudeau is too weak right now to stand up in Question period and claim the 737-8s are safe to fly. Even Trump is getting in on the action and blaming Boeing for the accidents. FAA may end up being the biggest loser from this situations with a huge hit to its' trustworthiness, I remember when the FAA would issue emergency maintenance/inspection orders after any crash suspected to be caused by maintenance issues and ground entire fleets of aircraft if two planes crashed within 2 years. You know, the FAAs behaviour now reminds me of the old Soviet joke, "our planes never crash, their just indefinitely delayed"
Meshpal , Mar 12, 2019 6:46:17 PM | link
These people did not die they were murdered. Long ago, I had worked with Boeing on a computer project and I had the highest respect for the company and engineers. Facts and reality were paramount for Boeing. Things started a slow downhill slope when that TWA flight that was accidentally shot down by a missile. I noticed how uncomfortable the engineers were to talk about it – just a short comment that the fuel tank was not the cause. When politics and management go away from reality and facts, it is just a matter of time. But for the life of me I do not understand how Boeing can come to this:

Fault 1: As B says, it should never have been designed like this.
Fault 2: Don't tell the pilots about MCSA.
Fault 3: Real time flight tracking altitude data show wild swings – red light ignored. No need to wait for a plane to crash.
Fault 4: Lion Air Flight 610 crash showed that this MCSA system is at fault and nothing much was done. The murder of 189 people.
Fault 5: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 murdering an additional 157 people.
Fault 6: FAA says everything is ok.

Especially the Ethiopian Flight 409 crash should never have happened. This issue became well known to engineers and flight crews world wide after Lion Air. A good question is: was the disable MCSA switch now a memory item or a check list item for the flight crew? Or did Boeing want to wait for the final report of Lion Air?

I noticed that the Ethiopian pilot was not western, but looks like from Indian decent. I would not doubt his abilities, but rather say that he would follow the rules more than a western pilot. Western pilots would network and study this thing on their own and would not wait for Boeing. They would have penciled this into their flight deck routine - just to be safe.

JohnT , Mar 12, 2019 6:51:38 PM | link
David Park #5

I read this yesterday regarding the Venezuela power outages. Possible Stuxnet infestation ala Iran 2010?

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/11/trump-regime-electricity-war-in-venezuela-more-serious-than-first-believed.html

Alpi57 , Mar 12, 2019 6:54:45 PM | link
One can always find a benefit in the sanctions, albeit coincidental. Iran avoided a lot of damage from Boeing. They had ordered 140 of 737's. All got canceled. Congratulations.
ancientarcher , Mar 12, 2019 6:59:53 PM | link
@40 Alpi57
Iran always has the option of buying the Irkut MC-21 which in my opinion is the best narrowbody plane that anyone can buy now. Fully redesigned body with significantly higher composite percentage and comes with the best engine in the world for narrowbodies - the P&W GTF. And Russia will be happy.

What's not to like

Likklemore , Mar 12, 2019 7:07:19 PM | link
Before you guys and gals bash b, hop over to Zerohedge citing Dallas Morning News revealing FAA database Pilots on Boeing 737Max complained for months...Manual inadequate ...criminally insufficient .just for starters.
karlof1 , Mar 12, 2019 7:10:30 PM | link
james @32--

That Canada didn't is crazy :

"In a remarkable rebuke, nations from the U.K. to Australia have rejected public reassurances from the FAA and grounded Boeing's 737 Max."

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 12, 2019 7:28:54 PM | link
I was a big fan of the 6-part BBC doco series Black Box from the 1990s. The main conclusion drawn was that the industry is way too fond of blaming as many mishaps as possible on Pilot Error, and way too slow to react to telltale signs that a particular aircraft model might have a fatal flaw. There was a tendency to ignore FAA edicts for inspection of a suspected design weakness. Two cases that come to mind were incorrectly locked DC 9 cargo doors ripping off with a big chunk of the plane plus half a dozen occupied seats, and a tendency of 727s to nose-dive into the "surface" at Mach 0.99.

I'll be very surprised if any part of b's analysis, conclusions and predictions turns out to incorrect.

World 3 - USA 0 , Mar 12, 2019 7:31:57 PM | link
Lights in Venezuela on. US Boeing stocks down. More evidence for the Lockheed f-16 downing. Reports it was a dogfight between an old MiG-21 (with modernised radar and missiles) that brought the modern US Lockheed f-16 down and maybe not from a launch of MiGs modern bvr missile.

Things are looking up.

Zachary Smith , Mar 12, 2019 7:33:32 PM | link
@ ancientarcher @41

The problem with a "new" airplane is the Western Content. Over a certain percentage, the US basically controls the situation. Another issue is servicing the things. If an airplane is sitting in Podunk Airport with a broken widget, the airline wants it fixed right now! Some planes like the 737 have been around for decades and there are probably parts for it - even at Podunk. A new plane will probably be grounded until a new part is transported in - a process which will take many hours even in the best of circumstances. Advantage to the 737 and other 'legacy' airplanes.

Just saw an interesting headline at Reuters - I'd suppose it is some friendly advice from Wall Street disguised as "news".

Breakingviews - Boeing needs to think faster than its watchdog

Change "watchdog" to "lapdog" and that would be about right. It seems to me a sensible proposal, for if Boeing must take a beating out of this, the company ought to at least adopt a pose of "really caring" and "doing the right thing". Try for the brownie points.

psychohistorian , Mar 12, 2019 7:40:55 PM | link
@ Zachary Smith who wrote
"
It seems to me a sensible proposal, for if Boeing must take a beating out of this, the company ought to at least adopt a pose of "really caring" and "doing the right thing".
"

China is coming to teach the West morals which are currently ranked below profit and ongoing private control of global finance

aspnaz , Mar 12, 2019 7:54:05 PM | link
@35 Steven

The Ethiopian airlines flight was an international flight, so the pilots will have been certified to international standards. I don't know the details of international standards for type training, but you are basically saying that the fault is not with Boeing, it is with the type training of international pilot crews. Can you elaborate and does this mean that we are equally in danger regardless of the aircraft model and that it is just coincidence that both these crew failures were on 737 Max models?

EV , Mar 12, 2019 8:07:08 PM | link
The evidences and recognizably legitimate information (there is always a lot of through-the-hat blather-yap from internet-"engineers") suggests thrust angle, not structure or CG destabilization. "larger" engines are not necessarily significantly heavier, but, today, and if more efficient, will be larger diameter for more fan, for more thrust (which in jet and fan engines is more power). Larger diameter nacelles will require modification of placement, higher, lower, larger weight will require modification of placement, forward, backward. Clearance restrictions may require modification of engine thrust-line angle, relative to fuselage, and fuselage-fit control surface lines (which include flight surfaces). Thrust changes with thrust changes, which means thrust-angle change will change thrust-effect at differing thrust amounts: Take-off and climb thrusts are near maximums, wherefore angular component will be near max then (cruise maximums are less, or less effective, or radical, for altitude air thinning).

What this means is that if larger engines on a 737 MAX, for larger bulk are slightly angled for clearance,the angling may have little effect except in specific instances and attitudes, such as take-off and climb. It sounds as if Boeing angled thrust slightly for engine fitting, and assumed a computer control fix could handle the off-line thrust component effect during the short duration times it was sufficient to effect flight characteristics, which, if the thrust-angling was up, would add a nose-up tail-down thrust rotation component, greater at greater power. to compensate which the software would add nose-down control surface counteraction, as incident described.

What it sounds like the pilot in the first, non-crash, case most likely did, that saved the aircraft, was not 'disable' an automatic system he had no information about, for it being not intended for disablement, but was reduce power, reducing the off-line thrust effect, so the auto system backed off. In the other incidents, especially if the airports were get-em-high-fast airports (to 'leave' the noise at the airport) the pilots would incline to not reduce power, and would be more likely to get into a war with the too automated auto-system, the way Tesla drivers can do with their over-automated systems.

All auto-control "AI" systems need human-override options built in, so that human-robot stand-offs to impact cannot occur. The real culprits in stand-off accident situations are the techie-guppies who think robotic control can always do everything better, and fail to think of the situation where the "right" response is wrong.

Jen , Mar 12, 2019 8:19:36 PM | link
Steven @ 35:

Lion Air's engineers had previously identified and tried to fix issues with the jet that crashed in October 2018.

The day before the jet took off from Jakarta airport and crashed, killing all 189 onboard, one of its Angle of Attack sensors had been replaced by engineers in Denpasar. Unfortunately the source I checked (see link below) doesn't say if this replacement AoA sensor was the one linked to the computer running the MCAS on the flight.

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20181029-0

fast freddy , Mar 12, 2019 8:26:15 PM | link
Bean Counters:

Delta once initiated a fuel saving measure whereby aircraft were insufficiently topped off with fuel to prevent pilots from wasting fuel. Once this information began to leak, the measure was ended.

psychohistorian , Mar 12, 2019 8:40:43 PM | link
@ fast freddy with the Bean Counters example

Thanks for Bean Counters! I so much wanted to use Bean Counters in my rant but thought I should stick to their standard appellation....

Bean Counters need to be taken seriously because they are not going to go away in any form of social organization and represent where the rubber meets the road when it comes to social decision making/risk management

Bean Counters (along with their bosses) need to be required to place morals as a higher value than profit and forced to operate with maximum public transparency and input; then, all will be good.

Pnyx , Mar 12, 2019 8:41:19 PM | link
Thank you for the accurate information. The basic problem seems to be that the low-consumption engines protrude too far. A well-designed, reliable aircraft becomes a faulty design. To try to solve this using software is a precarious approach. The FAA should have rejected this in principle. But because to design an aircraft completely from scratch naturally takes longer and would have given the competitor Airbus time to take over the to much market share, this 'solution' was accepted. This type of corruption will cost the u.s. a lot.

But first let's wait for Tronald's tweet, which will certainly be aired by tomorrow at the latest, in which he states that the 737 Max is a great, great aircraft - if not the best ever...

Kiza , Mar 12, 2019 8:49:51 PM | link
There is no doubt that both Boeing and FAA are to blame, but we pay the Government to ensure safety. Businesses have always chased profit, some more ruthlessly than others. But when the real corruption sets in then the Government regulator works for the businesses at the expense of the public . Regarding FAA reputation, there was a time when US was the leader in aviation, military as well as commercial. This means that the best experts were in US and thus FAA had the best and the most knowledgeable people. It is similar with FDA, all countries in the World used to follow the touchstone drug approvals by FDA. Now the "Federal" in any US acronym has become a synonym for "Corruption" (FBI anyone?).

The expertise does not matter any more, only greasing of the hands does. In the old times, anyone from FAA whose signature was on this planes approval to fly would get a life sentence in jail. But 330 people dead is less than a days worth of US global victims - business as usual for US. It is just that these victims are getting much more publicity than the silent victims. We will be lucky if anyone influential from FAA even resigns let alone goes to jail. There will be many more dead before the World understands this new reality.

Would you fly on any Boeing plane designed or delivered after the company was taken over by the Wall Street wizards in the 90s?

Peter AU 1 , Mar 12, 2019 8:53:28 PM | link

Re the engineers - they agreed to build an out of balance aircraft (thrust vs weight and drag) and to try and rectify this with software. What we will do for money. Both the bean counters and engineers are at fault, perhaps the beancounters and shiney butts more so as they did not inform buyers and pilots of the faults.
Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 12, 2019 8:56:22 PM | link
Posted by: fast freddy | Mar 12, 2019 8:26:15 PM | 52
(Fuel 'economy')

QANTAS once decreed that pilots rely on brakes and treat reverse thrust as emergency-only procedure, until a 747 skidded off the end of a runway with the nose-wheel inside the cabin and bruised engines = lots of down-time + very large repair bill.

Clueless Joe , Mar 12, 2019 8:58:46 PM | link
Fast Freddy:

Not just Delta; Ryanair did the same, at least until there was a major storm in Spain (Valencia, I think) and all flights had to be rerouted to other airports. That was fine, with dozens of planes flying around waiting for a window to land, until the handful of Ryanair planes that had been rerouted to Madrid and other places called for emergency landings, because they didn't have enough fuel to fly for even 30 minutes longer than planned flights.

I'm still amazed that the EU regulators and EU fucking commission didn't downright dismantle such a bloody greedy and downright criminal company. That they basically did nothing is proof enough, imho, of the insane level of capitalism-worship and of corruption going on in Brussels (of course it's even worse in Washington DC, but that's basically a given).

bevin , Mar 12, 2019 9:19:41 PM | link
the toronto star is carrying this story
Headline:
"Ottawa exempts Boeing 737 Max jets from standards meant to minimize passenger injuries"

"Air Canada and WestJet are flying the Boeing 737 Max aircraft exempt from regulatory standards meant to limit passenger injuries in the event of an accident, the Star has learned."

What does it mean?

Pft , Mar 12, 2019 9:51:59 PM | link
B is right. This is a criminal act of deception and fraud thats cost hundreds their lives. Boeing executives responsible should be prosecuted and then jailed.

Instead the safety agency regulating them will cover it up, backed by the criminal congress.

We see similar crimes against humanity being committed in many other areas. FDA, CDC, EPA, FCC , USDA, etc covering up for Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Telecom with dangerous products like vaccines, glyphosate,4G/5G, GMO foods, gene edited livestock, etc. Safety standards are lax and inadequate, safety testing is minimal and in some cases fraudulent or completely lacking. Defects and adverse effects are covered up. A revolving door between these agencies and the industry they cover presents significant conflict of interest. These industries finance congressional members campaigns. Public safety is sacrificed for the greater good (profits and personal gain). Whistleblowers are muzzled, attacked or ridiculed as the MSM are their lap dogs.

That said, the airline industry has had a remarkable safety record over the last 30 years if you can overlook their failure to have adequate locks on cockpit doors in 2001. However, the lack of competition and increasing corruption and continuing moral decay we see in society , government and industry has obviously taken its toll on the industry. This is inexcusable. Heads should roll (dont hold your breath).

El Cid , Mar 12, 2019 9:57:08 PM | link
Congress flies on these aircraft to and fro from Washington to their districts. It is to their interests to have these Boeing 737 permanently grounded.
ben , Mar 12, 2019 10:13:18 PM | link
psycho @1 said;"The West is a world in which the accountants have more sway than engineers."

Case closed, and anyone who thinks senior execs should be prosecuted and jailed are right.

BUT, never would happen in today's pro-corporate U$A mentality..

Profits uber alles!!

Kadath , Mar 12, 2019 10:23:36 PM | link
Re: 59 Bevin, "Ottawa exempts Boeing 737 Max jets from standards meant to minimize passenger injuries"

- what this means is that Washington called Ottawa and ordered little Justin that he had to allow the 737 8's to fly and Justin said yes sir! However, someone at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, told Justin that the threat these plane pose to travellers was so obvious that they couldn't just ignore it and that they would instead have to issue a waiver to show that they have done due diligence - apparently this person or someone else within the department then called the Star in order to leak the information and embarrass Justin into reversing his decision. I imagine tomorrow at 4:00pm during the question hour, Justin will get raked through the coals over his - Justin's whole defense of his actions during the Lavin scandal has been "I needed to protect Canadian jobs", I imagine the NDP or Conservatives will then retort something along the lines of "you'll break the law to protect Jobs, why won't you obey the law to protect Canadian lives!", I should point out that 8 Canadians were killed in the most recent crash in Ethiopia

paul , Mar 12, 2019 10:28:00 PM | link
Steven @ 35: watch this

from 2014: 32min in john woods aerospace engineer whistle blower https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

acementhead , Mar 12, 2019 10:39:09 PM | link
Steven is correct. Totally correct. I suspect that he is an airline pilot, as am I. Everybody else is wrong at least in part and most between 50% and 100%(The description of the cause of the QANTAS hull loss).

Pilots MUST know all about aircraft systems operation. It is crazy for Boeing to have functions not in the AFM.

The system in question is not operative with autopilot engaged. In manual flight if at any time one gets an uncommanded stab trim movement one should immediately disable electrical trim(One switch, half a second, no "procedure" required. In manual flight if the trim wheel moves and you hadn't touched the trim switches you have uncommanded trim. Immediately disable electrical trim.

There is procedure for reestablishment of electrical trim, that does take time. The defeat of the runaway trim does not take time. B737 has provision for manual trim(but it's very slow.

Bob , Mar 12, 2019 10:47:40 PM | link
Also a very interesting read about the JT610 Flight https://www.satcom.guru/2018/11/first-look-at-jt610-flight-data.html
VietnamVet , Mar 12, 2019 10:47:49 PM | link
I grew up reading Boeing's weekly employee newspaper. Times have changed too much since then. Moving the headquarters from Seattle to Chicago and a second 787 assembly line in South Carolina to bust their unions are proof that Boeing is a multinational corporation superior to national governments. The company is the Empire's armorer for profit. It is criminal to design an unstable passenger airplane that must be controlled by fly by wire sensors and computers to stay in the air. The problem is the aircraft industry duopoly and deregulation. Airbus has lost at least three aircraft to problems with the pilot computer interface. I was shocked when NBC put this first last night. I though it would be silenced. I blame Trump Derangement Syndrome. His trade wars and dissing have ticked off the world. When China grounded the 737 Max 8 everybody followed to show what they really think about the North American Empire. This could be devastating to the last manufacturing industry left in the USA.
Deal , Mar 12, 2019 10:58:29 PM | link
Boeing in my view took a cynical decision. That is, there would only be a few crashes within a set period. Thus the insurance companies would pick up the tab for their profits. However the loss of two planes so close together could destroy the company. The aforesaid insurance companies will not pay a single dime if they can stick corporate murder charges onto Boeing.

This smells of the Ford Pinto scandal where Ford knew that there was a problem with the fuel system if the car was rear-ended ( the vehicle burst into flames ) but it was cheaper to pay the compensation than fix the problem.

Kalen , Mar 13, 2019 12:25:40 AM | link
B is missing the point that fitting new engines caused airplane to take off close to stalling horizontal speeds and angles at very low altitude and more steeply ascending to flight altitude and that has left little time for pilots to react. That is very dangerous as much weaker tail wind may confuse pilots and sensors. To remedy that without recertification AI software was installed to react faster and overriding actions of pilot who was assumed not be aware of situation at the moment he had to immediately react at the latest.

Lack of sensor redundancy is also criminal as determination of sensor malfunction is critical for pilot. That is AI application correcting "human" physical mental deficiencies and that is deadly trap.

If it goes to court, interesting case will be, whose error was that as MCAS system acted correctly against pilot based on faulty sensor causing pilot to make mistake recovering from correct but suicidal software actions.

People must be warned of cultish trust in technology and AI which is ultimate guilty party together with greed that killed those people.

Pft , Mar 13, 2019 1:01:16 AM | link
Frances@70

There are unlimited dollars for any intervention they choose, publicly allocated or not. There is a reason 21 trillion in pentagon spending is unaccounted for. This does not count dark money from illicit means used to fund covert operations.

The fact its public just means Trump wants congress to sanction it, which they will. Seized Venezuela assets will serve as collateral for future reimbursement.

Grieved , Mar 13, 2019 1:02:08 AM | link
@65 acementhead - "It is crazy for Boeing to have functions not in the AFM"

No, it's criminal. And while all the technical discussion around how to fly a plane is truly interesting, what's really at issue here is corporate and institutional betrayal of trust.

The corporate aspect is Boeing, obviously. The institutional aspect is FAA, which used to lead the world in trust when it came to life and death matters.

But now, in what Bloomberg, even while trying to support FAA, has no choice but to report as a "stunning rebuff" to FAA's integrity, countries around the world are grounding this flawed plane. Germany, among others, has closed its airspace to the 737.

This situation has only a little to do with how to fly a plane. It has vastly more to do with the face of capitalism we see leering at us as our families live their last few moments, on the way to the ground. It has to do with how the corporate spin departments will attempt to cover up and evade responsibility for these crimes.

And it has to do with how the global consumer market will start to book its flights based not on price or time or seat location but on make of plane.

And despite your claim that "Everybody else is wrong at least in part..." , I doubt very much that most of the commenters here are wrong in their appreciation of the situation.

snake , Mar 13, 2019 1:07:41 AM | link
@68 No Deal

I don't think Boeing made a decision, they had little choice (stockholders were first, the jobs were essential to the politicians, and market share would become competitive if Boeing dropped out), it was the pressure of the system that charted their course.

Capitalism is about competition in a just, fairly well managed government regulated environment. In order for capitalism not to over step the bounds of competitive capitalism; government must remain present, to prevent foul play and to deny all hints of monopoly power...

Capitalism without an honest government becomes organized crime or, worse, it degenerates to allow private enterprise and special interest to dictate how the rule making and military arms of government should be used, against domestic and foreign competition. . Economic Zionism is what I call this last degenerative stage.

Defensively EZ teaches the winner to completely and totally destroy the infrastructure, the resources and the people (including competitive personnel with the brains to develop competition) of those who refuse to conform or those who insist on competing; offensively , EZ teaches the winner to take all and to take-over, own and keep the goodies taken from those destroyed, and in the matter of profit making and wealth keeping EZ teaches only winners are allowed to produce-and -profit everyone else is to be made to feed the monopoly that eliminated competition produced. The residual of eliminated, decimated competitive opposition = monopoly power

It is the king of the mountain monopoly that produces the wealth and power and feeds the corruption that makes the rich richer.

I think this case makes clear, privatization of government responsibility nearly always turns sour . The Government should take over and keep the operation of all of the Airlines strictly in government hands (privatization is proven to be problematic). When I grew up all of the airlines were so tightly regulated they were part of the government; the airlines were investors and operators following government rules and regulations. pricing was based on point to point fixed in price and terms (and the same for all airlines) and that was a time when aircraft design was not so accurate, meals were served and jets were nearly not existent but still there were very few accidents. Same for the Trucking Industry and the railroad.. Why should roads be government obligations, but rail, trucks and planes be privately owned?

I am not a communist or a socialist, I just know that private influence will always find a way to wrongly influence public sector employees when private interest wants something from government.

V , Mar 13, 2019 1:43:43 AM | link
VietnamVet | Mar 12, 2019 10:47:49 PM | 67

Agreed!

For a number issues/reasons, I quit flying in 2007, vowing never to set foot in an aircraft again. Trains or ships, okay. So far so good; the 737 Max just firms my rsolve...

Circe , Mar 13, 2019 2:17:54 AM | link
The aircraft did not undergo piece by piece certification or type certification . It underwent supplemental type certification that shortens the investigative process.

max 8 Certification

This is a potential disaster for Boeing. The stock is falling and it'll go into free fall if decision is made to ground this aircraft. FAA will also face a legal tsunami. If this is the reason they didn't ground the planes yet; it's going to look really damning when the find themselves in court later.

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 13, 2019 2:21:34 AM | link
This is shaping up to be unnecessarily messy for the industry. Yesterday's Oz edition of PBS Newshour went over most of the topics touched on in b's posting but stopped short of finger-pointing although it insinuated that Boeing had blundered. Today's edition posed a question I was going to pose here...

"Should anyone be flying 737MAXes before the black box data has been evaluated?"

The answer, delivered by a female ex-Inspector General (of precisely what I didn't hear) is "No. Absolutely not!"

james , Mar 13, 2019 2:39:06 AM | link
@35 steven... i will take that as a compliment, referring to me as a clown.. i have high regard for clowns, although i don't think there is anything funny about the topic at hand.. innocent people dying and it being based on a corporation that might be negligent in it's responsibility to it's passengers, is something we will have to wait and find out about.. i am definitely not thinking it is pilot error here, as you suggest.. i saw what the canadian airpilot association said - essentially they don't believe Canada should be flying them either, as i read it..

@43 karlof1.. as i pointed out in the link @7 - the fact canada allows them to continue to be flown makes no sense to me..poor judgment call is what it looks like to me.. the canuck gov't and etc are living in the shadows of what b has described about the FAA.. a lot of credibility is on the line here as i see it..

i apologize for not reading all the comments, as i was out most of the day and just got back..

acementhead , Mar 13, 2019 2:48:25 AM | link

Kalen said

"...fitting new engines caused airplane to take off close to stalling horizontal speeds and angles at very low altitude and more steeply ascending to flight altitude and that has left little time for pilots to react. That is very dangerous as much weaker tail wind may confuse pilots and sensors. ..."

This is absolute garbage. Nothing but a "word salad" it has nothing to do with reality.

The Ethiopian crash is due to a useless pilot. A different crew, on the same plane, the day before had the same problem. They handled it correctly, which is EASY, and completed the day's flying without problem. Third world airlines have HUGE numbers of absolutely incompetent pilots.

Anyone interested in the operational aspects of this should go to an aviation site. PPRUNE has some good discussion of this event. There are a few idiots posting but very few. Most people there are very knowledgeable. I had a look at Airliners.net mostly rubbish.

Peter AU 1 , Mar 13, 2019 3:16:03 AM | link
Kalen 69
Installing the new engines changed the angle of thrust. In a balanced aircraft, engine thrust is pushing centrally on wight and drag.
If the thrust is below center of weight, it will nose up while accelerating. If thrust is below center of drag, the aircraft will be trying to nose up while cruising.

The original aircraft was most likely balanced, with thrust centered to weight and drag. Mounting new engines lower means the aircraft will tend to nose up when accelerating, and nose up during cruise. Relying on sensors and software to keep an unstable aircraft stable is not a good thing. To not notify pilots of this problem is worse than not a good thing.

psychohistorian , Mar 13, 2019 3:24:41 AM | link
@ acementhead with insistence that the pilot was at error.

Without the black box data you are sticking your **ck out a long way. I find it interesting that in both your comments you are insistent that the pilot was the problem. You wrote in your first comment
"
Pilots MUST know all about aircraft systems operation. It is crazy for Boeing to have functions not in the AFM.
"
The 2nd sentence is your only criticism of Boeing but then you spend the rest of the comment describing what the pilot should have done.....before black box data says what happened.

Kiza , Mar 13, 2019 3:45:44 AM | link
When a relative asked me recently why did the new Ethiopian plane crash, I generated a sound-bite like explanation. Before, the civilian airliners were falling out of the sky because of an immature technology, that is because of the learning curve. Now that the technology involved is fully mature the airliners are falling out of the sky for profit taking.

The scariest thing is that 737MAX model was a botched Boeing reaction to the market change towards budget flight. If the plane manufacturer and the approval authority were prepared to cut corners so badly to remain "market competitive", one can only imagine the compromises that budget airlines are making to sell cheap whilst increasing profits. Some airlines must be treating planes worst than buses are treated by the bus companies.

US citizens entrust their wallets to the private bank, The Federal=Corrupt Reserve, which prints money and gives it to the most exceptional among the exceptional (did you think that there was no hierarchy within the exceptionality?). We entrust our heads to the Federal=Corrupt Aviation Administration whose bureaucrats work for the porky revolving door consulting jobs that come after a stint in the Corrupt.

Kiza , Mar 13, 2019 4:01:48 AM | link
@Peter AU 1

As Aussies would say: using software to solve a hardware problem is like putting lipstick on a pig. More than 300 people dead are a terrible testament to this wisdom.

Yet, it is fascinating that you are blaming the engineers and some others are asking in the comments for whistleblowers in Boeing and FAA.

Well, if I were an engineer at Boeing I would probably have resigned if asked to do this design monstrosity of putting unfitting engines on a differently designed plane - creating a Lego airplane, but I never had a home mortgage over my head. Regarding whistleblowing, we all know how suicidal it is, why do supposedly intelligent people expect other to be so dumb to commit one? Before you expect others to self-sacrifice ask yourself if you would do so in their shoes.

b , Mar 13, 2019 4:01:57 AM | link
It seems that the U.S. now wants to manipulate the investigation of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. WSJ U.S., Ethiopia Maneuver Over Crashed Plane's Black Boxes Washington wants NTSB to download data from recorders, while African nation's officials prefer U.K. experts.
U.S. air-safety investigators on Tuesday engaged in intense behind-the-scenes discussions with their Ethiopian counterparts regarding where the black-box recorders found amid the wreckage of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 will be downloaded, according to people familiar with the matter.
Peter AU 1 , Mar 13, 2019 4:15:37 AM | link
Kiza 85 "Before you expect others to self-sacrifice ask yourself if you would do so in their shoes."
"Self sacrifice" ... Most of my life I have been self employed, but for a few years when I was young and then as I got older and ill health slowed me down, I have worked for others.

If told to do a job that I believed was destined to fail, I would pull out. What you call self sacrifice simply comes down to money, and as I put in an earlier comment "what we do for money" Engineers that put this schumozzel together were simply putting in the hours to received their pay check at the end of the week with no thought as to the people hurt or killed when this bodge job failed. The fault is equally with engineers who sell their souls for money and the bean counters who did not inform purchasers or pilots.

Kalen , Mar 13, 2019 4:16:24 AM | link
@aceme..

What you wrote is asinine garbage, my friend. Everybody except for bribed FAA dumped B737 Max 8 until notice. It is simply too dangerous to fly.

It is you who are trolling for Boeing, the problem was discovered five months ago never fixed, blamed pilots despite previous complaints. Now FAA admitted that fact by demanding software fix in April or they will ground the fleet. PILOT ERROR????? Of course not and they know it.

Not only worldwide airlines dumped this model so far but also they closed the airspace for them in EU, China, HK etc.,because the plane is dangerous and may require recertification of plane and pilots since Boeing lied about it and its flight parameters,p the trust was broken, they were cheating with deadly consequences was revealed. Expect hundreds of lawsuits, as American were also onboard.

Interestingly that anti-stalling software cannot be disabled on the ground only in flight in manual mode only after it was engaged exactly for reasons I mentioned about near-stalling dangerous flight parameters.

Peter AU 1 , Mar 13, 2019 4:27:42 AM | link
b 86

US Boeing are very much competing with France airbus and also the coming Chinese Russian airliner. The US is very much batting for the home team (as the mad monk told the Australian Broadcasting Commission to do so).

Kiza , Mar 13, 2019 6:14:40 AM | link
Is it really so hard to connect the secrecy about MCAS and why it was needed in the first place? The lawyers will have a ball of the decade with this: the defendant created a secret software solution to turn a Lego airplane into a real airplane, made the software dependent on a single sensor, and made it difficult to switch the software off.

The networked Western pilots learned how to compensate for the faulty design, but non-networked foreign pilots never got in on the flying tricks needed for this new plane because it was never been in their training. Also, the critical sensor may not be available on an airport in Ethiopia or Indonesia or .....

I cannot believe that Boeing shares dropped only 7.5%, this is a statement of how untouchable Boeing is and how protected it will be by the Corrupt.

[Mar 13, 2019] Anti-Semitism Pandemic! by C.J. Hopkins

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Virologists are working around the clock to map the genome of this scurrilous scourge, about which very little is known, other than that it has a sudden onset, and attacks the language center of the brain, causing the sufferer to express opinions about "Zionism," "globalism," "the Israel lobby," "banks," and other code words for "Jews." Patients appear to be unaware that they are spouting these anti-Semitic code words until they are told they are by the corporate media, or their colleagues, or some random account on Twitter, at which point their symptoms alter dramatically, and they suffer a series of petit mal seizures, causing them to repeatedly apologize for unintentionally advocating the extermination of the entire Jewish people and the establishment of a worldwide Nazi Reich.

At the moment, Britain is taking the brunt of it. Despite the best efforts of the ruling classes and the media to contain its spread, several new cases of anti-Semitism have been reported throughout the Kingdom, or at least among the Labour Party, which, at this point, has been so thoroughly infected that it resembles a neo-Nazi death cult .

Jeremy Corbyn, who contracted the virus more or less the moment he assumed the leadership, is now exhibiting symptoms of late-stage disease. Reliable sources close to the party, reached for comment at a brunch in Qatar with Tony Blair and a bunch of Saudis, report that Corbyn is running around Momentum HQ in full Nazi regalia, alternately heiling Hitler and looking for journalists to apologize to.

Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop apologizing for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something basically along those lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a hive of Nazis, and that he ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero actual evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it has been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch.

Emergency measures are now in effect. A full-scale Labour Party lockdown is imminent. Anyone not already infected is being advised to flee the party, denounce anyone who hasn't done so as "a Hitler-loving Corbyn-sympathizer," and prophylactically apologize for any critical statements they might have made about Israel, or "elites," or "global capitalism," or "bankers," or anything else that anyone can construe as anti-Semitism ( preferably in the pages of The Guardian ).

Nor has the Continent been spared! What at first appeared to be a series of spontaneous protests against Emmanuel Macron, economic austerity, and global capitalism by the so-called "Yellow Vests" in France has now been officially diagnosed as a nationwide anti-Semitism outbreak. In a heroic attempt to contain the outbreak, Macron has dispatched his security forces to shoot the eyes out of unarmed women , pepper spray paraplegics in wheelchairs , and just generally beat bloody hell out of everyone . Strangely, none of these tactics have worked, so France has decided to join the USA, the UK, Germany, and the rest of the empire in defining anti-Zionism as form of anti-Semitism , such that anyone implying that Israel is in any way inherently racist, or a quasi-fascist Apartheid state, or making jokes about "elites" or "bankers," can be detained and prosecuted for committing a "hate-crime."

Meanwhile, in the United States (where Donald Trump, "U.S. patient zero," had already single-handedly infected the vast majority of the American populace, and transformed the nation into an unrecognizable, genocidal Nazi Reich), the anti-Semitism virus has now spread to Congress, where Representative Ilhan Omar (reputed to be a hardcore member of the infamous " Axis of Anti-Semitism ") has apparently totally lost her mind and started talking about the Israel lobby, and the billions of dollars the U.S. government provides to Israel on an annual basis, and other Israel-related subjects one simply does not talk about (unless one writes for The New York Times and isn't a hijab-wearing Muslim, in which case it's completely fine to characterize support for Israel as being " bought and paid for by the Israel lobby ").

OK, I know, you're probably questioning the fact that this anti-Semitism pandemic just sprang up out of the ether one day, more or less in perfect synch with the Russian plot to destroy democracy that Vladimir Putin set in motion the moment the Global War on Terror seemed to be running out of steam. If you are, you need to close this essay, pull up either MSNBC or The Guardian website on your phone, and inoculate yourself against such thoughts. That conspiratorial type of thinking is one of the early warning signs that you have been infected with anti-Semitism! Unless you act now to protect yourself, before you know it, you'll be raving about "the ruling classes," "globalist elites," "austerity," "neoliberalism," "the Israel lobby," or even "Palestinians."

... ... ...

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .


Edward Huguenin , says: March 11, 2019 at 3:08 pm GMT

"Anti-semite" has lost its sting, because every justified criticism of the fully nuclear armed, viciously apartheid, theocratic Zionist Israeli government is declared to be anti-semitism. The word is so overused and misapplied as to be useless. Indeed, to be declared "anti-semite" by the Israel Lobby is to be declared a person of high moral conscience.

Long live BDS!

August , says: March 11, 2019 at 3:53 pm GMT
Anti-Semitism is a myth, anti-non-semitism is real.
kikz , says: March 11, 2019 at 4:03 pm GMT
"Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop apologizing for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something basically along those lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a hive of Nazis, and that he ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero actual evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it has been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch."

brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! y, it's much the same here across the pond.

[Mar 13, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard comments on WikiLeaks' Julian Assangr are encouraging for anti-war independents'

Nikki2 comment on Youtube: "GUYS! Tulsi needs 65,000 individual donations to get into the debates. Even if she's not your #1 candidate, please donate a small amount so she can bring the foreign policy/regime change conversation to the debates"
Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

RobinG , says: March 12, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski Chelsea Manning is imprisoned (from the article you cited) "for refusing to testify in front of a secretive Grand Jury." The regime is after Julian Assange, so they're trying to squeeze Manning. Not happening!

BTW, Tulsi Gabbard on WikiLeaks' Julian Assange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r96RWyhDPS0

[Mar 13, 2019] No, Dual Loyalty Isn't Okay by Philip Giraldi

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Paul , says: March 12, 2019 at 8:38 am GMT

The new congresswoman Ilhan Omar is experiencing what happens to one who will not grovel before the Zionist Lobby and its Washington henchmen.
Anonymous [246] Disclaimer , says: March 12, 2019 at 9:05 am GMT
Is there any other nation that wields such a stranglehold on any other as Israel does the United States? Is there any other nation that has so completely surrendered its sovereignty to another as has the United States to Israel. Does any other country (size of Israel) strike fear and dread into the hearts of its lawmakers to the point of complete serfdom as Israel does the US? Can any other country allow any foreign country to override its head of state to address lawmakers as Israel has done to the US in the case of Obama, despite his complete servility to Israel, thereby rendering himself a victim of dual abuses: racism and disregard of American sovereignty? Has any other country sacrificed so many of its citizens for wars on behalf of any other country as we have done for Israel? Can any other country receiving billions of dollars of taxpayers money in aid and military hardware shamelessly call the shots as Israel does with America, with America not as much as questioning orders from Israel? Can we realistically celebrate Independence Day with so much fanfare when another country has us so completely by the balls as to make a mockery of the word "independence". Can any country strip any other of its sovereignty as Israel has done to the US, including undermining its constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, with our total collusion? Having raised all these questions, can there be realistic grounds for hoping for a ray of light at the end of the tunnel, short of a comprehensive revolution that would rehabilitate a nation led by quislings into one of principled men and women?
EliteCommInc. , says: March 12, 2019 at 10:08 am GMT
Allow me to state for the record . . .

anyone here who chooses to hate me. I recognize that that you have the right to do so. And that that right s Constitutionally protected. You are entitled to your feelings.

What I must object to and call into question is your attempt to engage in acts that in any threaten, thwart, disrupt my right as a US citizen to access every aspect of what is guaranteed to me by the US constitution. That includes manufacturing false claims to undermine the same.

I will defend your right to your feelings and your right to express them in a manner in accordance with the first amendment. I cannot support acts that deprive myself my constitutional rights in any manner.

I am not a promoter of hate, but I certainly recognize the right that people have for their feelings and the desire to one's express them.

TimeTraveller , says: March 12, 2019 at 10:10 am GMT

[Bret Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory."

If what Rep. Omar said wasn't too different from what Mr. Buchanan said previously, why haven't we heard a peep out of him on this issue?

The silence is deafening.

jacques sheete , says: March 12, 2019 at 11:47 am GMT

a liar and a hypocrite, and that alone should disqualify them for office.

Hello?

Where the bleep have you been, Pardner? You got that exactly backwards; mendacity and hypocrisy are mandatory minimum qualifications for the positions.

Ms. Omar is dis qualified because she is honest enough to speak the truth.

Now, go learn to shoot straight before shooting off yer mug, and you can start with this,

I must take issue with your observation that Mr. Truman is an habitual liar, not because I disagree with you, but because I disagree with your manner in presenting it as a derogatory statement. Is not the ability of lying necessary to political leadership ?

-EUSTACE MULLINS, In Our Readers' Opinion, The American Mercury, November 1951, pp. 51-54

And this, which illustrates several points regarding politicians, their characteristics and motives.:

Two candidates for political office in a debate

SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the allies at will that you reckon; you wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist, that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the blessings you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with hatred and rage, he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only too well; it is for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.

Aristophanes, The Knights, 424 BC

Do you really believe Ms. Omar is rocking us to sleep with her lies about Israel?

JC , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:17 pm GMT
until there is a much larger block of anti israel congresspeople nothing is going to change. What is the USs interest? They sure are not interested in making things better for the majority/middle class. All the while continuing to enrich the already too wealthy ever more. Media is a lying POS and yet people still watch Fox or Cnn or msnbc. All of them produce nothing but propaganda garbage. Unfortunately, it seems like most in the USA just don't care. In Venezuela look at the protesters the US media sets up and/or loves so much, try that in the USA and you'll end up in jail.
Anon23 , says: March 12, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
For me, Ilhan Omar's statements were the most exciting political event in decades. I'm not surprised that she is being punished, but the viciousness of the attacks have certainly gone up a notch.

America's big mistake: allowing all the media to congeal into one big bullhorn that is controlled by Jewish interests. As long as they control the media there will be no national debate of zionist power in America.

Another great article by Giraldi. He is consistently the most forceful and articulate writer regarding the subversion of America's national interests to Israel.

anarchyst , says: March 12, 2019 at 1:14 pm GMT
As much as I despise Omar's politics, in this case she is right to expose the dirty politics that Israel uses on it's "friend and ally" the United States of America.
AIPAC is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States and has done more to influence and damage the American political process than just about any other lobby. It is a loosely-guarded secret that, in order to garner jewish support, prospective politicians must sign a loyalty oath promising support for Israel. This, in itself is un-American and borders on treason. Failure to sign the loyalty oath almost always assures a political death. AIPAC will spend millions to elect a candidate as long as he "toes the Israeli line".
Remember the USS Liberty (GTR-5), the American naval vessel that was deliberately attacked with massive loss of American lives (an act of war) by "our friend and ally" Israel on June 8, 1967. If I had my way, Israel would have been turned into a "glass parking lot" on June 9, 1967.
As an aside, we must constantly hit our politicians with charges of treason, citing the "loyalty oaths" to Israel that almost all of them have signed.
DESERT FOX , says: March 12, 2019 at 1:44 pm GMT
Dual citizens of Israel are through out the US government and have given America unending wars and debt and an unconstitutional FED and IRS. No dual citizen from any nation should be able to hold office in any government or state or county or city government in the US, no one can serve two masters and citizens of Israel serve Israel and that is why America has been at war for 18 years and counting in the Mideast!
APilgrim , says: March 12, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
No government official, for ANY NATION, should have dual citizenship.

No one with Caliphate, or Communist sympathies, should serve in high-level positions.

Dual Citizens should be driven from the land.

[Mar 13, 2019] This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bardon Kaldian , says: March 12, 2019 at 7:34 p m GMT

There you are:
https://forward.com/opinion/420715/jewish-leaders-denounce-dual-loyalties-while-demanding-fealty-to-israel/

Israel was everywhere at the Jewish day school I attended in New York. The Israeli and American flags were proudly displayed together, no matter that I, like the majority of my classmates, was not Israeli.

This alone might be innocuous, a loose cultural affinity that would be familiar in a French or German language academy. But in Jewish day school life, outright political mobilization for Israel and its policies was a requirement.

Every year we would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the Salute to Israel parade on New York's Fifth Avenue. Teachers were marshals, and mocking stories about pro-Palestinian activists were exchanged in class the following day.

One year, we were outright required to join a protest in support of Israel, during the school day, at the United Nations.

This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.

With any other cultural group in America, for any other country, these statements would be shocking. After all, when was the last time you heard of an Italian-American birthright trip to Sicily? But for American Jews, the centrality of allegiance to Israel in our communal organizations is the norm.

[Mar 13, 2019] Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Wizard of Oz , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT

There is one big omission in your article PG. If you read more than the tweet from Rep. Juan Vargas that you linked as

"Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."

you must have been pleased by the deluge (maybe hundreds) of Tweets uniformly condemning him and including many from people claiming believably to be Jews.

BTW Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators and has had in the last few years a previously unparalleled spate of challenges to members already seated in Parliament. The courts have interpreted the constitutional provision strictly and MPs whose Italian born mothers filled in a form which gave them Italian citizenship without their knowledge have been caught (or at least been taken to court).

I would tend to argue that dual citizenship should be declared but that it is up yo the voters to decide whether they want to be represented by someone who isn't only an Australian. There are counterarguments however and avoidance of America's Israel First situation is certainly one of them.

wayfarer , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT
"Undercover Footage Zionists Don't Want You to See!"
AnonFromTN , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office. Stated allegiance to any other country should be treated as high treason, which it is. However, I don't see Congress doing any of this: we all know what happens when the improvements in henhouse safely is in the hands of foxes.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
Anyway All US political system is running on bribery. So the bribery is legal and cannot be tackled.
The only way to go is to distinguish the bribery and divide it into two groups.
Patriotic bribery and non patriotic bribery.
jo6pac , says: March 12, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT
https://prepareforchange.net/2018/06/22/89-of-our-senators-and-congress-hold-dual-citizenship-citizenship-with-israel/

No comment needed

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:10 pm GMT
Here is a funny thing!!!!!!!!!
The Arabs have a proper English word for bribery: Backshish.
1 It is done in the back, so nobody sees it.
2 Shish means you should be quiet about it.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT
What bribery you may ask.
So what are those prepayed trips to Israel where the Congress people are treated as kings, and they have chance to make love to the Jewish wall of the temple. They stick their wishes written on paper into crevices of the wall. (Not too many records if the wall did take care of their wishes.}

... ... ...

renfro , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN You dont have to be a dual citizen be a traitor.

So what the US needs is an amendment to the Constitution expanding the definitions of treason and subversion to better reflect the modern day realities of our political system.

Perhaps suggest to the Magnificent Three that they put forth a bill calling for that.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:03 pm GMT
If you have any doubts about the accuracy of this article and whether Rep. Omar has been telling the truth, just ask yourself:

How many of our Solons and senior members of the Executive Branch attend the annual AIPAC gathering?

How many Congress critters take money from pro israel PACs?

the grand wazoo , says: March 12, 2019 at 7:02 pm GMT
Another Phil Geraldi gem.

What makes this piece meaningful is he is 100% correct. Representative Ilhar Omar should be applauded for her bravery. She truly is courageous, as she not only risks her political career but also her life. And by doing so she leaves open the door for others to follow. We'll soon see how serious the Zionists take this matter.

JFK called for AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, however sense his murder not one politician has ever mentioned it again. I think this says a lot about how much influence that particular lobby has. Too much.

[Mar 13, 2019] Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column?

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Parasitic caste watch , says: March 12, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT

Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column? These domestic Zionazis are Israel's fifth column. They constitute the vanguard of an international, and their program is clearly shown here:

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/MENARegion/Pages/ILIndex.aspx

Israel leads a counterrevolutionary plan and conspiracy for bad-faith subversion of all your human rights including your human right to peace. Israel's existence depends on domestic Apartheid, totalitarian repression in client states such as the US, and continual threats to peace worldwide. The government of Israel has forfeited its sovereignty by shirking its responsibility to protect with the crime against peace of aggression and the crime against humanity of extermination. In consequence, it must give way to a free Palestine.

The only way you're going to shake off Israel's fifth column is end Israel. You've got to do to Israel what we did to South Africa.

Johnny Walker Read , says: March 12, 2019 at 2:35 pm GMT
"No politician can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve America and Israel."

My translation of Matthew 6:24

renfro , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:09 pm GMT
@jo6pac There are 40 Jews in the house and senate .that is not 89% of the total 500 congressmen and senators.

Crap claims like this are actually harmful to the effort to get the Jewish Fifth Column and Israel out of the US because the lie will be pointed out and much fun made of the nutcases by the uber Jews.

Stick to facts .the facts are bad enough.

Grigor , says: Website March 12, 2019 at 6:51 pm GMT
Duel citizenship is only acceptable if one citizenship is from where you were born, over which you had no choice, and the other is where you have chosen to live, made your home, and become a citizen thereof. Two citizenship by choice is a sham: getting the benefactors of one but maintaining your loyalty to another.

[Mar 13, 2019] Neoconservatives use of projection

Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Felix-Culpa, March 12, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT • 200 Words

[Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the frame, bidding to get in.

Let's examine how and why the cunning and bigotry of Bret Stephens gets projected by him onto Ilhan Omar.

1. Charge, sans evidence, your opponent with your own crimes and repeat the charge ad nauseam.

2. In lieu of refutation of your opponent's argument, train your reader to identify his argument as galling chutzpah and your galling chutzpah as an argument.

3. Double down on the accusatory inversion and invoke anti- Semitism: It is not the Jewish demand that the USA shut-up and bow down before Israel which is threatening to provoke an anti-Semitic reaction; no: anti-Semitism results from acknowledging as legitimate a scrutiny of the claims and aims of the Zionist state.

Mr. Stephen's rhetoric is an admission that he and his kind hate Jews, insisting as it does on the implicit acceptance of Jewish identity as irrational and homicidal. His rhetoric also represents an ultimatum to the USA: honor Israel's irrational hatred and killing of its neighbors or you are guilty of irrationally killing Jews.

This is known as desperation and is an infallible sign that yet another false Jewish messiah – Neoconservatism-has failed.

[Mar 12, 2019] White House Proposes Huge Increase in War Funding

So much for ending foreign wars and using money to increase standard of living of workers and lower middle class...
Mar 12, 2019 | news.antiwar.com
Jason Ditz Posted on March 11, 2019 March 11, 2019 Categories News Tags Pentagon , Trump As had been previously reported late last week , President Trump has unveiled a budget plan which, in addition to cutting social spending across the board, would seek a huge increase in military spending , centered almost entirely on war funding.

US military spending is always by far the largest on the planet, several times the amount of the next highest spending, China. But while other nations like China and Russia are scaling back their budgets, the Pentagon's budget, as ever, continues to rise.

Trump's proposal would bring the overall defense budget for 2020 to $750 billion. This includes a $544 billion base-line defense budget, which is not in and of itself a huge increase. But on top of that will be a nearly $100 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) Fund , and a $9 billion "emergency" funding request meant to make up for the money already taken from the military to build the border wall.

Using the OCO budget as an avenue for driving military spending up has been a common tactic in recent decades, though it had fallen out of favor in the past few years. The OCO has been heavily criticized because its nature makes it effectively a black hole, allowing the Pentagon to shuffle money around to different projects as it sees fit.

Exploding the OCO, nearly tripling it from the current year's levels, while keeping base funding roughly in line, seems meant to allow the administration to present themselves as keeping past commitments, while fueling a precipitous spending increase all the same.

[Mar 12, 2019] Just ask the Iraqis and Syrians.

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website March 12, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT

Zionist-controlled US carried out globalist-pogroms or globogroms all over the world, esp against Muslim nations. Just ask the Iraqis and Syrians. (As for Palestinians, they got it bad from Ziogroms.)

Jewish elite love to talk about 'Munich', but the Munich moment in our world is about stopping Judeo-Nazi supremacists from hatching another war, such as against Iran.

Someone must draw a line in the sand and say NO. Jewish Power has crossed too many lines.

If there is World War III, it will have been instigated mainly by the Tribe.

[Mar 12, 2019] "One nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "

Notable quotes:
"... I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ..."
Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT

I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "

Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children overseas.

Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby and the defense lobby.

[Mar 12, 2019] Note on the loss of power of Jewish lobby in the US Congress due to inflation

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova says: March 12, 2019 at 2:31 pm GMT

We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?

[Mar 12, 2019] No, Dual Loyalty Isn't Okay by Philip Giraldi

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Solons on Capitol Hill are terrified of the expression "dual loyalty." They are afraid because dual loyalty means that one is not completely a loyal citizen of the country where one was born, raised and, presumably, prospered. It also suggests something more perverse, and that is dual citizenship, which in its present historic and social context particularly refers to the Jewish congressmen and women who just might be citizens of both the United States and Israel. There is particular concern over the issue at the moment because a freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the Israel Lobby.

Certainly, the voting record in Congress would suggest that there are a lot of congress critters who embrace dual loyalty, with evidence that the loyalty is not so much dual as skewed in favor of Israel. Any bill relating to Israel or to Jewish collective interests, like the currently fashionable topic of anti-Semitism, is guaranteed a 90% plus approval rating no matter what it says or how much it damages actual U.S. interests. Thursday's 407 to 23 vote in the House of Representatives on a meaningless and almost unreadable "anti-hate" resolution was primarily intended to punish Ilhan Omar and to demonstrate that the Democratic Party is indeed fully committed to sustaining the exclusive prerogatives of the domestic Jewish community and the Jewish state.

The voting on the resolution was far from unusual and would have been unanimous but for the fact that twenty-three Republicans voted "no" because they wanted a document that was only focused on anti-Semitism, without any references to Muslims or other groups that might be encountering hatred in America. That the congress should be wasting its time with such nonsense is little more than a manifestation of Jewish power in the United States, part of a long-sought goal of making any criticism of Israel a "hate" crime punishable by fining and imprisonment. And congress is always willing to play its part. Famously, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) official Steven Rosen once boasted that he could take a napkin and within 24 hours have the signatures of 70 Senators on it, reflective of the ability of the leading pro-Israel organization to impel the U.S. legislature to respond uncritically to its concerns.

Ilhan Omar has certainly been forced to apologize and explain her position as she is under sustained attack from the left, right and center as well as from the White House. One congressman told her that "Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable." Another said "there are many reasons to support Israel, but there is no reason to oppose Israel" while yet another one declared that all in Congress are committed to insuring that the "United States and Israel stand as one."

But Omar has defended herself without abandoning her core arguments and she has further established her bona fides as a credible critic of what passes for U.S. foreign policy by virtue of an astonishing attack on former President Barack Obama, whom she criticized obliquely in an interview Friday , saying "We can't be only upset with Trump. His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was. That's not what we should be looking for anymore. We don't want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile." Presumably Omar was referring to Obama's death by drone program and his destruction of Libya, among his other crimes. Everything she said about the smooth talking but feckless Obama is true and could be cast in even worse terms, but to hear the truth from out of the mouth of a liberal Democrat is something like a revelation that all progressives are not ideologically fossilized and fundamentally brain dead. One wonders what she thinks of the Clintons?

The Democrats are in a tricky situation that will only wind up hurting relationships with some of their core constituencies. If they come down too hard on Omar – a Muslim woman of color who wears a head covering – it will not look good to some key minority voters they have long courted. If they do not, the considerable Jewish political donations to the Democratic Party will certainly be diminished if not slowed to a trickle and much of the media will turn hostile. So they are trying to bluff their way through by uttering the usual bromides. Senator Kristin Gillibrand of New York characteristically tried to cover both ends by saying "Those with critical views of Israel, such as Congresswoman Omar, should be able to express their views without employing anti-Semitic tropes about money or influence." Well, of course, it is all about Jews, money buying access and obtaining political power, with the additional element of supporting a foreign government that has few actual interests in common with the United States, isn't it?

As Omar put it, "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country " She also tweeted to a congressional critic that "I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee." Gilad Atzmon, a well known Jewish critic of Israel, observed drily that "How reassuring is it that the only American who upholds the core values of liberty, patriotism and freedom is a black Muslim and an immigrant "

But such explicatory language about the values that Americans used to embrace before Israel-worship rendered irrelevant the Constitution clearly made some lightweights from the GOP side nervous. Megan McCain, daughter of thankfully deceased "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" Senator John McCain appears on a mind numbing talk-television program called The View where she cried as she described her great love for fellow Israel-firster warmonger former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman as "like family," before launching into her own "informed" analysis: "I take the hate crimes rising in this country incredibly seriously and I think what's happening in Europe is really scary. On both sides it should be called out. And just because I don't technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn't mean that I don't take this seriously and it is very dangerous, very dangerous what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me."

The New York Times also had a lot to say, covering the story on both its news and op-eds pages daily. Columnist Michelle Goldberg, who is usually sensible, criticizes Omar because of her "minimizing the legacy of the holocaust" and blames her because "she's committed what might be called, in another context, a series of microaggressions -- inadvertent slights that are painful because they echo whole histories of trauma." In other words, if some Jews are indeed deliberately corrupting American politics on behalf of Israel and against actual U.S. interests using money to do so it is not a good idea to say anything about it because it might revive bad historical – or not so historical – memories. It is perpetual victimhood employed as an excuse for malfeasance on the part of Jewish groups and the Jewish state.

Another Times columnist Bret Stephens also takes up the task of defenestrating Omar with some relish, denying that "claims that Israel uses money to bend others to its will, or that its American supporters 'push for allegiance to a foreign country'" are nothing more than the "repackage[ing] falsehoods commonly used against Jews for centuries." He attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the frame, bidding to get in." He concludes by asking why the Democratic Party "has so much trouble calling out a naked anti-Semite in its own ranks."

Stephens clearly does not accept that what Oran claims just might actually be true. Perhaps he is so irritated by her because he himself is a perfect example of someone who suffers from dual loyalty syndrome, or perhaps it would be better described as single loyalty to his tribe and to Israel. Review some of his recent columns in The Times if you do not believe that to be true. He has an obsession with rooting out people that he believes to be anti-Semites and believes all the nonsense about Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East." In his op-ed he claims that "Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the Democratic Party claims to champion." Yes, a theocratic state's summary execution of unarmed protesters and starving civilians while simultaneously carrying out ethnic cleansing are traditional Democratic Party programs, at least as Bret sees it.

People like Stephens are unfortunately possessors of a bully pulpit and are influential. As they are public figures, they should be called out regarding where their actual loyalties lie, but no one in power is prepared to do that. Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times . He and other dual loyalists, to be generous in describing them, should be exposed for what they are, which is the epitome of the promoters of the too "passionate attachment" with a foreign state that President George Washington once warned against. If the United States of America is not their homeland by every measure, they should perhaps consider doing Aliyah and moving to Israel. We genuine Americans would be well rid of them.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is <a://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/" title="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/" href="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is <a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected] .

Bragadocious , says: March 12, 2019 at 4:18 am GMT

Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times

Amazingly the Times has actually improved from 30 years ago, when their op-ed page included Abe Rosenthal and William Safire, two of the most repulsive Zionists to ever appear in print. I still remember Safire's campaign against Bobby Inman. Inman's 1994 press conference is still a classic. (The good part begins at 23:00)

[Mar 12, 2019] Not Looking Good -- Trump Attacks Coulter, Congressional GOP Cucking On Immigration by Washington Watcher

Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

See, earlier by Ann Coulter: Trump's Failing On Immigration. Don't Ask Me To Lie About It

Three weeks ago, after Donald J. Trump abandoned the government shutdown and declared a national emergency to get some funding for his border wall, I asked: Did Trump Save His Presidency? Maybe -- IF He Doesn't INCREASE Legal Immigration . Unfortunately, and incredibly given his campaign promises , Trump has repeatedly said since then that he has indeed pivoted to increasing legal immigration -- reportedly under the influence of his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka and Jared Kushner . Trump may still be saved by the Party of Hysterical Screeching 's inability to accept even victory (because increasing legal immigration would be demographic victory for them) at his hands. But in the interim, without Presidential leadership, it appears likely that the Congressional Stupid Party will not take up the various measures that could stem America's immigration disaster -- above all, the Merkel-type catastrophe now unfolding on the southern border.

Weirdly, Trump abruptly attacked Ann Coulter , one of his earliest and most eloquent backers , on Twitter Saturday night, perhaps signaling he is repudiating the immigration patriotism he won on -- or perhaps that he knows Ann is right:

In reality of course, "major sections of the wall" have not been built. And the administration suffered yet another defeat in the courts last week over its attempts to enforce immigration law. [ In another blow to Trump, judge rules in favor of ACLU in family separations case , by Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post , March 8, 2019] Trump is fighting, to his credit, but he simply is not winning on the border.

Coulter has consistently demanded the president implement the immigration platform he campaigne d on and her recent (admittedly savage) criticism isn't much different from what she has said since the beginning of Trump's tenure. See, recently Ann Coulter To Donald Trump: Hey, Commander! Start Commanding!

The difference lies in Trump himself. [ Anti-Immigration Groups See Trump's Calls for More Legal Immigrants as a Betrayal , by Michael D. Shear, The New York Times , March 8, 2019]

Jared Kushner is currently leading negotiations with the Cheap Labor Lobby to craft a bill that will likely increase guest worker visas. It's unclear what exactly will end up in this legislation, but it is guaranteed to enrage immigration patriots. [ Globalist Business Groups with Koch, Bush Ties Dominate Immigration Talks at White House , by John Binder, Breitbart , February 26, 2019]

Congressional Republicans also seem uninterested in immigration patriotism.

Many Republicans want to block President Trump's national emergency declaration on the border -- the one good thing Trump has recently done on immigration–because it goes against their " principles ." Thirteen House Republicans voted to block the executive order last month. "The president doesn't get to just declare an emergency for something that Congress has deliberated many times over the past several years," Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian, said of why he sponsored legislation to stifle the national emergency. [ Rep. Justin Amash: 'The President Doesn't Get To Just Declare an Emergency' , by Joe Seyton, Reason, February 26, 2019]. Amash was joined by a group primarily made up of squishy Republicans. [ Meet the 13 Republicans who rebuked Trump over his national emergency , by Bridget Bowman, Roll Call , February 26, 2019]

Trump's executive order is receiving even more pushback from Senate Republicans. Senators such as Shelly Moore-Capito (R-West Virginia) and Susan Collins think the national emergency is "concerning" and believe Trump already has enough wall money without the declaration. [ GOP wants Trump to back off on emergency , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , March 6, 2019]

Four Republican Senators have announced their intention to vote for legislation to block the national emergency: Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and usual Trump ally Rand Paul. More are likely to announce their support for this measure as the vote approaches this week. Pat Toomey and Todd Young, both who are close with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, want to propose resolutions to give cucky Republicans a way to voice their disapproval without voting with the Democrats.

The resolutions would convey the message that Republicans want border security, but don't want to take the necessary actions to fund said border security. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wants to pass a resolution that would restrict the president's emergency powers and place a 30-day or 60-day time limit on how long they can be in effect without congressional approval.

McConnell announced Monday that he could not prevent passage of legislation blocking Trump's national emergency declaration. The New York Times declared this announcement as proof that Trump has lost influence within his own party. [ Trump's Grip Shows Signs of Slipping as Senate Prepares to Block Wall Emergency , By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Emily Cochrane, The New York Times , March 4, 2019]

The good news is that Trump will most likely veto this legislation and Congress doesn't have enough votes to override the veto. The President is also threatening senators who vote for the block with stiff consequences. [ Senate Republicans divided ahead of vote on disapproval of national emergency , by Ted Barrett, CNN , March 7, 2019] There is little chance the President will sign a bill that overrides his own action, even if his close advisers tell him to do so. Trump's instincts would never allow such behavior.

The bad news: it's a sign congressional Republicans have no will to support immigration patriotism at the moment. This is very bad considering the immigration bills that may come before them in the near future, including the possible White House measure on guest worker visas. House Democrats are set to introduce a new DREAM Act that will legalize at least 1.8 million illegals and extend Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals.

Congressional Republicans need to get their act together to kill these pieces of legislation. But they may be at the forefront in support of them. Last fall, multiple Republican senators, including the appalling Thom Tillis, proposed a bill that would double the number of H-2b visas and screw over low-skilled American workers. And last month, several Republicans -- alas, including supposed immigration patriot Tom Cotton -- championed the easement of some regulations on H-1b visas.

The better hope for killing a guest worker expansion lies with the Democrats. Anyone with a brain realizes this would be bad for American workers and benefits greedy corporations. Democrats have never been too fond of this plan, as evidenced by their skepticism about its expansion in the Gang of Eight Amnesty. [ Gang of 8 defends guest worker plan , by Seung Min Kim, Politico , May 13, 2013]. What better way to portray Trump as a phony populist in 2020 than to skewer him for this gift to the cheap labor lobby?

The House Democrats' proposed DREAM Act will probably go nowhere–unless Trump includes that idea in his immigration package. There are some positive signs that the White House won't do this; and that Republicans would block its passage. Kushner floated the idea of giving green cards for Dreamers in exchange for wall funding during shutdown negotiations earlier this year. That plan was firmly opposed by conservative senators who thought it was insanity [ A "go big" idea to end the shutdown , by Jonathan Swan, Axios , January 23, 2019]

Though Congress and the White House seem set on terrible immigration ideas, it's worth remembering there are alternative patriotic immigration proposals they could push. All of these ideas would not likely pass the current Congress, but they would shape the immigration debate in a positive direction ahead of the 2020 election.

El Chapo Act:

This bill proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz would confiscate the money of drug lords like Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and allocate it to building the wall. Cruz reintroduced the proposal in February and believes the government could obtain $14 billion out of El Chapo's drug profits through this law [ Sen. Ted Cruz's solution to border wall impasse: Make El Chapo pay for it , by Deanna Paul, The Washington Post , February 13, 2019]. This would be more money than Trump currently has for wall construction and would send a strong message to the cartels. The president himself has said Sen. Cruz's idea is "interesting." There is no reason Republicans shouldn't hold a vote on this bill and make Democrats stand up for drug cartels.

Kate's Law:

This bill, named after Kate Steinle who was murdered by an illegal alien, would institute harsher penalties for illegals caught re-entering the country. This measure passed the House in 2017, but it died in the (n.b. GOP-controlled)Senate [ Senate Has Not Voted On Kate's Law Five Months After It Passed The House With Bipartisan Support , by Will Racke, The Daily Caller , December 1, 2017].

Trump should resurrect the bill. Yes, it's passage is less likely with a Democrat-controlled House. That doesn't matter. The president needs to convey he still wants to crack down on illegal immigration and that his opponents favor criminal aliens over American citizens.

Along with the El Chapo Act, probably has the best chance at passage among the ideas the Trump admin could push as multiple Democrats voted for it back in 2017. There is still a chance enough Democrats would vote for it again to achieve passage.

No Sanctuary for Criminals Act:

This act would cut Sanctuary Cities off from federal law enforcement funds and it was also passed by the House in 2017, albeit by a smaller margin than Kate's Law. It also went nowhere in the (GOP-controlled) Senate. If Republicans want to highlight the chaos created by Democrat policies, they should revive this bill and remind Americans that Trump stands up for law and order. This act, however, does have less chance of passage as it was more strongly opposed by Democrats [ Dems block Senate vote on sanctuary cities , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , February 13, 2018]

Mandatory e-Verify:

Requiring all American companies to use e-verify seems almost too good of an idea for Republicans. The bill explicitly protects American workers and puts the onus on employers to make sure they only hire those who are here legally. This should receive bipartisan support as both parties want to portray themselves as the true protectors of American workers.

House Republicans included the measure in their DACA deal last year, so they are aware of this proposal [ Goodlatte offers E-Verify mandate, farm worker fix for immigration bill , by John Bresnahan, Politico , June 26, 2018]. We just need one patriot Republican to stand up and offer mandatory e-Verify. This proposal also has a decent chance of passage.

Override the Flores Settlement:

This 1997 court decision has handcuffed the Trump administration's ability to enforce immigration law and is directly responsible for the current border collapse. It has allowed liberal judges to deem it unlawful for the government to detain illegal alien minors for more than 20 days. It also has allowed for these minors to have better access to asylum as they remain in America undetained. Some Republican lawmakers, including Ted Cruz, suggested legislative action in the last congressional session to correct this loophole [ The History of the Flores Settlement , by Matt Sussis, Center for Immigration Studies , February 11, 2019].

A bill to end this policy would not likely pass as many Republicans shrank from the Trump's family detention policies last summer [ Here Are the Republicans Opposing Migrant Family Separation , by Jeff Cirillo, Roll Call , June 19, 2018]. That doesn't change the fact that the Trump administration needs this legislation to avoid further court losses and to shift public discussion on family detention to focus on Democratic preference for illegal immigrants.

Eliminating birthright citizenship:

There is no way that this idea would pass Congress, but it does have the backing of the President and one prominent Republican senator. Trump said he may eliminate birthright citizenship by executive order and Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a bill to do so right before the 2018 election. [ Lindsey Graham Seconds Trump Proposal to End Birthright Citizenship , by Niels Lesniewski, Roll Call , October 30, 2018]

Those plans, however, seem to have disappeared since then. But Trump still seems interested in the issue -- he mentioned it in his speech to CPAC -- and events may prompt the president to revisit the topic. A bill would cause an uproar within Congress and among the Republican caucus, let alone an executive order. And that's good. If Trump wants to have a serious discussion on citizenship and reduce the negative effects of mass immigration, then he must force this issue into the public square.

Javanka would likely oppose any such effort, so perhaps their White House influence would have to be minimalized from what it is today for this to happen.

The RAISE Act:

The RAISE Act would halve America's yearly immigration intake and structure our system to be more "merit-based." It would also cap annual refugee numbers at 50,000 and eliminate the diversity visa lottery. The bill was introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue with Trump's backing in August 2017. But (again, despite GOP control of Congress) nothing happened.

If Trump wants to show he still puts America first ahead of 2020, he could resurrect the RAISE Act. There is no chance it would pass, but it would force Republicans to run on the plan and win the seats necessary to pass it in Trump's second term.

These are some positive things Trump and Republicans can do. Whether they choose to do them is up to them.

It's not looking good.

Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.

[Mar 11, 2019] Military industrial complex might struggle for relevance as the country

Mar 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ben , Mar 10, 2019 9:31:32 PM | link

IF this article has validity, there was absolutely no play on MSM anywhere.

"A group of progressive lawmakers including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna, Elizabeth Warren, and many others are signing onto a pledge saying that they will not support the endless "forever wars" that the U.S. loves to engage in. This is a big leap forward, and it shows that the military industrial complex might struggle for relevance as the country continues to move to the left. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this."

https://trofire.com/2019/03/05/progressive-lawmakers-team-up-to-stop-americas-forever-wars

[Mar 09, 2019] Germany served its sentence; now the US troops should simply leave the country

Mar 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

m , Mar 8, 2019 11:38:31 AM | link

Thanks B. This is how empires end, or at least one way. Hubris gets them every time. I for one will be glad to see US troops at the very least reduced in Italy, and for all of Europe for that matter.

Especially now that the INF is dead. And I hear that Italy is now looking at embracing China's B&R Initiative. I say have at it! There's the shiver waiting to run up Washington's spine. You might find this amusing, too: > https://thesaker.is/us-treats-luxembourg-like-a-vassal-state-or-us-imperial-hubris-gone-bonkers/ Little Luxembourg. It does bring a big smile. Keep going, Trump. You're on the right track. More Art of the Deal, anyone?

BM , Mar 8, 2019 11:38:41 AM | link

Oh, what a perfect graphic depiction! Spot on!
james , Mar 8, 2019 11:40:05 AM | link
thanks b... descriptive pic!!! why are american bases all over the planet anyway?
ab initio , Mar 8, 2019 11:42:03 AM | link
This will be good for every one. Trump demands the Germans and Japanese pay for US protection, which they reject and the US military goes home. Isn't that an excellent outcome for all parties?
Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 11:42:10 AM | link
Thank you for yet another good and humorous post.

The only section that is slightly unclear is, "The only sound reason to keep the 30,000 U.S. troops in Germany is to prevent them from moving to Poland from where they could threaten the country."

Surely the US occupation of Germany has been tacitly or latently threatening and controlling and dominating and bullying and extorting Germany for around 74 years?

So what major difference would it make if they were moved a few hundred kilometers away?

Kick 'em out! Germany has more than served her sentence!

A clarification would be much appreciated.

ab initio , Mar 8, 2019 11:49:49 AM | link
The European people should support Trump in his desire to eliminate NATO. Of course the Deep State in both Europe and the US will fight it tooth and nail. Maybe the #GiletsJaunes who have been erased from western media will finally topple the Party of Davos candidate Macron. And similar populist movements in other European countries can topple other Deep State stooges from western Europe. Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the Social Democrats implode in Germany.
Jose Garcia , Mar 8, 2019 11:52:33 AM | link
Extortion because you're broke. We don't have the money to pay for it, so this administration resorts to mob tactics to keep the scam going. "The government and us are cut from the same cloth." Sam Giancana, former Chicago mob boss.
Zachary Smith , Mar 8, 2019 11:54:49 AM | link
If that graphic is any indication of public opinion in Germany, things are even worse than I'd heard.

There has been a small series of events where the German Government gave the US meddlers a shove-off. First was the new gas pipeline Nord 2 - they refused to fold for perfectly good economic reasons. Next was the German rejection of the horrible F-35. Recently I'm seeing headlines about Germany and the Chinese 5G company.

Germany won't ban Huawei from 5G auction

Given all of this, I'm beginning to doubt if the Germans will allow the US to plant new short-range nuclear missiles on their soil. Becoming a WW3 target for no good reason except to please the US of A Imperia wouldn't seem to be a very clever move on their part.

BM , Mar 8, 2019 11:55:54 AM | link
I agree with Elliott A that it is better to have the US troops in Poland than in Germany - and better that the inviters of the US troops then become the target for the defensive nuclear missiles they force Russia to deploy rather than Germany.

Furthermore, if Poland is forced to pay the full cost of their invited US guests, maybe their voters will eventually come to their senses and vote in more rational Polish politicians.

Spectacular own goal, Trump!

dh , Mar 8, 2019 12:00:27 PM | link
The Poles may want them but they won't be paying for it. Nice of Donald to ask though rather than tell .... has he been talking diplomacy classes?
Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 12:06:26 PM | link
Thank you, BM.

The Poles are generally pseudo-Catholic and mercenary, pro-American in-name-only; as soon as it could hit them in the pocket, they will pipe down very quickly and balk/bridle.

Hence Poland is a worthy (temporary) stopover for the US (including the NSA) when evicted from Germany. The fact that Merkel is out soon is dangerous because she doesn't really G/A/F, and will defer the decision to the next poor blighter.

There could be a treaty in place that says American troops can remain in Germany until the year 2500 but Trump's just shot himself in the foot again by giving Germany a get-out clause.

Kadath , Mar 8, 2019 12:07:23 PM | link
Zero hedge is reporting that Pence went a bit further than that and urged Germany To provoke Russian Navy in the Kerch Strait by sending ships there in a freedom of navigation exercise. Strangely enough Merkel said she was willing to provoke Russia, but thought doing it wouldn't accomplish anything so she didn't want to provoke Russia for no reason. God, how insane are these idiots. And now it looks like in response Pence/Trump will extort Germany for not being mindlessly obedient enough.
BM , Mar 8, 2019 12:07:51 PM | link
Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the Social Democrats implode in Germany.
Posted by: ab initio | Mar 8, 2019 11:49:49 AM | 6

The problem is though, that the Deep State have already reserved their places in Merkel's successors, the AfD. All of these right-wing "populist" parties acros Europe seem to be no more than a cynical vehicle for the Deep State to hijack popular discontent and channel it into a new form of slavery to replace the old. Hence Steve Banner's dubious and highly dangerous politicking for the so-called populist movement in Europe.

A real future lies in Jeremy Corbyn and maybe also a few other left-wing parties in Europe (as long as they don't become compradors like Syriza) - but the Deep State is fighting Corbyn tooth and nail. In Germany there is Die Linke who have some good people and some good policies (from my limited knowledge!) - but their popularity is still in the doldrums, unfortunately.

JohninMK , Mar 8, 2019 12:08:50 PM | link
Wow, if he is asking us to pay for the US occupation does that mean that if we say no that he will take them home? Or is it an empty threat?

A very dangerous question to even think about asking let alone encourage it.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 12:14:11 PM | link
And of course, the extortion must be paid in US Dollars. Clearly, the threat is all about keeping Dollar Hegemony alive by reducing the massive trade deficit. I see AfD making capital thanks to this. As for Japan, Russia will not sign a Peace Treaty with it until all foreign military forces are removed--a condition that's been reiterated several times over the last few months to which I've linked. Okinawans are furious at being twice colonized and are at the end of their rope. So far they've been peaceful, but I think it's clear to them by now that the only way to remove the foreign vermin is to literally push them into the sea. Korea's situation's been discussed on that thread.

For the domestic Outlaw US Empire, shutting down the Overseas Empire of Bases and the related destabilization projects globally would save @ $1 Trillion/year--an utter wastage of monies for projects that are decidedly NOT in the National Interest. And as most here understand, the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an Outlaw and an Empire. And it would become cleaner too as the US Military is the most polluting entity on the planet.

Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2019 12:17:52 PM | link
>>>> dh | Mar 8, 2019 12:00:27 PM | 10

Isn't Poland offering to pay the United States $2 billion to establish a base called Fort Trump?

BTW, perhaps this is a ruse to remove all U.S. troops from Syria. I'd love to be there when Elliott "debt collector" Abrams turns up demanding the money from Assad. There is an opportunity for one of the greatest reality TV programs ever (I'm a neo-con, get me out of here) which makes me wonder if that's Trump's reason for this scheme.

stevelaudig , Mar 8, 2019 12:19:30 PM | link
All Americans needs to protect Americans in the US is a coast guard and a border patrol. Everything else is either protection for corporations doing business [which should be added to the price of their products/services to reflect true costs] or empire.
Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 12:19:55 PM | link
Yes, it's another damp squib, another no-win, another over-promise, another posture, like all the others.

This is all Trump knows and integrity never enters the equation.

Any sign of that border wall, that the Mexican government was going to pay for?

Not exactly "The Art of The Deal". more like one long and embarrassing suicide note.

I don't exactly dislike Trump particularly as he has "Mullered" a number of cretinous insiders whom required a reality check but he is hindbound by his capinet; none of his plans went through and he is in it well over his depth particularly since he appears to be suffering from ADHD, dementia and schizophrenia - just what you need in the Commander-in-Chief?

Ger , Mar 8, 2019 12:20:34 PM | link
On the bright side, you can get a bigly discount for being a faithful toady and swearing allegiance to the US of A. Wonder where the US 'leaders' got the idea of swearing allegiance to a foreign power?
Lavrenty , Mar 8, 2019 12:21:04 PM | link
A Fort Trump in Poland? Maybe...

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/08/fort-trump-is-a-farce-poland/

Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2019 12:24:34 PM | link
>>>> karlof1 | Mar 8, 2019 12:14:11 PM | 15
....the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an Outlaw and an Empire....

Trump's just demonstrated that by staying out of the very recent Indo-Pakistan incident. Maybe he didn't want Americans dying in the shithole that is the sub-continent. Maybe he didn't see any opportunity to line his own pocket. Whatever his reason, he did the right thing. Would Hillary have done the same? I don't know.....

psychohistorian , Mar 8, 2019 12:25:28 PM | link
Thanks for the posting b LOL!!!!

Empire is getting the rest of its plates spinning so that must mean that the end is getting closer. I don't think that the Philippine's plate is spinning fast enough so Trump needs to give it some special love.

Pretty soon we will need a plate spinning scorecard just to keep track of all the action.

Syria
Iran
Ukraine
Venezuela
Russia
China
Korea
EU w/ NATO
and now Germany and Japan

What plates am I missing?

Think about how much of the peoples resources are going to keeping these plates spinning.

Who are going to come to the table with what arguments when the debt music stops?

Zanon , Mar 8, 2019 12:31:41 PM | link
For Germans here,
Is there any party in Germany being against US forces in Germany? Or if not being against, atleast questioning this issue?
Rollings , Mar 8, 2019 12:35:35 PM | link
The simplistic explanation is tempting:

* Trump has driving desire to be seen as the first businessman president.
* The appeal of Trump making 'allies pay their fair share' any reality check on how counterproductive the effort is to the waning US empire
* Trump's unique candidacy put him in the White House without any real foreign policy staff who would have long ago gotten Trump to abandon the silly idea - at least after he was elected.

The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline. Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful way.

The only other explanation is this really is 4D chess on Trump's part where he sees these silly shakedown attempts as the most efficient way of getting the US out of NATO.

mk , Mar 8, 2019 12:42:27 PM | link

btw - The picture is probably from the Duesseldorf Carnival.
GM , Mar 8, 2019 12:51:49 PM | link
American troops pack up your shit and get the f*ck out, oh and here's an invoice for $100 billion to cover the cost of cleaning up your toxic waste.
Thanks for your business.
David Wooten , Mar 8, 2019 12:52:15 PM | link
"They are neither needed nor wanted."

The only Germans that want them are restaurants and shops located near the bases and other businesses that cater to them.

Yes, Trump's new policy is very welcome if it gets Germany to kick them out or, better yet, get out of NATO. I wonder if Trump intends it - or is he just plain stupid?

hopehely , Mar 8, 2019 12:52:16 PM | link
From the article:
Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the administration was sending a deliberate message by demanding "Cost Plus 50" from South Korea first , even though that effort fell short.

Ouch, poor SK. What a timing, straight after 'successful' NK talks.
With allies like that, who needs enemies?
dh , Mar 8, 2019 12:53:42 PM | link
@16 Only $2 billion? Would that be a lump sum up front or payable in installments? Can't see Donald falling for it.
KD , Mar 8, 2019 12:57:36 PM | link
Ghost Ship @ 21
In that incident an aged MIG21 from India downed a F16 from Pakistan.
Also there is a $20bil project going on in India to make F16 locally.
https://in.reuters.com/article/lockheed-india/lockheed-sees-potential-exports-of-200-f-16-jets-from-proposed-indian-plant-idINKCN1PF1CG?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

I guess the atmosphere was just not right to poke the nose in else it would have been ideal scenario.

AriusArmenian , Mar 8, 2019 1:08:21 PM | link
Perhaps this will finally get the EU to kick the US and its NATO out.

But I don't underestimate the ability of EU elites to crawl to the US. It's like second nature. And they get their pockets stuffed full of dollars to be kept in line.

BraveNewWorld , Mar 8, 2019 1:22:44 PM | link
Let me guess the free loading douche bag country that gets the most support from the US will magically be excluded from these demands yet again.

I sure hope they try this protection racquet in Iraq. The government is already under huge pressure to kick the Americans out after Trumps visit there last month.

Lysander , Mar 8, 2019 1:38:09 PM | link
What's America's plan to maintain economic wealth at the end of the debt spiral and dollar collapse????

I have an idea!! Tribute! Hey, it worked for the Aztecs. Soon many countries will see it as a small price to pay to avoid having democracy brought to their countries. Previous versions of this scheme, such as buying US treasury debt knowing full well it will never be repaid wont cut it anymore. So we are moving towards the real thing.

Vato , Mar 8, 2019 1:56:22 PM | link
When I used to play football in my young days (i.e. soccer for the american lads here), I had to pass by a huge US military base in the south of Germany each time in order to reach the training ground. But strangely, I never challenged the necessity of that base in the first place - probably due to my lack of geopolitical, historical consciousness. Only after they build a second, even bigger base directly on the opposite side of the road and after two combat helicopters - for the first time - flew directly above my head, I finally became aware and started to question things. I wonder how many people that drive the same road each day actually do feel the same...
Anyway, thank you b and thanks to all the well-experienced forumites for providing the vital informations and inputs that helped me to better understand what is going on after all.
Alaric , Mar 8, 2019 2:04:56 PM | link
Is trump trying to get the US booted from Europe?

This is quite a slap in the face as the US has been raising tensions with Russia and any conflict with Russia would likely cause the destruction of Europe.

jv , Mar 8, 2019 2:07:06 PM | link
Wondering how this will play out in places such as the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain where the U.S. actually pays the dictator to lease the Navy and Air Force bases? Where the U.K. pays the dictator for a British naval facility, too, which is shared?

Remember when Bahrain and other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf didn't want bases to be called bases? Instead they were each a Regional Operations Support Establishment, aka ROSE. Surely there's a different term now, but we still pay to lease bases.

Nemesiscalling , Mar 8, 2019 2:10:58 PM | link
Give trump credit: he raises the issue. And by doing so he gives people the opportunity to be thrust into the act of questioning.

I continue to believe that this is really the overriding attribute of his presidency. What people like the Germans do with this opportunity is entirely incumbent on them. But it is an opportunity nonetheless, and as b correctly asserts, this is a welcomed change from the political grab ass of the preceding administrations.

Jen , Mar 8, 2019 2:23:58 PM | link
We should wish good luck to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) in hosting US bases: not only will they have to foot the cost of hosting US forces but their entire economies by now must be revolving around being open-air military barracks. All while their own citizens are voting with their feet.
Jen , Mar 8, 2019 2:30:14 PM | link
Psychohistorian @ 22: You're missing large parts of Africa (possibly Djibouti where there's a US base; Rwanda which is a US satrapy under President Paul Kagame; western Africa where there are offshore oil and gas deposits) and Georgia where the US operates a bioweapons laboratory.
Drew , Mar 8, 2019 2:38:57 PM | link
Once again, on the surface this is obvious extortion. But I can't help but think this is really a purposeful 'own goal.' I know this is likely giving Trump too much credit, but in a parallel universe this is exactly what you would do if you had a hidden agenda to enfeeble the US to cause our eventual pull back. There's no political way to slowly scale back our involvement, but there is a way to overreach under everyone's noses and get the same end result. Is this a 666d chess move or just what happens as empire descends into chaos, grasping at straws? Either way I'm fine with the obvious result!
Likklemore , Mar 8, 2019 2:49:53 PM | link
We are seeing the true colors. What we now have are Co-Presidents: Bolton, Trump; and Co-Vice Presidents Pompous and Pence. The 4 morons do not realize they are isolating the U.S.A. and hastening rejection of the USD.
Adhere my diktat and keep purchasing our T-bills.

RT cites Bloomberg Merkel refuses to send Navy ships to Russia's shores, rebuffs US pressure

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allegedly stood up to pressure from Washington as she declined a proposal by Vice President Mike Pence to send German Navy ships towards Russia's Crimea, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Pence allegedly wanted German ships to sail through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from mainland Russia. France, [.]
pretzelattack , Mar 8, 2019 3:13:14 PM | link
next, trump asks venezuela to pay in advance for the invasion. in usd.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Mar 8, 2019 3:59:51 PM | link
This is an utterly brilliant Empire-killing move by Trump. Speaking of the UK I wonder how much we will be asked to pony up for the US air bases and troops still in the UK 75 years after D-day. This should hit just after Brexit and we may have a different government in the chair......
chuck newsum , Mar 8, 2019 4:08:51 PM | link
the germans would be owned by the russian,gadaffi saddam hussein serbia and hitler if it was not for uk and usa.
we keep the world safe and stop irania and the hamas terroist pushing israel into the sea.

i say to the germans pay the man or be invaded by evil doers

john , Mar 8, 2019 4:09:12 PM | link
i know it's an old trope...it goes all the way back to 2016...but i smell weaponized flatulence.
james , Mar 8, 2019 4:14:29 PM | link
lol to the last two posts...
Jonathan , Mar 8, 2019 4:26:37 PM | link
pretzelattack @42,

That's not how a leveraged buyout works.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 4:29:06 PM | link
Although I didn't read or watch, it appears most major BigLie Media have published/aired this story, a point I was curious about since Friday's usually a slow news day, thus begging the question: What's the public's reaction? Might there be a groundswell calling for returning the troops home so that both the occupied nation and the occupier save monies? And what of the opposite argument, that even more troops and bases are needed to defend against the Red and Yellow Menace?
Deltaeus , Mar 8, 2019 4:42:01 PM | link
If I was a president who could not step too far out of line due to powerful forces all around me, I would take the ideas of neocons et al and push them even further over the line past reasonable.
No-one in power could argue against me because I'm implementing their ideas, even though I'm taking them too far.
But pushing things too far creates real resistance, and makes the real policies obvious, and brings about the end of the empire.

I might decide to:
1. Move the US embassy to Jerusalem, to make it clear who calls the shots
2. Demand that NATO countries pay more and publicly disrespect their leaders
3. Demand that Germany and Japan pay for their occupation
4. Obviously attack Venezuela (in contrast to previous less-obvious attacks)
5. and other increasingly outrageous demands until the vassals get fed up

Meanwhile I'd do other things that I have to do to keep the powerful forces happy.
I may be a terrible person with no 3-d chess master plan, but perhaps things would be different after my term. And "different" might approximate "better".

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 4:49:28 PM | link
OT--FYI--OT--WOW!

"Obama was a smiling murderer, says Ilhan Omar" And of course, she's 100% correct. As Ben Norton noted in this tweet , Omar's words were citied in a Politico article that he linked. You'll note, that by extension she also called Trump a murderer, just not as "polished."

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 4:58:29 PM | link
Deltaeus @49--

There's merit in your argument. For example, the so far small contingent of anti-war Progressive Democrats either were elected or emboldened thanks to Trump, Rep. Omar being the most prominent example. The same could be said of pushing the far-right's policy goals, as that's also generated resistance. Too bad the initial call for resistance was based on the Russiagate hoax. Time will tell!

teri , Mar 8, 2019 4:59:53 PM | link
Okay. If you don't get your weekly payola, then shut down the foreign bases. Only thing is, what do we do with all these armed people trained to kill on command, looking for some action in between saying the Pledge of Allegiance and painting Bible verses on bombs?

I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too many cops on steroids as it is.

psychohistorian , Mar 8, 2019 5:05:44 PM | link
@ teri who wrote
"
I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too many cops on steroids as it is.
"
Its called karma


I live here too....the energy needs to be refocused on planet rehab and going to the stars along with my standard make global finance public

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 8, 2019 5:35:10 PM | link
It will fun to watch this developing:

It sure will.
Especially the Neocons as they scramble around trying to collect all the rust flakes to glue them back onto dilapidated USA's dilapidated Foreign Policy.

ADKC , Mar 8, 2019 5:44:06 PM | link
I'm sorry, but many people posting here are delusional about Trump's motives.

For a start, none of the issues discussed in this post would cause the American people much in the way of dispute. Broadly, most Americans would think that other countries should pay for US "support". Americans disagree quite a bit about "The Wall" and gender issues around public restrooms; but not so much about the issues raised in this post. So there IS NO RESISTANCE, and WILL NOT BE ANY RESISTANCE, within the US, on getting countries to pay.

Other countries might have problems but what other countries think has never been much of an issue for Americans.

The issue of getting other countries to pay is about cost and the out-of-control US debt. And, also, about Trump electioneering.

Should other countries refuse to pay (or request US troops to leave), then they can expect to be sanctioned or economically damaged. Just consider how France (a US ally) had one of their prize jewel (world-beating) nuclear technology intellectual assets, Alstom's Arabelle steam turbine , taken from them by the US. This happened way before Trump so demonstrates how the US operates (the art of the [coercive] deal is the way the US rolls). France, and in particular Macron, who was French Finance/Economic Minster, at the time, had no choice but to accept the takeover. Macron actually appeared quite gleeful about it (Macron was effectively working for US, not French, interests).

Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2019 5:47:59 PM | link
Can Columbia or Kosovo afford to pay? Or will Washington increase the financial support they give to those countries to cover the bill.

As for NATO, the core system was based on the countries that are members providing a reliable easily-secured base for American expeditionary forces to attack and invade one of the two countries that are at the heart of the Eurasian landmass. In exchange for that the United States bankrolled NATO. If Trump breaks that bargain, what incentive is there for the core members of NATO to allow wars to be fought on their territory particularly now that Putin has said he is focused on improving the lives of ordinary Russians rather than going to war with Europe but will make sure that the decision centres of any countries that attack or are somehow involved in an attack on Russia will be destroyed. None as far as I can see, so it looks like it'll be goodbye NATO.

james , Mar 8, 2019 6:04:23 PM | link
@55ADKC - why would other countries pay to have the usa military on their soil? this explains the whole agenda of fearmongering that has been in overdrive 24/7 since i was a kid... nothing else explains it.. keep the fear up to justify this craziness.. i can't see anyone paying for it.. i sure wouldn't want that if i was german, japanese or south korean for example... now, maybe the leaders of these countries are going to be faced with a stark choice... side with this b.s., or get removed from office... i praise trump for bringing this forth and hope that he strikes a big fat zero from the countries that have usa bases on them...
Seamus Padraig , Mar 8, 2019 6:12:39 PM | link
@23

Die Linke are officially opposed to NATO and want Germany to withdraw from it.

arby , Mar 8, 2019 6:18:07 PM | link
I think Trump believes the hype fed to Americans forever that the US soldiers are the good guys and they really are protecting these countries. He also has a reputation for squeezing contractors etc.
To MAGA he thinks it needs better deals and more people sending money in.

These are his motives and not 4d chess.

dh , Mar 8, 2019 6:45:47 PM | link
@59. I think that's right. He genuinely believes US forces are out there protecting 'our allies' and keeping the world safe for democracy etc. But he also thinks 'our allies' are taking advantage of American generosity. This is a common sentiment among Trump voters.
arby , Mar 8, 2019 6:49:46 PM | link
I think most Americans think they are protecting the world.
iv> i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and norway for are freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big bat folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be along soon to take are democrasy

Posted by: chuck newsum , Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM | link

i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and norway for are freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big bat folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be along soon to take are democrasy

Posted by: chuck newsum | Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM | link

Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 6:54:05 PM | link
What better evidence that the MIC is bankrupting the USA?

This is how empires fall - the cost of empire bleeds them white and eventually hollows them out to such a degree that collapse becomes inevitable.

The USA is in for a massive shock over this: it believes those "allies" have no choice but to pay that extortion money.

But they do have a choice.

All these treaties have a withdrawal clause, and it doesn't seem to occur to the Americans that it's not just Uncle Sam who can invoke it.

My money is on the Phillipines to be the first to invoke their clause. South Korea next, and only then the gutless Europeans.

Australia last, or maybe not at all.

Gonna be ugly when all 800 overseas military bases are in Oz. Not sure Sydney Harbour is able to accommodate all those warships....

ADKC , Mar 8, 2019 6:57:39 PM | link
james @57

Because they are (particularly, in Europe) occupied countries and many things can be done to ensure compliance (economic, gladio operations, sanctions, theft of assets, prosecution for any offence [no matter how small, incidental, or accidental] if a dollar is involved, influx of refugees, war [directly or adjacent to target country], removal of post-colonial areas of influence, instigating financial collapse [Deutche Bank is supposed to be very vulnerable and would effect the entire EU/world], etc).

Why couldn't France protect Alstom? Would France be able to resist if the US targeted the African CFA countries (which are France's neo-colonial milk-cows and essential to the economic well-being of France and detrimental to the African people subject to the CFA franc)?

You "praise Trump" for raising this issue but it's just the same old, same old.

The only place relatively secure is the Chinese/Russia milieu but that's the other side of the real "wall" and restricts the expansion of OBOR. And the price (for Russia and China) is having the entire western nuclear arsenal aimed at you.

Whether or not any payments are actually made will make no difference; US troops will remain in occupied territory. (BTW: Europe will pay, the key is Germany. If Germany refuse to pay the rest will follow. But Germany can't fudge this; it would amount to open resistance and a re-negotiation of the outcome of the 2nd World War and, unless the US want to give up the fruits of their 1945 victory, I don't see that happening. Germany will realise that, if the US insist, they will have to comply; it's the direct consequence of losing the war and being occupied.]


Piotr Berman , Mar 8, 2019 6:57:53 PM | link
Moving American troops to Poland? Surely, the benefits are many. First, since the size of the military is much smaller than in Warsaw block times, there are many military grounds. Particularly in areas where forests are larger, climate harsher, and local men are fond of beating up strangers when they get drunk. Local roads are crappy and American soldiers are prone to hit side road trees. To summarize, martial skills and spirit are bound to improve.

For even better results, they should be moved to Estonia, Latvia and Finnmark, areas bordering Russian Federation. OTOH, fleecing Balts would be like squeezing blood from stone. E.g. Lithuania is an exemplary NATO member, spending 2% of GDP on the military, and yet they cannot afford a tank.

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 8, 2019 7:01:03 PM | link
Posted by: arby | Mar 8, 2019 6:18:07 PM | 59

He's already said he doesn't believe the hype. He said it 60 Minutes after his inauguration...

"We've spent 6 Trillion dollars in the Middle East....6 Trillion! We could have rebuilt America twice. It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop to it."

Remember now?

arby , Mar 8, 2019 7:05:21 PM | link
He believes the hype that America is protecting the world. He just thinks that the protected should at least pay for it.
Peter AU 1 , Mar 8, 2019 7:05:53 PM | link
The countries Trump wants to hit with fees are those he wanted the US military to pull out of anyway. The cold war relics. Europe, Korea ect. Any bases to do with Israel Iran Venezuela will not be hitting up the host country for extortion money. Bases he wants to use to pressure China will also likely be exempt.
Those that do get hit with the fees, Trump doesn't give a shit if the US stays or leaves, so long as the US is well paid if it stays.
Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 7:06:07 PM | link
@55 If the NATO countries refuse to pay then Trump can't respond by imposing sanctions on the individual countries.

Well, he could, but what is the point?

The USA can't sanction the EU, China and Russia. That is economic suicide.

Trump would be creating a rival trade bloc that is many times bigger than the US economy. The American nightmare for over a century.

English Outsider , Mar 8, 2019 7:06:41 PM | link
BM @ 13

I don't think Corbyn is the Messiah you take him for. He has sound ideas on not bombing foreigners - unusual in a British politician - but apart from that he's a busted flush. Not even close observers care to predict who will come out on top in the mud wrestling at Westminster but if Corbyn makes it watch him accommodate.

.

With great respect, "b", and as happens rarely, I don't believe this article is on target. America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence. Forget Aachen. It'll be a long time before any purely European defence force is up to scratch.

The Europeans are hoping that America will hold the fort in the meantime. That's not an alliance. It's a marriage of temporary convenience.

Presumably the Americans must be sensing that.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/nine-european-countries-to-formalise-eu-defence-force-plan/

/

BraveNewWorld , Mar 8, 2019 7:08:50 PM | link
Of course the other problem with this is it makes the American forces official mercenaries rather than national forces and all the legal consequences that flow from that.
Augustin L , Mar 8, 2019 7:16:52 PM | link
History first as tragedy and later as a farce. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "Beria reported only to Stalin and Stalin reported only to Satan." Now Bolton reports only to Trump and Chump reports only to Sreadsheets. So much winning and multi-dimensional chess... It's deplorable. Lol
Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 7:17:30 PM | link
@59 and @60 This is why the shock will be all the more stunning to the Americans.

Its "allies" have no problem with Uncle Sam spending like a drunken sailor. As far as they are concerned, well, who cares.

But if Trump insists THEY pay for American profligacy then they are going to say "no".

American pundits will then pontificate on how much MORE it would cost those allies, and the response will be: don't be stupid, we won't spend money to protect ourselves against a threat that doesn't exist.

Because - and let's be honest here - in a post-NATO world the only military threat to Europe will be the USA, and the US Army will be on the other side of the Atlantic.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 7:17:31 PM | link
I see a number of comments where the question's begged: Just what nation intends to invade Europe such that the continuing Outlaw US Empire's occupation's warranted? Putin and Xi want Europe to join the EAEU/BRI confab--invasion via commerce?!

It appears the Anti-Communist Crusade is having a hard time dying in some quarters, particularly where continually invoking it is required dogma by controlling interests.

arby , Mar 8, 2019 7:18:21 PM | link
I think Trump and his MAGA boils everything down to money. Money goes out and money comes in. His job is to slow the money going out and get more money coming in. I think it is that simple. You get bombed by our smart freedom and democracy bombs then you should be decent enough to pay for it. Also our bases are protecting you from getting bombed by evildoers bombs. You should definitely pay for that. Why are we?
Pft , Mar 8, 2019 7:34:09 PM | link
I'd like to see a study of the amount of money spent into the local economy by the occupation forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Not just by the military but by the servicemen, families, civilian contractors for housing, travel, schools, food, entertainment, etc

Obviously paying to be occupied is not happening, but there is some logic to the idea that the occupied receive some economic benefits from being occupied, including but not limited to a reduction in spending on their own military.

Elliott A , Mar 8, 2019 7:39:53 PM | link
This is, frankly, a lot of nonsensical showboating that will not have any actual effect on anything.

-- "Pay us or we will leave"
-- "We are not paying"
-- "Um?"

There's probably more bullshit going on behind the scenes but this just looks RIDICULOUS, as does the Venezuelan adventure.

God Bless America!

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2019 7:44:39 PM | link
Pft @76--

Any spending into the local economy is dwarfed by the amount of ecological damage done--just look at Subic Bay or Okinawa. And yes, studies have been done into both aspects; I've read them, but have no links.

Pft , Mar 8, 2019 7:50:32 PM | link
Horsewhisperer@66

." It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop to it."

Trump just does not believe in others hype, only his own hype. So show me evidence he is stopping the spending which was his main point in what was infaur to Americans. Spending on the military is even higher, 6 trillion is now 8 trillion even if the accountants still cant tell who got paid

If Trump has shown us anything it is that he believes in the hype that whats good for Big Business is good for America. Even his request for more money from NATO countries is a request/demand to buy more from the MIC and not money to offset US military spending.

Sure, the reasons for the increased military spending are bogus, but he adds fuel to supposed conflicts with Iran, Russia, China, North Korea that allows him to justify more spending. Trumps just replaced Obama/Bush hype with his own personal hype. Call it Trump hype.

jonku , Mar 8, 2019 7:50:43 PM | link
Pft, that's what economist Michael Hudson has been saying:

The US military spending overseas during the Vietnam war resulted in a balance of payments crisis, with the surprise solution being the recycling of USD from offshore economies back into the US financial sector.

And it's been going on ever since.

I'll try to get a link ... Super Imperialism also recently linked by the indefatigable karlof1.

The larger America's balance-of-payments deficit becomes, the more dollars end up in the hands of European, Asian and Near Eastern central banks, and the more money they must recycle back to the United States by buying U.S. Treasury bonds.

It's worthwhile to read any and all of Hudson's writings, including his autobiographical essay. He has worked in the belly of the beast; Chase Manhattan bank and Standard Oil (Exxon) just for starters, the Treasury and Finance departments of USA and Canada amongst others.

Here's that Michael Hudson Autobiography . It's both a video soliloquy and transcript.

Yeah, Right , Mar 8, 2019 8:24:52 PM | link
@70 English Outsider care to identify the military threat that US forces "have to hold the fort" over until the Europeans get their shit together?

Who, exactly, is itching to invade Europe once US forces leave?

If US forces leave then the need for European countries to increase their military spending is negligible.

Indeed, it would be based on a single calculation: how big a threat is the USA?

ben , Mar 8, 2019 8:26:56 PM | link
OK fine, more hot air and theater. The BS spewed by this admin. is just friggen endless.

Beats talking about real issues facing 99% of Americans...

juliania , Mar 8, 2019 8:31:01 PM | link
People, people!...Where will the military go? It's so obvious, it is staring us in the face...

Space!

Ah, but not just space --

Mars!

The War Planet!

And best of all -- there's no people there! They can have their war games ad infinitum!!! To boldly go...ok, I know, that dates me...

But oh my, blow it up! Blow it all up!! Keep on making horrible weapons, ship them off to Mars! Raytheon on steroids; what's not to love????? Trump will go down in history - no - up, up, and AWAY!!! [Just think - he'll have to visit the troops at Thanksgiving, take them a turkey - oh and take any Bushes and Boltons and Obamas and Clintons with him as it is rather far, a few Thanksgivings away but who's counting?]

And let there be peace on earth. So, be it!

Augustin L , Mar 8, 2019 8:36:01 PM | link
Trump making brothels great again and declaring a truce to Chinese honey traps on US soil. The front goy is seriously compromised, deplorables will rue the day... https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227186429.html?fbclid=IwAR1FkjigXKFOf8gcPoKRqwqfqSLRuzPNDig5sg7XWtBQClavo73RQRsVWYs
c1ue , Mar 8, 2019 8:51:38 PM | link
People are really thinking too hard.
The Trump strategy is simple a la "The Apprentice":
Get a bunch of ambitious people to commit to deliver to outlandish goals. These goals are set such that achieving or failing them, the blame goes to the failure but the success goes to the leader.
If they fail: "You're Fired"
If they succeed: "I'm Brilliant"
Jiri , Mar 8, 2019 8:54:23 PM | link
With the Soviets out of Germany it is only appropriate that the other three move out too.

I am surprised why this wasn't negotiated then.

Jackrabbit , Mar 8, 2019 9:00:37 PM | link
This proposal broadens USA's demand that Germany terminate its plans to obtain energy imports from Russia via Northstream. Trump has already asserted publicly (weeks ago) that the added cost of LNG imports should be viewed as a defense-related cost. Via this new mechanism, the cost will be not be borne 100% by Germany.

To understand why this new approach is likely to work, please read ADKC's comments.

Pundits may poke fun but the AZ Empire is deadly serious and most AZ elites will be supportive. Especially when they are insulated from the cost (as they are).

james , Mar 8, 2019 9:22:14 PM | link
@6ADKC... i agree with arbys view on this... trump and an undue number of americans probably think they are doing some good protecting others.. it's laughable! now, as to your question about france and alstrom... i don't know the specifics, but i know how easily euro politicians, and politicians in general can be bought... i think it is excellent trump is raising this issue, as i hope the leadership in these poodle countries recognize their goose will be cooked soon enough, as ordinary people won't stand for it.. so, i am simplifying here and i have to race out and will be back later to add more.. i see what you and jackrabbit are getting at, but at some point this mafia-gangster strategy is going to collapse.. maybe i am too naive, or idealistic.. i will give you that!
Bob , Mar 8, 2019 9:45:15 PM | link
Zanon @23 you might follow this german website http://luftpost-kl.de/
Interesting links from there:
https://www.ewg.org/research/update-mapping-expanding-pfas-crisis
https://partner-mco-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/client_files/1524589484.pdf
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/30/pfoa-and-pfos-cause-lower-sperm-counts-and-smaller-penises-study-finds/
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/10/firefighting-foam-afff-pfos-pfoa-epa/
NemesisCalling , Mar 8, 2019 9:50:15 PM | link
@87 jackrabbit

Your assessment is fine and not without merits but the other variable you seem to be missing is the German people and others in Europe, themselves.

Will this cowtowing to the US bullying not in the end fully ensconse their leaders as the globalist shills they truly are and thus lead to their demise? That is what b us alluding to. We are unaware of Trump's motivations, here, but that is inconsequential when we are talking about him waking up the people of Europe to finally give US the boot.

haze , Mar 8, 2019 9:51:19 PM | link
86

Well it was sort of ...

https://www.rt.com/usa/germany-us-pact-komossa-978/

lysias , Mar 8, 2019 10:08:12 PM | link
"There's room at the top, they are telling you still, but first you must learn to smile as you kill," sang John Lennon.

Obama learned that lesson.

Zachary Smith , Mar 8, 2019 10:37:57 PM | link
While cruising around the internet tubes I ran into a casual remark about Syria to the effect that since the US is doing an occupation there, aren't "we" entitled to payment? If there is any truth to a spate of recent headlines, the neocons have already solved that one.

U.S. Forces Steal Tons Of Gold Captured By ISIS In Syria, Iraq

How would ISIS have acquired any tonnage of gold? Perhaps it was part-payment for the oil they sold until the Russians intervened. (the US sure didn't bother those sales!) More likely they stole it from citizens and businesses. There have been LOTS of reports about the US secretly rescuing ISIS fighters. Now here is yet another motive for those airlifts. I predict any such gold will be quickly melted down so as to make it forever untraceable. Would Pompeo or Bolton do such a thing?

Hmm. That's a really hard one.

Zachary Smith , Mar 8, 2019 10:46:32 PM | link
@ lysias #92

Oh my, but your post triggered the memory of yet another post I saw earlier.

Obama was a smiling murderer, says Ilhan Omar

It's bad enough that Omar tackled AIPAC, but to dump on Saint Obama is likely to get her pegged as a "self-hating negro". Wonder what Speaker Nancy will do this time? Threaten to waterboard her?

Steven Keith , Mar 8, 2019 11:12:13 PM | link
Speaking of invasions and occupation...

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*** ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਭੁਗਤਾਨ ਨਹੀਂ – ਅਸੀਂ ਯੂਨਾਈਟਿਡ ਕਿੰਗਡਮ, ਕੈਨੇਡਾ, ਜਰਮਨੀ, ਸਪੇਨ, ਇਟਲੀ ਅਤੇ ਕਿਸੇ ਵੀ ਹੋਰ ਦੇਸ਼ ਦੇ ਜਾਅਲੀ, ਨਕਲੀ, ਨਵੇਂ, ਡੁਪਲੀਕੇਟ ਪਾਸਪੋਰਟ ਅਤੇ ਕੋਈ ਵੀ ਨਵੇਂ ਦਸਤਾਵੇਜ਼ ਜਿਵੇਂ ਕਿ ਡ੍ਰਾਈਵਿੰਗ ਲਾਇਸੈਂਸ, ਉਪਯੋਗਤਾ ਬਿਲ, ਕੋਈ ਵੀ ਪਛਾਣ ਪੱਤਰ, ਜਨਮ ਸਰਟੀਫਿਕੇਟ ਪ੍ਰਦਾਨ ਕਰਦੇ ਹਾਂ। ਅੰਤਰਰਾਸ਼ਟਰੀ ਯਾਤਰਾ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ ਇਸਦਾ ਉਪਯੋਗ ਕਰੋ, ਜੇਕਰ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਹਵਾਈ ਅੱਡਿਆਂ ਦੀ ਇਮੀਗ੍ਰੇਸ਼ਨ ਦੇ ਨਾਲ ਚੰਗੇ ਸੰਬੰਧ ਹਨ, ਜੋ ਤੁਹਾਨੂੰ ਆਪਣੇ ਸੁਪਨਿਆਂ ਦੇ ਦੇਸ਼ ਦੀ ਯਾਤਰਾ ਕਰਨ ਦੀ ਇਜਾਜ਼ਤ ਦੇ ਸਕੇ ਅਤੇ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਕਨੇਡਾ, ਯੂਨਾਈਟਿਡ ਕਿੰਗਡਮ, ਯੂਐਸਏ ਵਿੱਚ ਨੌਕਰੀ ਲੱਭਣ ਅਤੇ ਰਿਹਾਇਸ਼ ਲੱਭਣ ਅਤੇ ਬੈਂਕ ਖਾਤਾ ਖੋਲਣ ਅਤੇ ਹੋਰ ਲਾਭ ਲੈਣ ਲਈ ਨਕਲੀ ਪਾਸਪੋਰਟਾਂ ਦੀ ਵਰਤੋਂ ਕਰ ਸਕਦੇ ਹੋ। ਸ਼੍ਰੀ ਰਾਜਾ ਠਾਕੁਰ ਨਾਲ ਵਟੱਸਐਪ 0044 7477 1170 'ਤੇ ਸੰਪਰਕ ਕਰੋ। 2 ਹਫਤਿਆਂ ਦੇ ਅੰਦਰ ਡਲਿਵਰੀ! ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਉੱਚ ਗੁਣਵੱਤਾ ਜਾਅਲੀ ਪਾਸਪੋਰਟ ਪ੍ਰਾਪਤ ਹੋਣ 'ਤੇ ਕੁੱਲ ਫੀਸ $2000 ਅਦਾ ਕਰੋ।

ہم انگلینڈ،کینڈا،جرمنی،اسپین،
اٹلی اور کسی بھی دوسرے ملک کے ڈپلیکیٹ اور فیک پاسپورٹ، کسی بھی قسم کا آڈی کارڈ، ڈرائیونگ لائسنس،یوٹیلیٹی بلز،برتھ سرٹیفکیٹ اور اس کے علاؤہ بھی کوئی بھی ڈاکیومنٹ قلیل مدت میں بنا کے دیتے ہیں۔
اگر آپ کے ایئرپورٹ امیگریشن اہلکاروں سے اچھے تعلقات ہیں تو آپ اپنے پسند کے ممالک میں سفر کر سکتے ہیں۔
آپ ان ڈاکیومنٹ سے کینیڈا، انگلینڈ، امریکہ اور کسی بھی دوسرے ملک میں نوکری اور رہاہیش حاصل کر سکتے ہیں اور اپنا بینک اکاؤنٹ کھلوا سکتے ہیں۔
ہم صرف دو ہفتوں میں آپ کو یہ ڈاکیومنٹ بنا کے دیں گیے۔ پاسپورٹ بنانے کا معاوضہ صرف دو ہزار ڈالر ہے اور وہ بھی آپ پاسپورٹ ملنے کے بعد ادا کیجئے۔
مزید معلومات کے لیے ہمارے واٹس ایپ نمبر پر رابطہ کریں:
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This was sent to me yesterday by a concerned Indian, with the tag of..."Be careful with your country"
He's right!

k_el_ph

MarkU , Mar 8, 2019 11:12:50 PM | link
@70 English Outsider.

Re: "America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence."

Defence against whom exactly? People pushing the narrative that the Russian Federation is a menace never mention the numbers involved. The European countries have roughly 3 times the population, 5 times the military spending and a massive advantage in GDP, look it up. If you add the US to the equation then more like 5 times the population and 15 times the military spending. The Russians have nukes of course but with the odds stacked up so spectacularly against them I don't blame them for thinking they need them as a deterrent. If you had another adversary in mind don't be shy.

Pft , Mar 8, 2019 11:36:05 PM | link

Jonku@80

Thanks for the links. I have been following Hudson for the last 12 years and agree with much of what he says. I do disagree that dollar holdings are a tax on other countries. These dollars for the most part are paid to companies for goods and services. They exchange some of this with their central bank to invest locally or pay expenses. The central bank then prints their local currency out of thin air to exchange. The USD are then counted as reserves which allows them to create more local currency by 10+ times, depending on their reserve requirements. This money is spent or invested in the local economy.

The USD reserves can also be used to fund their own trade deficits with other countries, or pay of USD denominated loans

A lot has changed since 1971. After the Vietnam War was winding down the US pulled out of Bretton Woods as Hudson anticipated. They then established the Petrodollar which was not anticipated. This put more USD into the hands of OPEC nations as they were told to accept only USD and in return would be allowed higher oil prices, and much was recycled back to the US, but they and the rest of the world had other options.

This option was the Eurodollar which began in the 60's in a limited fashion . A later sub-option was Eurodollars in the many tax havens, which developed first on British territories and then in the Carribean.

These options being exercised limited the amount of dollars coming back to the US and caused higher interest rates in order to attract some more of the dollars back.

The 1985 Plaza accord put in place an agreement to weaken the dollar with the US to buy more imported goods as they encouraged more US companies to move offshore to produce in low wage countries to keep inflation down. In return the deficits would be funded by other countries resending back the USD they received by buying treasuries. This was when the US realized they could spend and run up fiscal/trade deficits without consequences, and so they did. Oh my.

Then after the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent looting bu oligarchs the Eurodollar Market, especially in the tax havens , exploded even further as these oligarchs and western investors transferred their stolen loot to these offshore tax havens which were already loaded with dollars from the criminal drug trade (mafia-five eyes) and multinational corporations evading taxes at home

In 1990 the Fed then made it easier for US banks to import and use these Eurodollars by setting a zero reserve requirement (same as Fed Funds) on Eurodollar deposits which they could then loan out at many order of magnitudes. This fueled the great credit and asset bubbles using drug money and stolen Soviet asset money which came in to buy Trumps property and stocks. It also allowed banks to increase credit to cash strapped consumers who felt the pinch of neoliberalism and globalization, since the banks were flush with cheap cash. This led to the Great Collapse in 2008

Added to this Eurodollar supply from 1993 was Chinas own oligarchs growing increasingly rich from US investment/trade and from converting the peoples assets to individual party members who wanted a safe place to hide their loot and evade taxes in China

Quantitative Easing following the crash of 2008 provided another source of a cash influx for the US. Toxic waste from foreign and local banks were bought with USD printed from thin air.

Recent Quantitative Tightening meant trouble though. So Trumps new tax measures made it possible for US corporations to return Eurodollars hidden offshore which is fueling stock buybacks and propping up the market. If not for this a 2008 collapse would be here.

When the next crash happens, I am sure the US will surprise us yet again. Pretty sure the fix will be named Green something or another and a Carbon Dollar/Tax


Friar Ockham , Mar 9, 2019 12:14:47 AM | link
What Pres. Trump is doing is a clever ploy to start bringing the troops home as promised. That is his way of announcing the event.
james , Mar 9, 2019 1:38:28 AM | link
@70 english outsider.. i agree with @13 BM... however, the msm in the uk is so warped, maybe they will succeed in marginalizing corbyn.. i thought this article today from jonathan cook was pretty good.. as for the usa being the backbone of europe military and etc.. europe needs to grow a spine themselves and stop taking it in the rear from the usa.. this suggestion from trump is a good place to start by saying no... maybe the poodles are incapable.. that sounds like what you are saying..

@pft... i think i agree with you, although i don't study the financial dynamics enough.. the bailout from 2008 will be followed by more bailouts.. they will just be bigger... that is the name of the game - bust and bailout.. bailing out the banks, until the world asks for something different..

iv> Trump May Charge Allies Up To 600% More For Hosting US Troops
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-08/trump-may-charge-allies-600-more-hosting-us-troops

Posted by: John Smith , Mar 9, 2019 2:12:24 AM | link

Trump May Charge Allies Up To 600% More For Hosting US Troops
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-08/trump-may-charge-allies-600-more-hosting-us-troops

Posted by: John Smith | Mar 9, 2019 2:12:24 AM | link

[Mar 09, 2019] Exploiting Holocast tragedy to promote a Zionist agenda

Mar 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

JoaoAlfaiate , says: March 9, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT

From the University of Chicago Magazine (believe it or not), October, 1999:

" who invented the Holocaust the first place? Who decided to capitalize the noun "holocaust" and transform genocide into a political weapon and fund raising tool? "

" its message of an exclusivity in suffering-serving to promote a Zionist agenda ."

[Mar 09, 2019] The people attacking these monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war

Ukrainian nationalists vs blacks in the USA
Mar 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

kerdasi amaq , says: March 7, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT

Why would only blacks object to existence of these monuments? What about the purported victors of that war? They could have objected but did not. The people attacking these monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war, as I see it.

This disrespect for civility must be punished.

opaque windows , says: March 9, 2019 at 11:44 am GMT
Icons of outstanding accomplishment seem nearly always to be about war.. and the political figures that made the Oligarchs filthy rich prosecuting a war that killed millions. The more dead, the bigger the statute.
Where are the monuments to Watson and Crick, Newton, the persons that discovered penicillin, the engines that convert energy from one form to a more usable other form or statutes of the persons that founded our great universities or the persons that discovered how to capture electricity and make available in every household?

Few icons to those that have made the quality of our lives better are ever produced, Why?
Probably because the war mongers would have none of that.. Oligarchs own 90% of the press, the media, and
means of communicating their wars, no damn invention that makes life better for the displicibles is going to get into the way of profit making wars that fund so much of Economic Zionism.

Consider the recent invention at the U of Australia where hard work discovered 2,200 different places in the world, where a combination of sunlight and wind energy can produce and store sufficient energy to supply 24/7 all the energy the entire world needs on the power grid. Not a word of it in the media. Soon I expect to see a monument to the shock and awe bastards?

[Mar 08, 2019] The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With US

Mar 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: March 7, 2019 at 11:25 pm GMT

February 26, 2019 The Empire: Now or Never

Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America's international behavior. Really, the explanation is simple.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51174.htm

Nov 29, 2016 The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With US

https://youtu.be/L6hIlfHWaGU

[Mar 08, 2019] The Orientalism of Western Russophobia by Max Parry

Mar 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said's pioneering book, Orientalism , as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American intellectual's passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing to leukemia, made an already tremendous loss that much more impactful. His seminal text forever reoriented political discourse by painstakingly examining the overlooked cultural imperialism of colonial history in the West's construction of the so-called Orient. Said meticulously interrogated the Other-ing of the non-Western world in the humanities, arts, and anthropology down to its minutiae. As a result, the West was forced to confront not just its economic and political plunder but the long-established cultural biases filtering the lens through which it viewed the East which shaped its dominion over it.

His writings proved to be so influential that they laid the foundations for what is now known as post-colonial theory. This became an ironic category as the author himself would strongly reject any implication that the subjugation of developing countries is a thing of the past. How apropos that the Mandatory Palestine-born writer's death came in the midst of the early stages of the 'War on Terror' that made clear Western imperialism is very much alive. Despite its history of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and war, the United States had distinguished itself from Britain and France in that it had never established its own major colonies within the Middle East, Asia or North Africa in the heart of the Orient. According to Said, it was now undergoing this venture as the world's sole remaining superpower following the end of the Cold War with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today's political atmosphere makes the Bush era seem like eons ago. Thanks to the shameful rehabilitation of neoconservatism by centrist extremists, Americans fail to understand how Trumpism emerged from the pandora's box of destructiveness of Bush policies that destabilized the Middle East and only increased international terrorism. Since then, another American enemy has been manufactured in the form of the Russian Federation and its President, Vladimir Putin, who drew the ire of the West after a resurgent Moscow under his leadership began to contain U.S. hegemony. This reached a crescendo during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election with the dubious accusations of election interference made by the same intelligence agencies that sold the pack of lies that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. The establishment has even likened the alleged intrusion by Moscow to 9/11.

If a comparison between the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and the still unproven allegations of Russian meddling seems outrageous, it is precisely such an analogy that has been made by Russiagate's own biggest proponents, from neoconservative columnist Max Boot to Hillary Clinton herself . Truthfully, it is the climate of hysteria and dumbing down of discourse to such rigid dichotomies following both events where a real similarity can be drawn. The 'with us or against us' chasm that followed 9/11 has reemerged in the 'either/or' post-election polarity of the Trump era whereby all debate within the Overton window is pigeonholed into a 'pro vs. anti-Trump' or 'pro vs. anti-Russia' false dilemma. It is even perpetrated by some on the far left , e.g. if one critiques corporate media or Russiagate, they are grouped as 'pro-Trump' or 'pro-Putin' no matter their political orientation. This dangerous atmosphere is feeding an unprecedented wave of censorship of dissenting voices across the spectrum.

In his final years, not only did Edward Said condemn the Bush administration but highlighted how corporate media was using bigoted tropes in its representations of Arabs and Muslims to justify U.S. foreign policy. Even though it has gone mostly undetected, the neo-McCarthyist frenzy following the election has produced a similar travesty of caricatures depicting Russia and Vladimir Putin. One such egregious example was a July 2018 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Russia's Turn to Its Asian Past" featuring an illustration portraying Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan. The racist image and headline suggested that Russia is somehow inherently autocratic because of its past occupation under the Mongol Empire during its conquest of Eastern Europe and the Kievan Rus state in the 13th century. In a conceptual revival of the Eurocentric trope of Asiatic or Oriental despotism, the hint is that past race-mixing is where Russia inherited this tyrannical trait. When the cover story appeared, there was virtually no outcry due to the post-election delirium and everyday fear-mongering about Russia that is now commonplace in the media.

The overlooked casual racism used to demonize Russia in the new Cold War's propaganda doesn't stop there. One of the main architects of Russiagate, former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press on the reported meddling stated :

"And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were concerned."

Clapper, whose Office of the DNI published the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections", has been widely praised and cited by corporate media as a trustworthy source despite his previous history of making intentionally false statements at a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee denying that the National Security Agency (NSA) was unconstitutionally spying on U.S. citizens.

The disclosures of NSA activities by whistleblower Edward Snowden that shocked the world should have discredited Clapper's status as a reliable figure, but not for mainstream media which has continuously colluded with the deep state during the entire Russia investigation. In fact, the scandal has been an opportunity to rehabilitate figures like the ex-spymaster complicit in past U.S. crimes from surveillance to torture. Shortly after the interview with NBC, Clapper repeated his prejudiced sentiments against Russians in a speech at the National Press Club in Australia:

"But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United States and to Western democracies."

The post-election mass Trump derangement has not only enabled wild accusations of treason to be made without sufficient evidence to support them, but such uninhibited xenophobic remarks to go without notice or disapproval.

In fact, liberals have seemingly abandoned their supposed progressive credence across the board while suffering from their anti-Russia neurological disorder. In an exemplar of yellow journalism, outlets like NBC News published sensational articles alleging that because of the perceived ingratiation between Trump and Putin, there was an increase in Russian 'birth tourism' in the United States. More commonly known by the pejorative 'anchor babies', birth tourism is the false claim that many immigrants travel to countries for the purpose of having children in order to obtain citizenship. While there may be individual cases, the idea that it is an epidemic is a complete myth  --  the vast majority of immigration is motivated by labor demands and changes in political or socio-economic factors in their native countries, whether it is from the global south or Eastern Europe. Trump has been rightfully criticized for promoting this falsehood regarding undocumented immigrants and his executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, but it appears liberals are willing to unfairly apply this same fallacy toward Russians for political reasons.

... ... ...

Yee , says: March 7, 2019 at 3:26 am GMT

This connected continents of Europe and Asia have 70% of the world population, so it is the center of the world. But the United States is not a local power, it's thousands of miles away from it. Therefore, the US NEEDS conflicts in Europe and Asia to maintain its influence in the world stage and its status of "safe haven for capita", as it found out in WW2 that can be very profitable.

Peace and integration in Europe and Asia is the last thing the US wants. This is why it'd try its hardest to stir up tension in Europe, Asia and MiddleEast. The Russians were naive to believe it was about Communism.

World dominance has been very profitable for the capital class, whether the cost for world dominance worth it for the working class, is open for debate, as citizens of the dominate nation enjoy nice benefits too.

[Mar 08, 2019] Eyewitness of one of players involved exiting building 7 on the morning of 9/11.

Mar 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: March 8, 2019 at 2:42 am GMT

@onebornfree Here is a eyewitness of one of players involved exiting building 7 on the morning of.

May 25, 2014 FDNY 9/11 Survivor Witness and Whistleblower Speaks on WTC 7

Listen very carefully starting at the '20' second mark! As a firefighter on 9/11, he was at Ground Zero and was there when Building 7 came down.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ePPdUUISQOs

[Mar 07, 2019] Guardian adopted nazy propaganda cartoons to demonize Russia

Mar 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Steve Bell cartoon of Putin in The Guardian (left) contrasted with Nazi propaganda (right).

[Mar 07, 2019] Op-Ed Chaos in the West shows that democracy comes in more than one flavor - People's Daily Online by Curtis Stone, Chengliang Wu

Mar 01, 2019 | en.people.cn

A popular narrative in the West is that the world would be a much better place if all countries just look and act more like the Western world. Indeed, the West has enjoyed great wealth and growth over the years. But growing instability in the Western world has also raised doubts about the Western-style of democratic governance.

In fact, there is a tendency to put Western-style democracy on a pedestal; but by doing so, we overlook its faults and even potential dangers. From the never-ending gridlock in Washington, to chaos in the House of Commons of United Kingdom over the Brexit mess, to people rioting on the streets of Paris, more and more people are calling into question the effectiveness of Western-style democracy.

Brexit, for some at least, encapsulates the perils and pitfalls of this style of democracy. In June 2016, the people of the UK voted to leave the European Union and, for now at least, the UK will leave the EU by March 29 this year, with or without a plan in place. The irrational jump into the unknown and the chaos that followed has created a troubling situation for the country, as well as other parts of the world, raising serious questions about the effectiveness and legitimacy of UK-style democracy.

Whether to leave or stay in the EU is a complicated issue that requires careful study and rational decisions from knowledgeable, well-informed people. It is irresponsible to just drag people off the streets for a vote on a major policy issue like Brexit. For example, days after the UK voted to leave the EU, a commentary on TIME's website wrote that the referendum was not a triumph of democracy, but an ugly populist fiasco.

Thus, there is good reason why more and more people feel like Western-style democracy has become a big joke. In the UK, the people voted to "take back control" of their country -- but without a plan. In the United States, politics has become a soap opera and the system is pitting Americans against Americans, splitting the country further apart. In fact, the US government has become so divided and dysfunctional that it recently broke the record for the longest shutdown in US history, which forced many government employees to turn to food banks to feed their families.

Yet, a very different story is unfolding in Asia. During the more than month-long government shutdown in the United States, China made history, too -- by landing the Chang'e-4 spacecraft on the far side of the moon. As a US senator pointed out during the shutdown, China has quadrupled its GDP since 2001, but the United States cannot even keep the government up and running. He called the situation in the United States "ludicrous."

Clearly, Western-style democracy is not "the end of history," as some have predicted and hoped for. This is not to say that the Western system is a failure or that China's system is superior to Western-style democracy, but it is fair to say that China's own system is a good fit for the country and it achieves the best results for the Chinese people.

For example, China has built the largest, most advanced high-speed train network in the world. It is the envy for many in the world, even for many Americans, including former President Barack Obama, who, nearly a decade ago, unveiled a plan for a national network of high-speed passenger rail lines that was envisioned to transform travel in America. The plan, like many others, turned out to be an American Dream that never came true. Just recently in California, for example, the state's new governor killed the high-speed rail program that would link Los Angeles to San Francisco -- a project beloved by the just-retired four-term Governor Jerry Brown.

And then there is US President Donald Trump's ambitious plan to "Rebuild America," which he has been unable to deliver. Stuck in an endless battle with Democrats over funding for the border wall, Trump declared a national emergency to fulfill his pledge to construct a wall along the US-Mexico border. His decision reflects a difference between the two countries' models. Whereas the Chinese model is people-centered, the American model is vote-centered. With regard to the "security and humanitarian crisis" on the country's southern border, the people are asking, "where is the crisis?" And herein lies the dilemma: Decisions, like Trump's decision to declare a national emergency, are essentially political stunts for votes. The Western model reduces people to a source of votes, essentially turning democracy into a game of likes.

This kind of decision-making is in stark contrast to the decision-making process in China, which makes annual, five-year, and long-term plans to guide the country forward and conducts extensive consultations to reach a broad consensus on major issues. A clear advantage of the Chinese system is that it is constantly exploring ways to adapt to the changing times, including large-scale reform of Party and government institutions to adapt to internal and external changes.

Perhaps there was a time when one could argue that the Western model produced the best results, but that is no longer the case. What we are seeing now is that it is increasingly difficult for Western countries to reach a consensus on major issues and to form a strategic plan. Western-style of democracy has become too rigid and Western democratic institutions are in a state of degradation, making it next to impossible to carry out any substantial reform. This can be seen in the fact that democracy in the Western world has increasingly become a fight for money and a game of manipulating people for votes.

In China's socialist democracy, there is a strong and stable political force that represents the interests of the great majority of the Chinese people. The Chinese government takes a people-centered approach to politics and good governance ensures that results can be delivered. It should be no wonder, then, that the Western model is barreling toward a cliff, while China is making great progress in various aspects, including the nation's ambitious plan to eradicate poverty by 2020. In a world of turmoil, there is reason for China and the Chinese people to be confident in its path.


Javed Mir5 days ago ,

--it is fair to say that China's own system is a good fit for the country and it achieves the best results for the Chinese people--

Putting it broadly 'One Size does not fit All' - as such values of the society, history of the society and potential of the society are different everywhere - as such state management be different. Moroever governance methods be flexible enough so that the decisions be adopted according to the national and international requirements.

.

LarryD Javed Mir5 days ago ,

In some Western countries it's not the political system itself that is necessarily bad. In the case of the present "sole superpower", for example, refusal to change policies based on the extermination of over 95% of its indigenous population and centuries of inhuman slavery of black people have perpetuated the present war against oppressed minorities. Further, the continuation of aggressive wars overseas, a habit that prompted Martin Luther King Jr to call his country "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" has ensured the neglect of infrastructure, healthcare, and quality of disenfranchised minorities, especially the Afro-Americans. It's not surprising that in poll after poll, the US have garnered the most votes for being the most dangerous country in the world. The much-maligned North Korea was second.

LarryD LarryD5 days ago ,

Typo: "quality of disenfranchised minorities, especially the Afro-Americans."

Should be "quality of education for disenfranchised minorities, especially that of Afro-Americans"

Raymond Hughes LarryDa day ago ,

Millions of poor people of all colours. The Africans used slaves long before the Arabs/ Europeans went to Africa and bought them from Africans, who used them for centuries, rounded them up, for sale to anyone with trinkets. The A-rabs were real big slavers, real big. Russia used Swedish slaves as did all nations use their fellow humans as slaves, only the US Negros get all the publicity.

[Mar 06, 2019] Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation (October 31, 1998)

Mar 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Christo says:

March 5, 2019 at 2:10 pm GMT 200 Words @firstamongfirsts Well , there is the (still active)

Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation
(October 31, 1998)

"The United States Government would view with particular gravity direct threats to Israel's security arising from the regional deployment of ballistic missiles of intermediate range or greater.
In the event of such a threat, the United States Government would consult promptly with the Government of Israel,

with respect to what support, diplomatic or otherwise, or assistance, , it can lend to Israel."

Realize as an indirect result of the USA withdrawing from the INF and accusing Russia of having IRBM's(600 mile range , and the Crimiea being only 800 miles from Israel , this immediately gave Israel carte' blanche for any and all defense "requests" the foreseeable future. This goes beyond even the previous status of Iran for all concerns presenting an IRBM threat as well.

There is also the default alliance created by the USA recently building an Airbase inside the bounds of Israel's Mashabim Air Base, near Dimona, that any air or actual missile attack on Israel will be considered an attack that threatened or was toward a US military installation.

They got the US permanently allied/tied covering their butts . No need for further acknowledgment in writing required IMO.

[Mar 05, 2019] Lately, Ukranians began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results

Mar 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

FB , says: November 24, 2018 at 5:18 pm GMT

@Felix Keverich You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart ? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?

The Ukraine certainly had all kinds of 'entrepreneurs' they're called OLIGARCHS who very capably enriched themselves unfortunately 'entrepreneurs' are what normal people would call parasites, flim-flam men and hucksters

As for Ukrainian workers lacking 'marketable skills' I guess that would be 'skills' like TROLLING, your specialty and making retarded statements on discussion fora

Ukraine had more very qualified engineers per capita than any country in Europe a huge amount of intellectual capacity, and a very good industrial base especially in high tech areas like aerospace and propulsion their problem was that they chose to play games with the rotten west, instead of friendship with Russia, with which their industry was integrated

You're a complete wanker in the A. Karlin mold. Get lost you have nothing to contribute

Felix Keverich , says: November 24, 2018 at 5:38 pm GMT
@Big Bill They fought that it was Russia, that was holding them back, and by separating they could quickly achieve Western European standard of living. The first guy to become president of independent Ukraine promised people that they were going to "live like France" .in 5 years (!). lol

So their plan was something like this:

Lately, they began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results

Felix Keverich , says: November 24, 2018 at 5:53 pm GMT
@FB

You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart ? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?

Your industries are worth ZERO, if you're unable to sell your products, and the Ukraine struggled to sell its manufactured goods after 1991. Its traditional customer – Russia began to import Western goods.

You sound like Martyanov. lol It doesn't take any "special qualification" to figure out that Soviet-era factories were churning out worthless crap – there is a reason why that system fell apart, you know.

Now, off to ignore list with you.

[Mar 05, 2019] The Shadow Governments Destruction Of Democracy

Highly recommended!
Trump actually proved to be very convenient President to CIA., Probably as convenient as Obama... Both completely outsourced foreign policy to neocons and CIA )in this sense the appointment of Pompeo is worst joke Trump could play with the remnants of US democracy_ .
Notable quotes:
"... "The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street." ..."
"... "It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads." ..."
"... Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria. In contrast, Trump dismissed America's practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups. ..."
"... "So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted," Greenwald argued. "Clinton's was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him." ..."
"... But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. ..."
"... He also points out the left's hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable. ..."
Feb 19, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
And on the heels of Dennis Kucinich's warnings , The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous. As TheAntiMedia's Carey Wedler notes , Greenwald asserted in an interview with Democracy Now, published on Thursday, that this boils down to a fight between the Deep State and the Trump administration.

https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_state_to

Though Greenwald has argued the leaks were "wholly justified" in spite of the fact they violated criminal law, he also questioned the motives behind them.

"It's very possible - I'd say likely - that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble," he wrote. "Whatever else is true, this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries in the Trump White House."

According to an in-depth report by journalist Mike Lofgren:

"The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street."

As Greenwald explained during his interview:

"It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads."

Greenwald believes this division is a result of the Deep State's disapproval of Trump's foreign policy and the fact that the intelligence community overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton over Trump because of her hawkish views. Greenwald noted that Mike Morell, acting CIA chief under Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and NSA under George W. Bush, openly spoke out against Trump during the presidential campaign.

Greenwald asserts the the CIA preferred Clinton because, like the clandestine agency, she supported regime change in Syria. In contrast, Trump dismissed America's practice of nation-building and declined to tow the line on ousting foreign leaders, instead advocating working with Russia to defeat ISIS and other extremist groups.

"So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted," Greenwald argued. "Clinton's was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him."

"[In] the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made."

Greenwald, who opposes Trump for a variety of reasons, warns that siding with the evidently powerful Deep State in the hopes of undermining Trump is dangerous. "Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving," he said, likely alluding to a recent court ruling that nullified Trump's travel ban.

He continued:

"But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity."

He argues that mentality is "a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it," highlighting that members of both prevailing political parties are praising the Deep State's audacity in leaking details of Flynn's conversations.

As he wrote in his article, " it's hard to put into words how strange it is to watch the very same people - from both parties, across the ideological spectrum - who called for the heads of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, and so many other Obama-era leakers today heap praise on those who leaked the highly sensitive, classified SIGINT information that brought down Gen. Flynn."

He also points out the left's hypocrisy in condemning Flynn for lying when James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration, perpetuated lies without ever being held accountable.

[Mar 04, 2019] US does not have "plan B". Trump just betting on enough pressure will force China to surrender, like Japan did in the 80s.

Notable quotes:
"... Face it. Mass production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1 wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress ..."
"... Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc. ..."
"... With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc. ..."
"... The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant memory. ..."
"... Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero. ..."
Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete says: February 18, 2019 at 4:05 pm GMT 100 Words A superb and apparently too little appreciated point,

War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.

Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition.

It all war, all the time and another point to remember is that there is always a war between the .001% and the rest of us.

Another thing is that we proles, peasants and peons should give some serious thought to having the "elite" fight their own battles, on their "own" (though mostly stolen) shekels for once. Read More Agree: foolisholdman Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments


Agent76 , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:08 pm GMT

Feb 15, 2019 Next Phase, Xi & Trump, Coordinate The Transition

US industrial production plunges, this doesn't mean that manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US this means the [CB] is deteriorating quickly as Trump brings back manufacturing.

Feb 16, 2019 Pentagon Warns of Chinese Space Lasers | China News Headlines

A new Pentagon report says #China and Russia have developed #laser weapons to target US satellites. Need a Space Force?

SteveK9 , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT
Michael Klare believes in Russia-gate. Anyone that foolish is not worth reading.
The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT

governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

Looked at this way, there are countless wars all the time as well as a huge gray area that is debatable. I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing in both directions. Even then, there are gray areas, but at least they are minimized

Yee , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
Erebus,

"The time and investment required to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means much of what's left of America's real economy would disappear within weeks.

American trade negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird."

Of course they're not oblivious, as you can see everytime the stock market goes down, some US official came out to say a deal/talk is on the way. Both the negotiators and the market know.

They're just betting on enough pressure will force China to surrender, like Japan did in the 80s.

nsa , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
@Erebus In the distant past there were at least 1000 PC Board manufacturers in the US .now there are only 2 or 3. Most US PCB houses are actually a middleman with an iphone fronting for one of the many Chinese PCB factories. You supply the Gerber Files and the payment, of course, and your finished PC Boards come back by air the next day.

Now here is the kicker: our US PC Board supplier is located in Illinois and owned by you guessed it Hindus. Half the staff are also Hindus. In general, the Chinese PCBs are of higher quality than the Hindu .er US PCBs.

Face it. Mass production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1 wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress

MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:26 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Reality much?

Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc.

With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc.

Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian (Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of money, or in government.

With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and knowledge.

China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but as soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S. factories withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find markets in Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.

People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.

The atalantacist strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further, the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.

The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
@Alfa158 Alternatively, one could examine a nations ability to rapidly expand their economy to meet wartime needs. In this scenario, other factors such as access to raw materials come into play. In this perspective, the equations would change dramatically.
Digital Samizdat , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
@MEFOBILLS To make a long story short, China is run by the Chinese, while the US today is run by (((globalist parasites))).
The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 4:42 pm GMT
@Wally

And to think some take this fraud, Klare, seriously.

He writes for Tomdispatch. Need I say more?

jacques sheete , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:57 pm GMT
@The Scalpel

I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing

Why limit it to that? I'd say there's plenty of merit in the author's definition especially since it would tend to shed some lights on the origins of major conflicts.

AriusArmenian , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both Russia and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance in hell of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The more it goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.

So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.

The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and is now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the next wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big question is how much suffering before it ends.

The Scalpel , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 5:43 pm GMT
@jacques sheete The author's definition makes the term a purely rhetorical one tantamount to an angry child saying "this means war!" to another angry child, or "The War on Drugs" or "The Battle of the Sexes" etc.

Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth the time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.

DB Cooper , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT
@nsa I didn't know Indians are into the PCB industry. Do the customers aware that they are just middlemen getting their goods from China?

Anyway here is a behind the scene look at one of the PCB manufacturers in China. Pretty interesting stuff.

Cratylus , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT
Klare discovers the US crusade against China – 8 years after the Obama/Hillary "pivot" to East Asia sending 2/3 of the US Navy there and putting together the TPP to excluded China. As usual he is right on top of things.

And he begins with this gem: " "The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation." Huh? Does he mean the $4700 in Google ads or the $50,000 in Facebook ads traced to some alleged Russian sources? A Russiagater from the start.
I remember some years ago before the shale revolution Klare was warning us about "peak oil." I think we were supposed to have run out of it by now.

Klare is a hack who cycles things that any conscious person reading the newspapers would have known long ago.

P.s. He says that Apple is the number one cell phone. No longer. He should improve his Google search skills or his set of assumptions which have turned him into a Russiagater.

Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/ ). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You find Huawei everywhere – from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its best citizens .
peterAUS , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:30 pm GMT
@Counterinsurgency You are onto something here.

I don't think it's simple "Eastern" vs "Western" Europeans; my take is Protestants vs Catholics vs Orthodox. In that order. The biggest difference is between Protestant and Orthodox. Catholics are, sort of, in the middle. Or, in practical terms, don't see much difference between Austrians and Slovenes. That's for Europe.

As for China, definitely agree.

wayfarer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
China's "Petro-Yuan": The End of the U.S. Dollar Hegemony?
WorkingClass , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade war we are misusing the word war.

War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people. Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.

We are NOT already at war with China.

jacques sheete , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:57 pm GMT
@The Scalpel

Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth the time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.

I agree on all four points.

However, if you didn't want a debate, or at least a response, then why did you bother bringing it up? (That's a rhetorical question, since I neither expect nor really care what the response would be; now I'm asking myself why I bothered !!!)

jacques sheete , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:00 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX

Russia under Putin is an exporter of non GMO grains where as the U.S. exports GMO grains thatt the Chinese do not want as these GMO grains are a destuctive to humans and animals.

I hope that's true. To Hell with that GMO crap!!! Anyone using it for farming ought to be forced to drink glyphosate straight for breakfast.

AnonFromTN , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:02 pm GMT
As far as the war with China goes, we ain't seen nothing yet. It won't be pretty, especially considering that the US is starting it with severe self-inflicted wounds.
Cratylus , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:19 pm GMT
Yes, and the ads were often absurd – one somehow featuring Yosemite Sam and gun rights and another for a dildo, I believe. Great for click bait maybe but not real winners for a campaign.

As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2 billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high and low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the Russobots.

Commentator Mike , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:41 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Actually China has approved import of some US GMOs

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/reuters-america-factbox-china-approves-new-gmo-soybean-corn-and-canola-traits.html

Cyrano , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:41 pm GMT
I don't think China stands the chance. As we all know diversity is strength and China is mono-cultured rather than the obviously superior multi. So China will continue to decline, while US goes from strength to strength thanks to its brilliant, brilliant multicultural philosophy.

China was dumb enough to try real socialism, while obviously the fake one is the way to go. You convince your domestic population of your humanitarian credentials – via the phony socialism, plus you don't have to share a cent with them. How clever is that? Phony socialism is the way to go – it eliminates the need for the real one.

James Wood , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
At some point one must consider that this is all a fraud. In Washington Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats are proposing to eviscerate the US economy with their Green New Deal. While here we find Washington launching a long term struggle for economic, political, and military superiority over China.

As was once said in another context by an individual remembered in history, "What is truth?" A question which either revealed his own puzzlement or was simply a rhetorical dismissal of the question altogether. Likely both at the same time. One can be simply bemused by the turn of events.

Is all this activity simply a song and dance to entertain, terrify, confuse, and amuse the public while the real ordering of the world takes place behind closed doors? Put Ocasio-Cortez together with the Pentagon and we have apparently a commitment by the US to force the entire world to immolate itself. No state shall be superior to the US and the US shall be a third world hellhole. Cui bono?

AnonFromTN , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged international banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced them to ally against a common threat: dying demented Empire.

As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff, write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few centuries you might get an answer.

Anonymous [375] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia is currently trying to get China to ally against the West:

" Russia to China: Together we can rule the world "

https://www.politico.eu/blogs/the-coming-wars/2019/02/russia-china-alliance-rule-the-world/

In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.

Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in 2017.

At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to something Russia wants to realize. And soon

Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.

In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China in that direction.

Anon [332] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:45 pm GMT
@Sean Pollution in China is good for the environment:

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/05/673821051/carbon-dioxide-emissions-are-up-again-what-now-climate

Another hurdle, reported in the journal Nature this week, is that China is cleaning up its air pollution. That sounds great for pollution-weary Chinese citizens. But climatologists point out that some of that air pollution had actually been cooling the atmosphere, by blocking out solar radiation. Ironically, less air pollution from China could mean more warming for the Earth.

tamo , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:53 am GMT
@AnonFromTN Frankly, I really don't give a damn about what you say. But do not use racial slurs FIRST. I use racial slurs ONLY in RESPONSE to the comments that contain them, in retaliation. If you don't use racial slurs, I wouldn't either.
nsa , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:02 am GMT
@DB Cooper DB,
Thanks for the PCB mfg video. Asian roboticized surface mount assembly plants are even more impressive. At one time supplied specialized instrumentation to the FN factory in South Carolina where the 50 cal machine guns are made, and received a tour. Crude by Asian standards, but efficient in its own way. Base price on a 50 LMG at the time was $5k without any of the extras: tripod, flash suppressor, water cooling, advanced night vision sights, etc. Base price would be $10k by now. The US Guv does not allow this kind of production to go offshore .but apparently cares not a jot about the production of consumer electronics, a massive and growing worldwide market.

Have read the Chinese shops assemble $1000 I-pods for as little as $5 each including parts sourcing, making domestic production here impractical. Surprisingly, the Germans manage to produce high end electronics and their manufacturing labor rates are even higher than North America. Says something about the skill and diligence level of the US workforce ..where just passing a drug test and not having felonies or bad credit is a major achievement.

@Anonymous Yes, it is quite off putting, even though most of the article is quite sound. Possibly Klare was obliged to add this bit of nonsense in order to get it published in TomDispatch but who knows.
Erebus , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@nsa A good friend supplies hi-end PCBs to EU & RU electronics mfrs, particularly in DE. Judging by the numbers I hear, hi-end electronics is still very much alive in Europe while it's all but dead in NA.

It's a capital intensive business, and raw labour cost is a minor component in the total cost of doing business. NA has put so many socio-political obstructions & regulatory costs in the way that even at min wage it makes no business sense to locate there. I doubt it would make sense even with free labour.

As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's manufacturing ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural aspects as well as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build a new one. I explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago. NA still "assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.

Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design & production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.

Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.

peter mcloughlin , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
Where a war begins – or ends – can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right, 'War' and 'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological abstraction: the First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a global war one week later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of long duration. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were positioning themselves to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were defeated at the Battle of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.

Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however destructive.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Jason Liu , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
The trade war is meh.

The real conflict is a cultural/ideological war in which liberal democracy tries to apply its system worldwide under the delusion that egalitarianism, freedom, your definition of rights, is universal.

China will never accept this. Russia is already fighting back. Nor does any developing country look like they will ever truly embrace western values. It's gonna be SWPLs + WEIRDs vs The Rest of Humanity.

The new Cold War will last much longer than any trade issue and conflict over values will always be the underlying motivation, until the west either ends its universalist crusade, or abolishes liberal democracy within its own borders.

raywood , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT
I would be more sympathetic with Klare's fear of cold war with China if he could just assure me that Chinese writers are equally able to voice concern with their own government's side of the equation.
peterAUS , says: February 19, 2019 at 5:42 pm GMT
@peter mcloughlin

Great power rivalry has always led to wars ..

History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however destructive.

Pretty much, BUT, with one little difference re "some else's expense" now. M.A.D. scenario.

Even limited exchange of thermonuclear M.I.R.V.s could affect everyone (even if somebody can define that "limited" in the first place).

My take: we haven't developed, as species, along our capability for destruction.
Cheerful thought, I know.

denk , says: February 19, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
Pepe Escobar says: 'US elites remain incapable of understanding China'

That's B.S., Pepe should've known better . They dont 'misunderstand', they'r simply lying thru their teeth.

The following are all bald faced lies, Classic bandits crying robbery.

Lawmaker: Chinese navy seeks to encircle US homeland
[bravo, This one really takes the cake !]

US Accuses China Of Preparing For World War III

US accuses China of trying to militarise and dominates space

USN have to patrol the SCS to protect FON for international shipping..

tip of an iceberg

Those who uttered such nonsense aint insane, stupid or cuz they 'misunderstand' [sic] China.
They know we know they'r telling bald faced lies
but that doesnt stop them lying with straight face .

This is the classic def of psychopaths: people who'r utterly amoral, no sense of right or wrong, there's no such word as embarrassment in their vocab.

Is it sheer coincidence that all the 5lies have been ruled by such breeds ?
Ask Ian Fleming's fundamental law of prob .

but why couldnt they produce one decent leader
in all of three hundred years.
5lies have more than their fair share of psychopaths no doubt, but surely not everybody is like joe web and co., I know this for a fact. ?

Trouble is .

Washington DC is a veritable cesspool that
no decent man would want to dip his foot into it.
They might as well put it in the job requirement,
'Only psychopaths need apply '
Thats why in the DC cesspool, only the society's dregs rise up to the top.

A case of garbage in, garbage out .

A vicious circle that cant be fixed, except to be broken.

Китайский дурак , says: February 20, 2019 at 12:56 am GMT
1) People from China PRC has as a people on the whole become quite disgusting. But please exclude ppl from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibetans, Uyghurs etc. I confirm that PRC China people by and large are now locusts of the world. I am one of them by birth. how did it happen? Deep question for philosophers. It wasn't like this 60 years ago. some poisonous element entered the veins of the collective, infected at least 70 percent. I worry for Russia due to its inflated self confidence when dealing with PRC. Lake Baikal deal was almost sealed before it got shelved. Still, using racial curses don't hurt anyone but yourself. All the big internet advocates for Russia such as Orlov and Saker and Karlin don'tunderstand The Danger of China PRC. If you understand then you have a responsibility to keep yourself décent and respectable.

2) USA aside from its liberals and Zionist Jews etc. Has become a slowly stewing big asylum for psychologically infantile and demented big babies. How did it happen again is a big philosophical myth to me. Western Europe is sinking primarily because they came to resemble the US. especially French and Brits and Spanish.

3) Russia is ruled by a few individuals with brains and maybe a bit of conscience but the elite ruling class behave in such a way that one would conclude that they share the China PRC virus, just not as advanced. Your basic Russian people are in a state of abject degradation dejection, not changed all that much since 1990s. Only slightly ahead of the Ukrainians. If one cares about Russia then shove aside 19th century naive romanticism and face reality.

4) A sustained and massive war by USA against China maybe the only miniscule chance Greek/Christian civilization can be saved. Otherwise descend of history into thousand year dark age. The latter is more likely due to advanced stage of brain dead disease gripping the entire West.

jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:19 am GMT
@tamo TAMO

If you have observed cities like Detroit or Greater Los Angeles than you know that "white flight" as oppose to sycophancy is the end result of black or Hispanic populations reaching a certain level. Whites leave and the US then has another internal third world like Detroit or East LA.

It is a game of musical chairs where the white move into remote hinterlands, which develop into suburbs or exurbs, then of course as these become population centers the blacks and Hispanics enter them and the whites flee again.

What you will see is white flight from the US with the wealthiest whites simply moving to other developed countries. The 1% would move to New Zealand or Tasmania.

jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
@Joe Wong JOE

The best way for the US to win a war over China is not to outsource their labor there.

There is no way the US could win a conventional war with China. It cannot even win a conventional war in Afghanistan.

China managed to fight off-if not defeat-the US in Korea and Vietnam.

atlantis_dweller , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
The handicap for the USA in the confrontation is twofold its élite are in conflict (and afraid, and contemptuous of) at least half of their own populace.
Plus, all the resources of all kinds directed to enterprises in the Middle East, subtracted thusly from other enterprises.

Furthermore, there is the occasional bullying of Europe, and the continuous bullying of Russia, yet more resource drains.
The USA spreads itself too thin, perhaps.

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
@peterAUS Chinese are neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of peaceful coexistence, treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.

Chinese believes we are now living in a rapidly changing world Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our times. To keep up with the times, we cannot have ourselves physically living in the 21st century, but with a mindset belonging to the past stalled in the oldays of colonialism, and constrained by the zero-sum Cold War mentality.

Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru the win-win approaches.

atlantis_dweller , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:16 am GMT
@Китайский дурак 2) The riddle reads simply: democracy, multiracialism, economic welfare (no-limit printing of currency made possible by uncontested military "overmatch").
jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:20 am GMT
@Joe Wong JOE

I lived in the Philippines and would chalk that up to fairly typical of a country run by China since it is effectively controlled by a syndicate of Fujian family cartels.

This is on the horizon in Africa. Probably.

In the West, Chinese were held in check by Jews and WASPS and to some degree by Malaysians. I see Africa becoming like the Philippines once Chinese can become citizens there, however.

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:55 am GMT
@Biff The Romans create a desert and call it peace; British Empire imitated Roman Empire, USA is born out of British Empire; so only the White People particular the Anglo-Saxon is not ready for peace or salvation. But rest of the world has been waiting for peace or salvation for a long long time.
peterAUS , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:56 am GMT
@Joe Wong

Chinese are neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of peaceful coexistence, treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.

Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our times.

Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru the win-win approaches.

Three options here:
Preferably,you are just pulling our legs. Not bad attempt, actually. Got me for a second.

Most likely, you are simply working. Sloppy and crude but, well, "you get what you pay for". 50 Cent Army. Retired but needing money. Sucks, a?

Crazy and the least probable, you really believe in all that. Ah, well

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 3:28 am GMT
@jeff stryker Obviously you are brain washed by the 'god-fearing' morally defunct evil 'Anglo-Saxon', blaming every of your own failure on the Chinese just like what the Americans and their Five-Eyes partners are doing right now.

The Filippino, the Malay and all the SE Asia locals have the guns not the Chinese, if the Chinese do not hand over their hard earned money they will use what their ex-colonial masters taught them since Vasco da Gama discovered the East Indies, masscared the Chinese and took it all. The Dutch, Spanish, English, Japanese and the American all have done it before in order to colonized the East Indies.

Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing, looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, 'pious' fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In fact it is hard to tell the difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal and barbaric to Asians until the Pearl Harbour incident.

For over seventy years the US has dominated Asia, ravaging the continent with two major wars in Korea and Indo-China with millions of casualties, and multiple counter-insurgency interventions in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The strategic goal has been to expand its military and political power, exploit the economies and resources and encircle China.

USA is 10,000 miles away on the other side of the Pacific. USA is not an Asian nation, and American is an alien to Asia. American is a toxin and a plague to Asian, They have done enough damage to Asian already, they are not wanted, not invited and not loved in Asia, go home Yankee.

Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 3:50 am GMT
@peterAUS You should know the White man has some fallacies built into their culture, such as they believe that the White man's words must be taken as given truth, only the White man can invent and the White man can succeed, and the Whte man's culture is the final form of civilization.

The West (Europeans and their offshoots like the American, Aussie, etc.) is where is now, because of those hundreds of millions of people all over the world who were robbed and murdered, those who become victims of their very madness of colonialism and orientalism, of the crusades and the slave and Opium trades. Cathedrals and palaces, museums and theatres, train stations – all had been constructed on horrid foundations of bones and blood, and amalgamated by tears.

The West squandered all the wealth they obtained thru stealing, looting and murdering hundreds of millions of people all over the world in the scrabbling of a dog-eat-dog play rough over the monopoly to plunder the rest of the world through two World Wars, one on the edge of Armageddon, and on the verge of another Armageddon. It proves the West is incapable of bringing peace and prosperity to the mankind because of their flawed culture, civilization and religion. The chaos and suffering of the world in the last few hundreds of years under the dominance the West proves they are a failure.

Human beings deserve better, we need to depart from the chaotic and harmful world order and path established by the moronic West. China proposed a new way of life, a win-win approach for the well-being of mankind like Belt-Road-Initiative to build and trade the world into peace, harmony and prosperity. The West should not be the obstacle for achieving such refreshing winner for all initiative. The West should embrace the new approach proposed by China because the West will benefit from it. I call upon you, let go the old, obsolete, failed and detrimental believe passed onto you by your colonialist forebears please, welcome the new era.

Miro23 , says: February 20, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
@Erebus

As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's manufacturing ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural aspects as well as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build a new one. I explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago. NA still "assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.

Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design & production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.

Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.

All true, leaving the question of what happens to North America before it reaches the African street market economy (low tech, low investment, low trust, basic products, vibrant and over each morning).

The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant memory.

Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero.

Don't ask what happens to US nuclear weapons.

jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 4:32 am GMT
@Joe Wong JOE

If Chinese took over the world it would look like the Philippines.

Shabu labs everywhere? Corrupt politicians blowing away homeless squatters when some Chinese guy wanted to build a shopping center or Chinese arsonists setting squats on fire? Dictators living off wages Chinese don't want to pay exploited peasants?

No thanks, the whites don't want Chinese family cartels running our economies. We can see the harm you have done in Burma, Philippines etc.

Китайский дурак , says: February 20, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
@jeff stryker This Joe Wong is obviously a WuMao (professional trolls paid by Beijing to parrot their government's pathological propaganda). Any mainland Chinese who can read will confirm this fact. It is not worth your time to deal with folks like him.
jeff stryker , says: February 20, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
@Китайский дурак Maybe, but my posts are intended for those that think a Chinese-run planet would be a better New World Order.

Visit the Philippines.

Australians all wrapped up in America should pay close attention.

Китайский дурак , says: February 20, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
@jeff stryker Australians, Philippines, Singaporeans, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Russians, Italians, Japanese,Mongolians, Koreans, New Zealanders, a tiny anguished minority of mainland Chinese themselves, everyone has gotten the mail, everyone has seen them on the streets, everyone understood -- what a Beijing lorded world shall be like, coffee beans in the morning. Americans are last in getting the news. Americans can be dim witted. Too many Nobel winning economists and globalist bankers in America. And China is the gift of these white people to the world.
joe webb , says: February 20, 2019 at 6:25 am GMT
@peterAUS thanks and if you are a young man, congrats for your rationality. I am old, but probably have ten or 20 years left, if not all those years real fit.

The young guys need to not fuc themselves up with regard to earning a living .keep your mouth shut , sort of, and your name protected.

I hope a new generation of "White Nationalists" come along sans Hitlerism. Stay rational, with just the facts M'am if you don't recall that line it was Dragnet and Detective Jack Webb I think .you are young, Congrats.

Stick to the facts, keep your ego under control, keep a smile on your face .. Buddhist wisdom to spread a little love around and it is essential for snaring a woman.

The Facts are with us. The Future is with us, including hard times, civil war, and so on. The Sentimental Lie (Joseph Conrad) of race equality cannot stand for long.

Joe Webb

NoseytheDuke , says: February 20, 2019 at 6:26 am GMT
@jeff stryker Australian people nowadays are far less wrapped up in America than at any time that I can remember but Australian politicians are just as bought and paid for as are those in the US.

Australians generally are much more well travelled than most Americans and have been to various places both in Asia and Europe, especially the UK. Despite having seen the longer term results of "diversity" with their own eyes they overwhelmingly seem to think that things will somehow work out differently in Australia. To even suggest that mass immigration from the third world is a ticking time-bomb is to be branded a racist of the very worst kind.

Yee , says: February 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT
jeff stryker,

"The best way for the US to win a war over China is not to outsource their labor there."

Too bad you don't get to decide what "the best way for the US" is, no matter how many times you vote America has owners, and the owners aren't the average Americans.

PS. Philippines is just the poor-man version of USA. Does the American capitalist class have many concerns for their working class? The money class are all the same.

Your rant about Chinese of SE Asia is also quite similar with that of American Whites for the Jews, or South African Blacks for the Whites, just only on economic side, not politics.

People aren't much different everywhere

Nzn , says: February 20, 2019 at 2:44 pm GMT
Filipinos are nothing but semi retarded 85 IQ trying hard Americans, the vast majority who are too stupid to copy the better parts of US high culture, and so ape and cargo cult the trashiest and lowest of the low parts of US culture, or maybe low IQ Austronesians are just prone to overall trashiness unless they are regulated by a somewhat draconian conservative culture like Muslim Malays are.
Joe Wong , says: February 20, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT
@Китайский дурак Perhaps some Russians like you are willing to live under the Anglo-Saxon's dominance, submitted to Anglo-Saxon's zero-sum, beggar-thy-neighbour, negative energy infested cult culture, and try to talk like them and walk like them, but not everybody is like those feeble Russians. Other people has their long history, culture and identity to protect. Please do not smear other people's integrity because you are lack of it.
denk , says: February 20, 2019 at 5:48 pm GMT
@denk

Self-Defense, Civilizational Defense ,

Exhibit A

General William R. Looney III

If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now . It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.

Comments about the bombing of Iraq in the late 1990s, which he directed. Interview Washington Post (August 30, 1999); quoted in Rogue State, William Blum, Common Courage Press, 2005, p. 159.

William Blum,
RIP
Somebody should do an autopsy on him !

TT , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:48 pm GMT
@denk

In korea, a UN coaliton force , bristling with bombers, jet fighters, complete air superiority.no less. Tanks, artilleries, carbines, couldnt subdue the PLA fighting with ww1 vintage rifles.

There is never any UN coalition force in Korea war. Its a illegal US led aggression, known as Unified/United Command, in violating of UNSC charter. US deceived UN by using 'United Command' in its letterhead when communicating. And then go ahead to lie shamelessly using UN name.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-role-of-the-un-in-the-unending-korean-war-united-nations-command-as-camouflage/5350876

By acting before the Security Council could act, the US was in violation of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter which requires a Security Council action under Chapter VII before there is any armed intervention into the internal affairs of another nation unless the arms are used in self-defense. (See Article 51 of the UN Charter. The US armed intervention in Korea was clearly not an act of self defense for the US.) Also the actions of the UN have come to be referred to as the actions of the "United Nations Command"(UNC), but this designation is not to be found in the June and July 1950 Security Council resolutions authorizing participation in the Korean War. (3) What is the significance of the US using the UN in these ways?

The current US military command in South Korea claims to wear three hats: Command of US troops in South Korea, Combined Forces Command (US and South Korean troops), and "United Nations Command" with responsibilities with respect to the Armistice. The United Nations, however, has no role in the oversight or decision making processes of the "United Nations Command". The US Government is in control of the "United Nations Command". The use by the US of the designation "United Nations Command", however, creates and perpetuates the misconception that the UN is in control of the actions and decisions taken by the US under the "United Nations Command".

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (more commonly referred to as North Korea) has called for disbanding the "United Nations Command"(UN Command). At a press conference held at the United Nations on June 21, 2013, the North Korean Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador Sin Son Ho argued that the actions of the US Government using the designation "United Nations Command" are not under any form of control by the United Nations. (4) Since the UN has no role in the decision making process of what the US does under the title of the "United Nations Command", North Korea contends the US should cease its claim that it is acting as the "United Nations Command".

TT , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:41 pm GMT
@Sean

Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006, China has been the world's largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip service they accept no binding target for reduction; quite the opposite.

Pls has slight decency to check before spewing nonsense.

According to Nasa, China has planted & expanded forest the size of Amazon, contributing 1/4 of global greenery effort.

Its now working on massive irrigation projects in Tibet & Xinjiang, including dams that will overshadow 3Gorges. These will convert arid Xinjiang into another green agriculture pasture & food basket providing economic to it landlocked natives.

China's effort to roll back desertification is also very impressive, converting thousands of hectares deserts into green forest using proprietary planting method.

It has built world most hydropower stations & dams in China, and help built in Asia, Africa with grants & subsidized loan. Forefront in reusable energy, EV, solar.

And China is the staunchest supporter of CO2 emission control with solid actions, when US write off Kyoto treaty in Paris as hoax.

TT , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:03 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Jeff,

what's about Spore that have 75% majority Chinese mainly come from Fujian too, HK, Taiwan!? Do they fare well & very safe, or a shithole filled with drugs & crimes that you projected to be?

And then compare with Chinese minority countries:
Msia with 25% Chinese contributing 70% economy, Indonesia 3% Chinese contributing 70% economy.
Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, .

It seems that the more Chinese % a country has, the more its prosperous & safe, vice versa. So Chinese is in fact the main economic & safety contributing factor, instead of the other way round you painted.

If Chinese are indeed as evil as you make out to be, then China will be worst than India, dysfunctional like Philippines, completely crimes & drugs infested like Mexico. Yet China today is biggest growing economy in real ppp, and world safest country well surpassing nearly all whites countries. No?

Vietnam tried to purge Chinese ethics under Ho Chih Min anti-China policy, ended paralyzed its entire economy until Chinese were brought back to help. Today its still the Chinese ethics controlling its majority economy & ruling elites.

Indonesia Prez Suharto slaughtered million of Chinese ethics under Yanks CIA instigation to coup pro-China Prez Sukarno, and their economy suffered. Suharto later brought back Chinese to run 70% of economy, while his cronies suck off remaining.

Malaysia Mahatir had forthright admonished his disgruntled Malays complaining about 20% Chinese controlling 70% economy. He famously said Malays race by inheritance is lazy and bad in economic, screwing up every gov granted projects & handouts. So let the skillful Chinese take care of all business, and Malays can tax on them to make Malaysia prosperous. All subsequent leaders follow that policy, and the result is continuous economy growth.

Myanmar purged Chinese after independent, immediately encountered dysfunction economy. Today its still relying on Chinese ethic to support the main economy behind.

Thailand, Cambodia, Laos didn't purge Chinese ethics, and Chinese are similarly their main economy contributors.

There is one common observation in all these countries, where ever Chinese live, they are mostly law obedient, work diligently and eventually established in businesses contributing to most prosperity.

Whereas in majority Catholics Philippines, are literally controlled by Vatican appointed bishops, who forbid contraceptive & divorce, directly causing its explosive population, leading to grave poverty & crimes. These bishops are also colluding with corrupted politicians to dictate election outcome using their churh influence.

When pro-China Prez Duerte declared war on drugs with China help is achieving good result, these West-appointed bishops are leading their followers in full force to oppose, all in syn with West govs 'human rights'. Dont that smell fishy?

So will Philippines be better off without Chinese? Im not sure, just like whites, some Chinese are also ruthless crimals. But your sweeping statements & allegation certainly is fundamentally flawed.

But CIA has been plotting anti-Chinese ethic riots in Asean for a long time as part of China containment plan. Previously Denk posted one article on this.

jeff stryker , says: February 27, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@TT Your description of Malaysians as lazy and stupid is why Indonesians kill ethnic Chinese and not some CIA plot. That's the thinking right there that motivates Malays to dislike ethnic Chinese.

China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded with them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.

Philippines has the additional post-colonial curse of Mestizo half-breed Spanish landowning and political class of "Hacienderos" while Malaysians are unified under Islam. Since these Spanish-blooded elite are part-white, some of the blame for the problems in the Philippines can be attributed to whites.

As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.

Anon [117] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
"An emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost."

They will fail. The United States, like Carthage, is doomed to lose its struggle for dominance; too many things are running against it. Not only does China have the far larger population, but consider the following factors that run in their favor:

1. Like the US, China has a highly advanced and productive agriculture industry, making them all but immune to nation-killing food blockades.

2. China has an average IQ that may approach Japan's before it levels out; Japan is insanely outsized in terms of competitiveness, mainly due to its intelligent, group-oriented population, so imagine how much stronger China could be.

3. China is geographically situated in the heart of the world's economic engine, Asia. This puts China in prime position to break out from US dominance and, potentially, even surround the Americans by making their trading partners their vassals.

4. The US is located far away and in a fairly unimportant region of the world. It will be difficult for the US to get reinforcements to the Asian theater in the advent of a conflict. American allies know this, so they will be predisposed to making peace with the Chinese as the power balance continues to shift in China's favor.

5. Universalist dogma outsourced to American satellites Australia and New Zealand will eventually make both countries Chinese vassals. Sometime in this century both countries will have majority Asian populations due to immigration. Polls have repeatedly shown that Asian immigrants have positive feelings towards the Chinese, despite the propaganda efforts of the Americans. Take a look at what the Israel Lobby has accomplished and imagine what a future China Lobby in those countries will do. Also, there is virtually no way to stop this from eventually happening as this diversity dogma is spouted by the US at the highest level and is now deeply ingrained in its future Chinese satellites. Before the end of the century, the Chinese will have naval bases in both countries and the US will have none.

6. China is free from the social-trust killing, national ethos-sapping political divisiveness seen in the US – no feminism, no attacks on its majority Han population. America, on the other hand, is beset with hundreds of hate hoaxes targeted at its most important demographic, white males – the group that disproportionately dies in its wars, invents its best technology, and exports the best elements of its culture. If there is a military conflict between China and the United States ten years hence, expect the critical white male demographic to sit it out.

7. The Chinese are deeply patriotic and nationalistic. The US has experienced an unprecedented decline in patriotism according to polls; that trend will continue. Therefore, there is little appetite in the US for confrontation. This as a hungry China chomps at the bit to show everyone who "the real ruler of the world is", a concept I sometimes see floated on their social media.

8. The US is rapidly losing cultural influence due to a diminished Hollywood. The last several American tent poll films, for instance, have crashed in Asia. Meanwhile movies like Alita: Battle Angel (adapted from a Japanese anime) have done well in that market while doing not so well in the US (and coming under immense fire from SJW gatekeepers for portraying a female as something other than a weirdo). This means that tastes are diverging between the two markets, a trend the Chinese can exploit in the future due to shared tastes across the region and American inability to make anything other than low-quality superhero movies.

Hollywood is also now pretty much incapable of making the kinds of movies Asians (and Europeans) used to see – science fiction, fantasy, and action/adventure movies – due to rampant anti-white male hate and an industry focused on other demographics. Gone are the movies like Robocop, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Die Hard, The Terminator, The Lord of The Rings, and the Matrix. Gone because the white guys who made them are aging out of the industry (or changing genders) and now all Hollywood wants to make are infantile superhero movies for the Idiocracy demographic.

And did you see the Oscars this year? What an embarrassment. They actually nominated Black Panther for Best Picture. I can't imagine anyone in Asia cares. They couldn't even get a host.

9. The Chinese are primed to dominate influential cultural industries like video games in a way that the Americans cannot due to checklist diversity requirements and the many anti-male gatekeepers within the industry.

The video game industry is now three times the size of Hollywood and much more influential than Hollywood for the youth. When technology and budgets are not a limiting factor, politically-incorrect nations like Japan dominate over large American corporations like Microsoft. The American video game industry, led by Microsoft, has effectively zero influence in Asian nations due to American corporate greed, developer laziness, checklist diversity, feminism, and a short-sighted strategy of broadly targeting low quality material to low quality people (stupid FPS games).

Microsoft has been crushed so badly by the Japanese that they are now putting their software on the Nintendo Switch; they simply cannot compete on any level. Meanwhile, Chinese cultural influencers grow in power. They await only a maturation in Chinese taste and a forward-thinking export policy but it will come. China's Tencent already owns a significant stake in Epic Games, a streaming platform that will compete with America's Steam for dominance of the huge online market.

One day, China will dominate their inferior American competition just as the Japanese and Koreans have done. This bodes very badly for the US in the future, especially when you stop to consider that all movies may be CGI in the future. The Chinese market is still immature, but when it does mature, it will dominate – games, movies, music everything.

10. Divisive rhetoric promoted by the American elite and aimed at white European-Americans – an effort to suppress white group solidarity – will eventually drive a wedge between Europe and America that the Chinese, through their Russian ally, can exploit. You already see a bit of this in Germany's refusal to cancel their gas pipeline (Nordstream 2, if I recall), and Italy's defiance of the Empire over Venezuela. When racist American politicians like Kamala Harris begin stealing money from European Americans and handing it to blacks through reparations schemes, expect the Europeans to start thinking twice about their relationship with this country.

After Trump loses in 2020, European elites will celebrate but not for long. Over the following decade, both the far left (for economic reasons) and the far right (for ethnic reasons) may unite against the United States. That will be made all the easier once the United States is no longer able to elect a competent European as president. Europe isn't going to want to be ruled over by someone of a different ethnic group that hates their own.

11. China is unified in a way the US never can be again. China is 90% Han Chinese. The US gets more diverse and divided by the day. Therefore, the Chinese public is more resilient to conflict with rivals.

12. China's political model is far superior to their American counterpart. The Americans, for instance, elect incompetent leaders through national popularity contests; said leaders then rule only for favored interests. China, on the other hand, is run by smart people for the benefit of all Chinese – the nation-state.

13. China's economic model is far superior to the corrupt, inefficient American corporate model. Whereas China is a meritocracy not beset with crippling diversity requirements and feminism. Tellingly, whenever the two models have gone head-to-head, such as in Africa, the Chinese have won by a large margin. I see nothing that will change that in the future as that would require a wholesale rethinking in the US of their basic philosophies, both on the left and the right and that is impossible at this point.

The US is a proposition nation, so dogma lies at the heart of civic life. The Chinese, in contrast, are free to pick and chose from the best of each ideology and apply it where warranted because they are a blood and soil nation – group interest comes first, not allegiance to dogma. Everyone in the US is an extremist of some sort – socialist, corporatist, environmentalist, etc. That's no way to run a government.

14. The US will soon lose the moral high ground. As the US devolves into a police state, as it continues kicking dissidents off the internet and silencing whistle blowers (and attacking nations like Iran and Venezuela), nations around the world will cease to see a difference between the US and China. At that point, they my either go independent (perhaps in alliance with India or Russia) or openly start to flirt with a Chinese alliance. After all, what does it matter if both states are authoritarian? At least the Chinese don't have a history of invading their competition.

15. The divided American public may not support more military spending over social service spending; this likelihood will only increase in the future due to demographic changes. They see that China has a competent single-payer medical program and will want the same for themselves, not pay for missiles and guns for other people.

16. The US cannot pursue relationships with vital nations like Russia due its anti-male and anti-European dogma, now infused into society at the highest levels. It will take decades to erase that and by then it will be too late.

Anon [117] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 6:11 am GMT
"Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself."

True. One day someone like Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams will be president. Will Europe want to be ruled by non-Europeans who hate Europeans, want to tear down their monuments, and steal their money for reparations payments?

"The USA has lost strategic air superiority, as well as strategic brain power. I wonder how the USA would look after a week of retaliatory aerospace strikes?"

Like New Orleans after Katrina – a breakdown in the social order as all the diverse groups start fighting each other and shooting at rescue efforts because they're morons and thieves.

"Open the USA borders wide open and encourage 1 billion South Aemricans, Africans, SE Asians and South Asians into the USA is the fastest and easiest way to close the human resource gap between the USA and China."

How exactly is an efficient democracy supposed to work in that instance? Seems like dysfunction, low social trust, and corruption would reign. Besides, the Chinese population will still be far more intelligent overall, so no gap will be closed. The US should have focused on immigration from Europe and increasing its white birth rate back in the 1970s. They'd be in a far stronger position now if they had done that then.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
@Anon Which West European nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with crimes & unemployment en masse?

May be some poor cousins of East European. But they will soon find US is worst than their country, no good jobs, homeless without affordable accommodation, crime infested, their whites is actually marginalized by diversification, LGBT conflict with their WASP value. Most will want go back soon.

So its left with only choice of finest selection of 1.3B poor Indians, Latino, South Americans, Africans & ME refugees willing to go anywhere just to get out of their countries shithole.

When they arrived, hundreds of millions whites, Chinese & Asians will flee like been no tomorrow.

Here it go, United States of Asshole is founded. Pls handover all nukes to UNSC before implementing lest been exchange for food or use for heating in winter.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Its Malaysia PM Mahatir who said Malays are inheritingly lazy. Im just quoting.

Do educate yourself about CIA & Muslim politicians instigated riots against ethnic Chinese before writing off in ignorant.

Spore was shielded from all these info distorted with West msm propaganda. I had only learned about these details from Indonesian Chinese friends whose family had suffered these trauma. After some readings, also Indonesia under current Chinese ethnic President Jokowi, did all these CIA-Muslims Generals collision genocides been publicized. How about you, where you got yours?

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/02/indo-f14.html

https://sweetandsoursocialism.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/cias-role-in-indonesias-anti-chinese-genocide-hidden-harmonies-blog/amp/

China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded with them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.

Why did you say China didn't help Prez Duerte in drugs war, your Chinese philippino mistress told you? Pls cite your evidence.

Its widely publicized in our msm, West msm that China gov working with Philippines police to track & dry up many drugs supply, even donated rehab centers as part of long term solution. So you mean all these West msm are lying to help China.

In your word, these shabu are make & sold by China gov? Or they are part of global drug syndicates that operated in every countries including all West?

As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.

Let these unequal US FTA & India CECA speak itself. These were shoved into our PM LEE ass to screw SG, allowing unlimited Indians of all kinds & their families to live & work in SG, with their mostly internationally unrecognized qualifications mandatory to be accepted.

Also both US & India nationals enjoy tax free in property investment, while Sporeans & all foreigners subjected to 3% + 7% + 7% tax regimes, literally giving them a 10~17% profits upfront.

https://thehearttruths.com/2013/11/11/this-is-why-singaporeans-will-not-be-protected-in-our-jobs-by-the-government/amp/

Indians as " competitive " ethnic group to suppress SG Chinese, you are joking or seriously think Indians IQ80 & its education is superior to Sg Chinese IQ107 that rank consistently Top in SAT, PISA & Olympiad?

These are the dredge of India, violent drunkard, not those US get. Numerous are caught with fake certificates when they simply could not even do the most basic task, near illiterate. A documentary show was make to investigate how widespread & complex is it in India, even there are someone stationed to pick up call as reference to certify everything. These including medical MD cert, aka fake Indian Drs that India Health Ministry condemn openly been so rampant up to 80% of India Drs(that was posted in one of Unz old discussion 2yrs ago)

https://gocertify.in/articles/certification-verification-rogue-it-credentials-rampant-in-india/

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 1:47 pm GMT
@Erebus If both US & China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading, who do you think can last longer?

As you said, in mere wks, US will be paralyzed with every shelves empty & factories shut down. Emergency declared with imports from other sources with much chaos. Frustrated, nation wide civil riots may ensue with states like California, Texas, demanding independent.

Whereas for China its life as usual with some restructuring, since it can live without yanks useless financial services, msm & few chips easily replaced by EU/Jp or live without. Airbus will be happy to replace Boeing.

China total export to US is ~$500B, 50% are imported components, so $350B damage is passed back to US $250B(total US export to China) & global suppliers $100B.

That make China actual impact only $150B, $4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the trade loss for >20yrs, while continue to expand its domestic consumption, BRI & global trade to fuel growth.

But the world will be in chaos to get double impact of a totally collapsed US $21T GDP & China import cut. With all economies stunt, global financial mkt burst, consumption all dive, US allies turning to China for leadership & trade, a WW3 look imminent as yank is left with only one product – weapons!

But not to worry, it should be very short one in yelling, as no yanks want to die with empty belly, nor there are $ to pump vessels & bombers or resources to prepare long war. Military is quickly paralyzed with desertion, & split between seperated states. There go 51 disUnited states of America.

So China is indeed discussing with yanks from great strength. But with farsight, they prefer to settle yanks brinkmanship in Chinese humble & peaceful way.

I hope China can drag on until US can no longer conceal its pain with fake data, screamming out loudly for truce to sign China dictates trade agreement. China need to teach yank a painful lesson to humble it once & for all, including a WTO style unequal treaty that yank shoved down china throat.

jeff stryker , says: February 27, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
@TT TT

For all the refugees the US creates in the Mideast, it doesn't except many of them. Most Iraqi and Afghani refugees have no hope of entering the US; European countries that protested the war in Iraq end up absorbing the human cost.

jeff stryker , says: February 27, 2019 at 3:42 pm GMT
@TT An Indian-Malay should know.

As for the CIA cooperating with Muslims in anti-Chinese anything, I am skeptical. My feeling about Indonesia is that a 3% minority owning everything and displaying contempt for the natives as lazy savages is enough fuel ethnic hatred and Chinese backing of Suharto didn't help things.

Indians don't represent job competition for Singapore, they are simply a basic menace to your society. And it is possible that the US government, not wanting to see Singapore become a vassal state of China, wanted your country's population to become more well, diversified.

Patricus , says: February 27, 2019 at 4:50 pm GMT
@Joe Wong The "dominance" of Anglo-Saxons is overstated. They are a pretty small minority in the US. They still dominate Britain, maybe.
Erebus , says: February 27, 2019 at 7:59 pm GMT
@TT

If both US & China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading, who do you think can last longer?

China would take a hit, but not greater than the whole world could be expected to take. Probably quite a bit less.

There's little doubt in my mind that China is in a much stronger position to both survive and to be in a position to take advantage of the world's eventual recovery. As you note

$4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the trade loss for >20yrs

It also has the world's widest and deepest industrial infrastructure.

It's not only the $4T and the infrastructure. China also has a lot of gold within its domestic system, which it can mobilize to make purchases from the the rest of the world's staggered economies. Approx 20kT, by some quite carefully done estimates. Mobilizing that gold, of course, is where things get tricky. The world would be awash with useless dollars and how all that liability gets unwound would cause a lot of Central Bankers and their govts a lot of sleepless nights.

Anon [409] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
"Which West European nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with crimes & unemployment en masse?"

Quite a number of Europeans would have moved to the US circa 1965 – 1990 with the countries then demographics, which was the point being made in the comment. The US is a huge country with lots of space. In 1980, virtually all Eastern Europeans would have been better off in almost any place in the US over where they were. The US Ruling Class had the chance but cast it aside for lesser and more divisive groups so they could win elections and stiff their workers. Even the US now is a mostly a better place to live than virtually any place in Eastern Europe, and quite a number of places in overcrowded Western Europe – now filled with Muslim invaders, rising crime, higher unemployment than the US, and yearly riots.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 10:25 pm GMT
@Erebus One TV celebrity went on crusade to expose Monsanto GMO toxicity impact in food chain few yrs ago.

He visited US & collected clinical evidences of GMO cancer causing from several US professors, publicized them online. These force China gov to investigate, and their clinical test too revealed mice & animals fed with GMO have huge tumors growing all over shortly.

China agriculture minister was investigated, found to hold lucrative high pay job in Monsanto taking bribery, and blanket approved all untested Monsanto GMO seeds, grains & weed killer. Even those used as domestic animals feed but banned for wild animals in US were introduced into food chain. Some also passed off as non GMO to plant in vast land not approved for GMO.

About 30% of China food chain & vast agriculture lands contaminated, no longer productive. That agri minister got arrested. No sure what China gov is doing about it. But Prez Xi is hailing organic food. Tibets & Xinjiang have mega irrigation projects on going now, might be to open up new agri lands to offset.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@jeff stryker Tonnes of evidences on CIA-Muslim generals instigated riots & massacre since 1965. You choose to see otherwise.

A trove of recently released declassified documents confirms that Washington's role in the country's 1965 massacre was part of a bigger Cold War strategy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/543534/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/still-uninvestigated-after-50-years-did-the-u-s-help-incite-the-1965-indonesia-massacre/5467309/amp

https://www.globalresearch.ca/trumps-indonesian-allies-in-bed-with-isis-backed-fpi-militia-they-seek-to-oust-elected-president-jokowi/5588694/amp

I couldn't find one article published in one unz comment by Denk?, where West msm interviewing Indonesia biggest opposition party. Their chiefs had audacity to brag how they will instigate another massive anti-Chinese riots to win next election.

The jews are much more vicious & open in controlling US, but you won't see CIA staged riots & protest against their jewish masters Aipac.

Thailand Chinese ethnic are holding most economy too, but their politicians elites been Chinese don't instigate riot against own ethnic to meddle election.

TT , says: February 27, 2019 at 11:07 pm GMT
@jeff stryker

US government, not wanting to see Singapore become a vassal state of China, wanted your country's population to become more well, diversified.

Its not diversification, its complete indianized with Weapon of Mass Migration, by jews controlled US to push back China influence. As China refused to let jews control them!!! Its also happening for Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius now.

Its Top to bottom all indians now in SG, 9% Indians with India new migrants controlling 75% Chinese & 15% Malays. Since when Indians have turn so great well surpass all Chinese capability, over a short span of 10yrs since Obama's new balance in Asia Pacific started. Its a regime change, silent coup.

Starting from Indian Prez, Indian DPM(a ex-criminal for leaking state secret data, he was highly touted as best future PM to test voter response, but a Chinese PM candidate was eventually selected for coming election as voters brainwashing not yet complete), national DBS bank CEO chairman Indian. Central bank MAS chief Indian. Law, Home Affair, Foreign Minister all Indians. High court judges flooded Indians. Chief judge Indian. Top senior counsels(equivalent to Queen Councils) many Indians. MPs also new india migrants. MSM journalist & writers flooded Indians.

Some are India newly arrived Indians of no credential. Yet no msm reporting on that. Its near complete regime change in stealth.

Patricus , says: February 28, 2019 at 2:00 am GMT
@Erebus In addition to the herbicide and insecticide resistance some plants are modified to withstand prolonged dry conditions, or to produce more of certain proteins or vitamins, or to increase yields.

The corn or maize we now have started from an indigenous plant in Central and South America. Twenty plants would produce a tablespoon of grain. The native corn plant can still be found. Over thousands of years these were bred for increased size and yields but probably for other reasons as well like drought resistance. That's genetic modification over many generations.

In this country the Food and Drug Admin. and Dept. of Agriculture have studied the genetically modified plants extensively. Not that government agencies always get it right but it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming people, or animals and insects. Sometimes the fear of Frankenfoods is related to a fear of lower cost imports and a sop for the local farmers.

Having an interest in horticulture I produced greenhouse bedding plants for the most part. One significant expense was pesticides. We took great pains to carefully watch the crops. If the aphids, or other creatures, showed up we would strive to isolate the affected plants and only treat the ones with aphids and some that were nearby. Lots of hours with a bright light and magnifying glass. We didn't proactively apply these because of the expense. Sometimes an entire greenhouse required several treatments and there goes much of the profit. On the other hand refusing to use pesticides leads to total crop failures. Nobody applies pesticides if there are no pests. Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the remaining living people would know about famines.

jeff stryker , says: February 28, 2019 at 2:58 am GMT
@Anon ANON

In terms of space, most Europeans would immigrate to US cities. Chicago was popular with Slavs, for instance. And of course Silicone Valley. Very few immigrants move to rural wide-open areas. There is nothing to do there and Norwegians in 1990 were no longer homesteading on the North Dakota plains.

By 1990, few Irish wanted to immigrated to Boston or Italians to New Jersey. Europe was actually safer and more prosperous when I was young than the US.

Europeans prior to 1965 were attracted to the US middle-class standard of living and that has shrunken precipitously.

The refugee crisis in Europe is relatively recent. As for unemployment, indeed this is bad. But the social safety net is slightly better and there is less poverty overall in Western Europe.

anon [267] Disclaimer , says: February 28, 2019 at 5:47 am GMT
"Very few immigrants move to rural wide-open areas."

Sure, if you're talking Nevada or New Mexico desert. But there are areas considered "rural" in the US that have relatively mid-sized cities nonetheless. Oklahoma City has a population roughly equal to the population of Latvia's capital, for example. And I'm sure that Eastern Europeans could have been coaxed to leave Europe for the US had America pursued a deal with the Soviets – white South Africans, too. Certainly, this could have been done with success post Soviet breakup. Some Western Europeans could also have been coaxed, perhaps a few million, with the right financial incentives. Along with substantial efforts to increase the native European birthrate and targeted, gender-imbalanced ~skills-based immigration* from emerging market, high IQ countries, US demographics would be in a far better place today. The country would be less divided and more rational on a global stage (and probably friends with Russia, too).

*In other words, purposely encourage 2 to 1 female immigration from places like Korea and China back when they were both poor and filled with people ready to emigrate and compliment that with an equal but reversed ratio elsewhere (Vietnam, Laos). This forces interbreeding and prevents formation of divisive ethnic communities, while also having the benefit of harming your competitor's demographics down the road. Actor Keanu Reeves is something like 1/8th Japanese. But most people just think he's a white guy.

If that kind of policy had been adopted in 1965, along with my plan above (and a few other things not mentioned), things would be better for the US now. The US would be overwhelmingly white with a small admixture of smart Asian while leaving descendants who look European; the kind of internecine racial strife we see now could have been avoided. However, that kind of plan requires a competent, and rational, near-authoritarian to be in charge. As Fred Reed has pointed out, that kind of plan is not capable in Western countries that choose their leaders via popularity contest with a birthright citizenship voting base.

Erebus , says: February 28, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Patricus

That's genetic modification over many generations.

One wonders how many fish genes made their way into corn over those generations, and how they got in there.

it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming people, or animals and insects.

Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people, I doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones and rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course, genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations from now.

Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the remaining living people would know about famines.

I'm of the firm opinion that a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and we'll be seeing famines soon enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other famines.

Patricus , says: February 28, 2019 at 7:23 pm GMT
"Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people, I doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones and rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course, genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations from now.'

The pests who feed on domesticated crops lived in nature before people were around. When they stumble upon thousands of acres of corn or wheat they rapidly reproduce to exploit the windfall. The pesticides will hopefully kill or drive off many of these insects but their total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a balance of power.

Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future. Therefore let's stop all new technology. For now we have the methods of physical science to guide us. These aren't perfect but it's the best we have and more sensible than the precautionary principle, also called the paralysis principle.

"..a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and we'll be seeing famines soon enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other famines.".

I'm hoping my family and I (and you) are not among the culled billions. Death by starvation is not a pleasant way to go, so I've heard.

Erebus , says: March 1, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@Patricus

their total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a balance of power.

Probably? Pre-human? Yours is the disingenuity of a pesticide salesman.
The insect world is in a massive die off, losing of ~75% its flying population over 3 decades, as attested by countless studies. The studies tell us what we already know. 40 yrs ago, a 2 hr drive in the countryside at night meant 30 min spent scraping insects off your windshield and headlights. Every lonely streetlight in the middle of nowhere had a cloud around it. Screens to protect the radiator, or even the entire front of the car were sold by every automotive shop and gas station. Seen one lately?

Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future.

One could say it, and one would often be right for doing so. As the complexity of the technological advance increases, so do its effects. Who considered 50 years ago that pesticide use would devastate the insect world? Who knows with any level of certainty what the effect of that will be on the ecosystem we live in? What we know is it ain't gonna likely to be good, and may be devastating. They're now found in mother's milk with potential effects we lack the tools and brain power to comprehend, never mind predict.

When it comes to playing with complex, chaotic systems that support our life on the planet, humans are like a monkey with a hand-grenade. To borrow a phrase "If the planet's ecosystem was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. " Our myopia & hubris will kill us, if our stupidity and belligerence doesn't do it first.

Patricus , says: March 2, 2019 at 11:14 pm GMT
The insect "die off" is an interesting occurrence. Puerto Rico lost a large percentage of insects while at the same time they decreased pesticide use by 80%. This die off is observed in a limited number of regions of the world. It isn't known exactly what caused the drop in insect population. Some say pesticides, others say climate change (the theory that explains all things), are killing the bugs.

Pesticides have been overused in the past but there have been impressive improvements in the technology which reduces the amounts required. There are herbicides and pesticides designed with chemical half lives. These kill the weeds or pests then break down into harmless components and in 10-14 days can no longer be detected in the field. Unfortunately for some any improvements will require some kind of technology.

We are all going to die eventually, hopefully later rather than sooner.

[Mar 04, 2019] War With China by Michael T. Klare

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

In his highly acclaimed 2017 book, Destined for War , Harvard professor Graham Allison assessed the likelihood that the United States and China would one day find themselves at war. Comparing the U.S.-Chinese relationship to great-power rivalries all the way back to the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC, he concluded that the future risk of a conflagration was substantial. Like much current analysis of U.S.-Chinese relations, however, he missed a crucial point: for all intents and purposes, the United States and China are already at war with one another. Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.

To suggest this means reassessing our understanding of what constitutes war. From Allison's perspective (and that of so many others in Washington and elsewhere), "peace" and "war" stand as polar opposites. One day, our soldiers are in their garrisons being trained and cleaning their weapons; the next, they are called into action and sent onto a battlefield. War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.

Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition. Today, war means so much more than military combat and can take place even as the leaders of the warring powers meet to negotiate and share dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes (as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017). That is exactly where we are when it comes to Sino-American relations. Consider it war by another name, or perhaps, to bring back a long-retired term, a burning new version of a cold war.

Even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the U.S. military and other branches of government were already gearing up for a long-term quasi-war, involving both growing economic and diplomatic pressure on China and a buildup of military forces along that country's periphery. Since his arrival, such initiatives have escalated into Cold War-style combat by another name, with his administration committed to defeating China in a struggle for global economic, technological, and military supremacy.

This includes the president's much-publicized "trade war" with China, aimed at hobbling that country's future growth; a techno-war designed to prevent it from overtaking the U.S. in key breakthrough areas of technology; a diplomatic war intended to isolate Beijing and frustrate its grandiose plans for global outreach; a cyber war (largely hidden from public scrutiny); and a range of military measures as well. This may not be war in the traditional sense of the term, but for leaders on both sides, it has the feel of one.

Why China?

The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation. Behind the scenes, however, most senior military and foreign policy officials in Washington view China, not Russia, as the country's principal adversary. In eastern Ukraine, the Balkans, Syria, cyberspace, and in the area of nuclear weaponry, Russia does indeed pose a variety of threats to Washington's goals and desires. Still, as an economically hobbled petro-state, it lacks the kind of might that would allow it to truly challenge this country's status as the world's dominant power. China is another story altogether. With its vast economy, growing technological prowess, intercontinental "Belt and Road" infrastructure project, and rapidly modernizing military, an emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost.

Washington's fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that "community." Its conclusion: "We assess that China's leaders will try to extend the country's global economic, political, and military reach while using China's military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence."

To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its capabilities to bolster American -- and diminish Chinese -- power. In Pentagon documents, this stance is summed up by the term "overmatch," which translates as the eternal preservation of American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). "The United States must retain overmatch," the administration's National Security Strategy insists, and preserve a "combination of capabilities in sufficient scale to prevent enemy success," while continuing to "shape the international environment to protect our interests."

In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise.

In previous epochs, as Allison makes clear in his book, this equation -- a prevailing power seeking to retain its dominant status and a rising power seeking to overcome its subordinate one -- has almost always resulted in conventional conflict. In today's world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

Trade War

When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump administration's economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without qualification, as a "war." And there's no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert Lighthizer , see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so curtailing that country's ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of power.

Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports ( increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries, while protecting the American economy against what is described as China's malign behavior. Its trade practices "plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy," as the president put it when announcing the second round of tariffs.

An examination of the demands submitted to Chinese negotiators by the U.S. trade delegation last May suggests, however, that Washington's primary intent hasn't been to rectify that trade imbalance but to impede China's economic growth. Among the stipulations Beijing must acquiesce to before receiving tariff relief, according to leaked documents from U.S. negotiators that were spread on Chinese social media:

halting all government subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its Made in China 2025 program, an endeavor that covers 10 key economic sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics, computer microchips, and artificial intelligence; accepting American restrictions on investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating; opening up its service and agricultural sectors -- areas where Chinese firms have an inherent advantage -- to full American competition.

In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war. Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with this country. "The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather than a basis for negotiation," was the way Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, accurately described these developments.

Technological Warfare

As suggested by America's trade demands, Washington's intent is not only to hobble China's economy today and tomorrow but for decades to come. This has led to an intense, far-ranging campaign to deprive it of access to advanced technologies and to cripple its leading technology firms.

Chinese leaders have long realized that, for their country to achieve economic and military parity with the United States, they must master the cutting-edge technologies that will dominate the twenty-first-century global economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications, electric vehicles, and nanotechnology. Not surprisingly then, the government has invested in a major way in science and technology education, subsidized research in pathbreaking fields, and helped launch promising startups, among other such endeavors -- all in the very fashion that the Internet and other American computer and aerospace innovations were originally financed and encouraged by the Department of Defense.

Chinese companies have also demanded technology transfers when investing in or forging industrial partnerships with foreign firms, a common practice in international development. India, to cite a recent example of this phenomenon, expects that significant technology transfers from American firms will be one outcome of its agreed-upon purchases of advanced American weaponry.

In addition, Chinese firms have been accused of stealing American technology through cybertheft, provoking widespread outrage in this country. Realistically speaking, it's difficult for outside observers to determine to what degree China's recent technological advances are the product of commonplace and legitimate investments in science and technology and to what degree they're due to cyberespionage. Given Beijing's massive investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at the graduate and post-graduate level, however, it's safe to assume that most of that country's advances are the result of domestic efforts.

Certainly, given what's publicly known about Chinese cybertheft activities, it's reasonable for American officials to apply pressure on Beijing to curb the practice. However, the Trump administration's drive to blunt that country's technological progress is also aimed at perfectly legitimate activities. For example, the White House seeks to ban Beijing's government subsidies for progress on artificial intelligence at the same time that the Department of Defense is pouring billions of dollars into AI research at home. The administration is also acting to block the Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology firms and of exports of advanced components and know-how.

In an example of this technology war that's made the headlines lately, Washington has been actively seeking to sabotage the efforts of Huawei , one of China's most prominent telecom firms, to gain leadership in the global deployment of 5G wireless communications. Such wireless systems are important in part because they will transmit colossal amounts of electronic data at far faster rates than now conceivable, facilitating the introduction of self-driving cars, widespread roboticization, and the universal application of AI.

Second only to Apple as the world's supplier of smartphones and a major producer of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has sought to take the lead in the race for 5G adaptation around the world. Fearing that this might give China an enormous advantage in the coming decades, the Trump administration has tried to prevent that. In what is widely described as a " tech Cold War ," it has put enormous pressure on both its Asian and European allies to bar the company from conducting business in their countries, even as it sought the arrest in Canada of Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and her extradition to the U.S. on charges of tricking American banks into aiding Iranian firms (in violation of Washington's sanctions on that country). Other attacks on Huawei are in the works, including a potential ban on the sales of its products in this country. Such moves are regularly described as focused on boosting the security of both the United States and its allies by preventing the Chinese government from using Huawei's telecom networks to steal military secrets. The real reason -- barely disguised -- is simply to block China from gaining technological parity with the United States.

Cyberwarfare

There would be much to write on this subject, if only it weren't still hidden in the shadows of the growing conflict between the two countries. Not surprisingly, however, little information is available on U.S.-Chinese cyberwarfare. All that can be said with confidence is that an intense war is now being waged between the two countries in cyberspace. American officials accuse China of engaging in a broad-based cyber-assault on this country, involving both outright cyberespionage to obtain military as well as corporate secrets and widespread political meddling. "What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing," said Vice President Mike Pence last October in a speech at the Hudson Institute, though -- typically on the subject -- he provided not a shred of evidence for his claim.

Not disclosed is what this country is doing to combat China in cyberspace. All that can be known from available information is that this is a two-sided war in which the U.S. is conducting its own assaults. "­The United States will impose swift and costly consequences on foreign governments, criminals, and other actors who undertake significant malicious cyber activities," the 2017 National Security Strategy affirmed. What form these "consequences" have taken has yet to be revealed, but there's little doubt that America's cyber warriors have been active in this domain.

Diplomatic and Military Coercion

Completing the picture of America's ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing's geopolitical ambitions. To advance those aspirations, China'sleadership is relying heavily on a much-touted Belt and Road Initiative , a trillion-dollar plan to help fund and encourage the construction of a vast new network of road, rail, port, and pipeline infrastructure across Eurasia and into the Middle East and Africa. By financing -- and, in many cases, actually building -- such infrastructure, Beijing hopes to bind the economies of a host of far-flung nations ever closer to its own, while increasing its political influence across the Eurasian mainland and Africa. As Beijing's leadership sees it, at least in terms of orienting the planet's future economics, its role would be similar to that of the Marshall Plan that cemented U.S. influence in Europe after World War II.

And given exactly that possibility, Washington has begun to actively seek to undermine the Belt and Road wherever it can -- discouraging allies from participating, while stirring up unease in countries like Malaysia and Ugandaover the enormous debts to China they may end up with and the heavy-handed manner in which that country's firms often carry out such overseas construction projects. (For example, they typically bring in Chinese laborers to do most of the work, rather than hiring and training locals.)

"China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands," National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed in a December speech on U.S. policy on that continent. "Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption," he added, "and do not meet the same environmental or ethical standards as U.S. developmental programs." Bolton promised that the Trump administration would provide a superior alternative for African nations seeking development funds, but -- and this is something of a pattern as well -- no such assistance has yet materialized.

In addition to diplomatic pushback, the administration has undertaken a series of initiatives intended to isolate China militarily and limit its strategic options. In South Asia, for example, Washington has abandoned its past position of maintaining rough parity in its relations with India and Pakistan. In recent years, it's swung sharply towards a strategic alliance with New Dehli, attempting to enlist it fully in America's efforts to contain China and, presumably, in the process punishing Pakistan for its increasingly enthusiastic role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In the Western Pacific, the U.S. has stepped up its naval patrols and forged new basing arrangements with local powers -- all with the aim of confining the Chinese military to areas close to the mainland. In response, Beijing has sought to escape the grip of American power by establishing miniature bases on Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea (or even constructing artificial islands to house bases there) -- moves widely condemned by the hawks in Washington.

To demonstrate its ire at the effrontery of Beijing in the Pacific ( once known as an "American lake"), the White House has ordered an increased pace of so-called freedom-of-navigation operations (FRONOPs). Navy warships regularly sail within shooting range of those very island bases, suggesting a U.S. willingness to employ military force to resist future Chinese moves in the region (and also creating situations in which a misstep could lead to a military incident that could lead well, anywhere).

In Washington, the warnings about Chinese military encroachment in the region are already reaching a fever pitch. For instance, Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, described the situation there in recent congressional testimony this way: "In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States."

A Long War of Attrition

As Admiral Davidson suggests, one possible outcome of the ongoing cold war with China could be armed conflict of the traditional sort. Such an encounter, in turn, could escalate to the nuclear level, resulting in mutual annihilation. A war involving only "conventional" forces would itself undoubtedly be devastating and lead to widespread suffering, not to mention the collapse of the global economy.

Even if a shooting war doesn't erupt, however, a long-term geopolitical war of attrition between the U.S. and China will, in the end, have debilitating and possibly catastrophic consequences for both sides. Take the trade war, for example. If that's not resolved soon in a positive manner, continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components.

This new brand of war will also ensure that already sky-high defense expenditures will continue to rise, diverting funds from vital needs like education, health, infrastructure, and the environment. Meanwhile, preparations for a future war with China have already become the number one priority at the Pentagon, crowding out all other considerations. "While we're focused on ongoing operations," acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan reportedly told his senior staff on his first day in office this January, "remember China, China, China."

Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future. With a war under way, even a non-shooting one, the chance for such collaboration is essentially zero. The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular , is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. His most recent book is The Race for What's Left . His next book, All Hell Breaking Loose: Climate Change, Global Chaos, and American National Security , will be published in 2019.

[Mar 04, 2019] As far as "economic" war, China has been fighting one for decades. It's called competing and trying to do the best to improve your people's lot.

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Godfree Roberts , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:41 am GMT

A recent Asia Society conference asked how we should compete with China. https://asiasociety.org/northern-california/made-china-2025-policy-behind-rhetoric

The genuinely expert panelists could not articulate America's demands beyond the familiar 'level playing field' that America created by shackling China with uniquely humiliating conditions before admitting it to the WTO.

Today, China generates 20% of global GDP (the US 15%), its imports and exports are in balance, its currency fairly valued, its economy one third larger and growing three times faster than America's and it produces essential technology that America needs and cannot provide.

It is almost impossible to imagine a war scenario that the US could win, short of China invading America.

Alfa158 , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:31 am GMT
Excellent article Mister Klare, but would like to raise a few quibbles.

1) As far as "economic" war, China has been fighting one for decades. It's called competing and trying to do the best to improve your people's lot. The US is finally starting to fight back but some of it's measures are inappropriate and/or ineffective.

2) As far as the US trying to confine the Chinese military to its own region, I really haven't seen that the Chinese military is particularly interested in operation outside their own region anyway. It seems to be focused on protecting China and its own neighborhood and interests, and the Chinese aren't stupid enough to bleed away their wealth and blood in distant misadventures.

3) I'd gotten the impression from the Deep State's rhetoric that they are much hotter on fighting a shooting war with Russia than with China. In an extended struggle, as long as it doesn't go nuclear, US chances are much better against a Russia whose economy is only a fraction of China's.

MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT
Keynes says this, "All trade is only barter." The Wall Street/China Gambit is key to understanding today. Clinton signed MFN trade status with China, screwing over NAFTA. Those Zenith TV's that were supposed to be made in Mexico became Chinese made electronics.

Balanced trade was also thrown out the window, as Wall Street was in on the gambit. Trade in goods was unbalanced, and America supplied dollars to China to make up the difference. China then recycled those mercantile won dollars back to the U.S. to buy Tbills, helping keep interest rates low, and acting as a prime variable in forming U.S. housing bubble. Returning dollars then spun out into the American economy, so American's could buy more Chinese goods from transplanted American factories.

The wall street China gambit turned mainstreet American's into Zeros, while wall street became heroes.

Any discussion of China current economic status cannot overlook the role of Wall Street exporting of jobs, to then get wage arbitrage. Immigrating third world people into America is also a function of this "finance capitalism" as it wants wage arbitrage from third world labor as well.

Finance Capitalism in turn is part of Zion and Atlantacism. International credit "banking" will send its finance capital anywhere in the world to get the lowest price. In the case of China, overhang of communist labor in the mid 90's was available to make things, and then export Chinese made goods back to U.S. (at the China price.)

China still uses Atlantic doctrine, where raw materials come in by ship, and finished goods with increment of production value add leave by ship. (Value add is key element to making any economy thrive. Just extracting raw materials turns a country into Africa, witness the attempt at turning Russia into an extraction economy in the 90's.)

Note difference in American policy in the 90's: Russia was to become extraction, and China was to become value add. As Tucker Carlson says, America is run by a ship of fools.

For China, "Eurasia" beckons, and raw materials can be had from China's interior and via overland routes. This then is a pivot away from London/Zion Atlantacism (finance capital) and toward industrial capitalism.

In other words, both U.S. and the West have hoisted themselves on their own petard. People that wax poetic about China's gains overlook this important mechanism of "gifting" of our patrimony to China. It is very easy to copy or be a fast follower, it is beyond difficult to invent and create.
Wall Street and greed gave away our patrimony, which was hard won over the ages in order to make wage arbitrage today, and gave away the future.

China uses state banks, and also forgives debts lodged in their state banks. This is actually one of the secret methods used to rope-a-dope on the west. The Chinese economy is not debt laden, and what public debts there are, are lodged in a State Bank, where they can be jubileed or ignored.

The U.S. and the West had better take a long hard look at finance capital method, which uses only "price signals" to make economic decisions, as pricing is main vector from which jobs were exported, and which China cleverly used to climb up its industrial curve. Sovereign money/Industrial Capitalism IS the American System of Peshine Smith and Henry Clay. Atlantacism/Zionism/Finance Capital is not American – the parasite jumped to the U.S. from London.

China is wisely in control of its money power via its state banks and is pivoting away from Atlantacism now that it has served its purpose. The belt and road routes are mostly overland, with some coastal sea routes, and there isn't a thing sea power (((atlantacists))) can do about it.

China has played the game well, but don't overlook the gifting of Western patrimony caused by a false neo-liberal finance capital economic ideology, which blinds Western adherents.

Anonymous [392] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:09 am GMT
@joe webb Yeah, so America can topple China and go after Russia immediately afterwards? I don't think the Russians are so stupid.

There is only 1 way Russia survives the 21st century without being broken up and ruined, and that is allying itself with China. The same is true for China.

The only way China can survive intact is to ally itself with Russia.

Pretty simple stuff I am sure each country understands.

Erebus , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:15 am GMT

China generates 20% of global GDP (the US 15%)

On a PPP basis, of course.

China's real economy, of course dwarfs that of the US'.

The author touches on a nuclear trade option China holds over the US that I see little mention of elsewhere. High tariffs are one thing, but a closure of trade in components and raw materials would do far more than

endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components.

Should China block exports of everything other than finished goods to the US, almost every US factory would close due to lack of parts and materials. The time and investment required to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means much of what's left of America's real economy would disappear within weeks.

What then?

Unlike Russia, the US is highly vulnerable to targeted sanctions. American trade negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird.

Wally , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:36 am GMT
author Klare said: "The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation."

– What "revelations"? "What meddling"?

– He tipped his hand right off the bat. Klare is just another run of the mill Communist with a case of the Trump Derangement Syndrome, complete with Communism's favorite scam, 'global warming'.

Klare said: "Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports (increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries "

– No, the aim is to encourage China to removes it vastly more & extreme tariffs on US goods & services.

Klare said: " continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and components."

– Nonsense, all China needs to do is remove it's many times over more severe tariffs.

– If the US's lesser tariffs on Chinese goods / services 'hurt the US', then why don't China's massive tariffs on US goods / services hurt China?

And to think some take this fraud, Klare, seriously.

Biff , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:17 am GMT
It was all a really great, intriguing article, but then it morphed into a dreamworld at the end.

The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.

Humans aren't ready for peace or salvation, and anybody that has promoted such a thing is readily shot dead – Gandhi, John Lennon, MLK, Jesus.

"Love thy neighbor" "Give peace a chance"

"Fuck you! Bam!"

Humans are not ready.

Anonymous [370] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:24 am GMT

The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation.

Eh? What revelations?

Cyrano , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:39 am GMT
It's not the economy stupid. According to many "experts" on this site, since the US economy and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it seems "logical" to those experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that not only is not 10 times better, it's not even equal to Russia's army. Again, according to the same types of "experts" Russia's economy is the size of Italy. Why don't then someone break the good news to Italy and encourage them to go to war with Russia? Since their economies are equal – it seems that Italy stands a fair chance of beating Russia, thus eliminating the need of the 10 times superior army to fight them. The moronity on this site, man – it's unbelievable.
tamo , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
@joe webb You sound like a failed proctologist in the crumbling Honkiedom.
Franklin Ryckaert , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:40 am GMT
China is not suffering from massive degeneration as the US is. Instead of trying to prevent China from becoming a leading nation of the world, why could the US not accept China's coming prominence and concentrate on strengthening its own population ? Unlike the US, China is not interested in "ruling the world", it is only interested in expanding its economy. For the rest, it is dedicated to stability and cooperation. No threat to the world at all, except for some compulsive hegemonists in the Pentagon.
HiHo , says: February 18, 2019 at 11:05 am GMT
This article is pure propaganda and as such is based upon lies, misconceptions and pure fantasy.
If there already is a war it is all in the minds of Anericans, and they have already lost that war because America needs allies and can only create enemies amongst people that were its friends.
Europe will join with Russia as soon as it can get away from the US bully. That means 550million Europeans will join 160 million Russians. 710 million people with Russian technology and Chinese investment (China already runs Btitain's North Sea gas), will produce an economic power that will humiliate the USA at every turn.
All of South America wants to break with the US, the entire Orient hates the US. America is actually doing to Africa what the US accuses Russia and China of doing.
If there really is a war between the US and China then the US has already lost it. The rest of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US. Everyone hates the US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies 100%.
You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting the fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians.

I'm amazed Fred Unz publishes this sort of trash. It is unadulterated lies, brainless stupidity and total hog wash. Pure drivel.

Counterinsurgency , says: February 18, 2019 at 11:19 am GMT
The obvious:

It might be a bit harder than that.

It is often said that, had the Western and Eastern Europeans formed a coalition rather than fight WW I, they would still be dominant.
And if I had wings, I could fly to the moon.
The Eastern Europeans had never accepted the Western Enlightenment (still haven't), and to have done so would have destabilized their family structure -- the deep structure of their society -- exactly as it has finally destabilized ours, today. The nature of authority and organization in Eastern Europe differed considerably from that of Western Europe. Their forms of organization were different enough to make integration impossible, and perhaps to make formation of a coalition impossible.

China's organizational forms, family structure, and and social assumptions in general differ even more from the present day form of the Western Enlightenment than did those of East Europe c.a. AD 1900.

It's at times like these we get to test the assumption that reason and fear of death can lead to agreement on a modus vivendi.

Counterinsurgency

mikemikev , says: February 18, 2019 at 11:53 am GMT
@Alfa158

In an extended struggle, as long as it doesn't go nuclear, US chances are much better against a Russia whose economy is only a fraction of China's.

I wonder how their economy would look after a week of strategic bombing.

Shaun , says: February 18, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
@Biff I forget, who shot Jesus?
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 18, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
China is now PAC-man of the world.
DESERT FOX , says: February 18, 2019 at 1:42 pm GMT
I will never believe the Zionist controlled U.S. will go to war with China as long as one U.S. company remains in China and damn near all the major U.S. companies are in business in China, this is a ploy for the zionist controlled MIC to loot the America taxpayer!
JC , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
I didnt read the article but I dont think china needs the US for anything they are well on their way to be the dominant world power the US and ist zionist occupied government are losers the zionists want never ending wars which stupid USA has done,,china and all the rest will eventually dump the rothchild banking system and form its own which will in all likely hood benefit more than the zionist one does
WHAT , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:20 pm GMT
@HiHo Ron probably has a quota to fill. Reed gets his scribbles in by the same token, I bet.
WHAT , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT
@mikemikev >m-muh bombers

It will be fine, chinese know where to buy AA complexes that actually work.

onebornfree , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 2:36 pm GMT
No mention of an ideological battle, and no wonder, as "the Chinks" et al have apparently already won that one, as evidenced by the fact that the last US general election was merely yet another idiotic, meaningless [ yet highly entertaining], cat fight over blue socialism versus red socialism.

The US vs China trade war is just another power/domination battle scam between two competing, wholly criminal orgs, both totally against anything ever resembling truly free trade ..nothing more.

And so it goes .

The "America Is Not A Socialist Country" Scam :
http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/2019/02/onebornfrees-special-scam-alerts-no-87.html [bottom of page]

Regards, onebornfree

Rich , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT
"The US and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future." Really? If this doesn't prove this guy is a lefty shill, nothing does. Even the clowns raking in grants and trying to impoverish everyone with higher taxes have seen the light and have been saying "climate change" lately. Many scientists are now arguing that we may be headed into a new cooling period rather than a "hellish" warming period that brought us so much prosperity. This "global warming" religion with its hockey stick icons and polar bear mythology is worse than the Heaven's Gate religion.
ThreeCranes , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:53 pm GMT
@HiHo

"The rest of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US. Everyone hates the US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies 100%.
You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting the fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians."

Well yes. As history has shown, occupation and rule by Jahweh's Chosen People tends to bring this fate down upon the host country.

Ned Ludlam , says: February 18, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
Oh, for Pete's sake:
1. It will always be China+Russia vs. the US. The EU, site of WWIII, will just soil itself.
2. The Debt Bubble US economy will collapse. At some point. Changes every calculation.
3. The US will devolve into a state of civil war. Of some sort. Paralyze the place.

Momentum is with China and Russia. The US is sliding into history's toilet.

Just give it a few more years. And the whole world sees and knows it. The whole world can get along very well without the US. And would very much like that to be.

therevolutionwas , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
Global warming my azz! But the rest of it rings pretty true. If nukes arn't used, Russia and China will win this war simply because they have the gold now and the US has spread its fiat petro dollar all over the world which will come back big time to bite them. That is if China and Russia are smart enough to go on a gold exchange standard.
MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Cyrano

since the US economy and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it seems "logical" to those experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that not only is not 10 times better, it's not even equal to Russia's army.

I would argue the same.

Russia is a land power. This means using a land army and area denial. Russia does not need to power project with a blue water Navy and she does not follow Atlantacist doctrine.

Atlantacist doctrine got its start when our (((friends))) evolved the method during the Levantine Greek City State period, where our tribal friends would be stationed in various entrepot cities ringing the Mediterranean. They would use their tribal connections to Launder pirated goods, and to push their "international" usurious money type, which in those days was silver. Simultaneously they were taking rents on their secret East/West mechanism, whereby exchange rates between gold and silver were exploited. Gold was plentiful in India and Silver more plentiful in the West, so the Caravan's took arbitrage on exchange rates as silver drained east and gold drained west.

The U.S. inherited Atlanticist method after WW2. The U.S. is not an island economy like England – it does not need to go around the world beating up others to then extract raw materials. The U.S. is actually more like Russia in that U.S. can afford to have economic autarky and be independent. The U.S. does not need to power project with a blue water navy, despite the false narrative (((inheritance))) passed down to us, especially after WW2. Nobody likes being punked with false narrative.

U.S. military expenditures are so heavy because of this tendency of finance capital to search the world for gains, and this means posting overseas military bases, which in turn are expensive to operate. Russia only has a "close in" defensive posture of area denial. This is far less expensive than power projecting.

Also, GDP figures are misleading. In the U.S. if housing prices go up it reflects in GDP growth, when in reality – the house didn't improve. GDP figures are lies. If finance takes 50% cut of the economy, they are only pushing finance paper back and forth at each other this is not the real economy, but it shows up in GDP because finance paper is an "asset".

Russia's economy is much larger than their GDP, probably it is closer to Germany's in real terms. Real terms = real economy = the making of goods and services.

China is not America's natural ally, Russia is. Atlantacist doctrine sold America's patrimony to China for cheap, and then the ((international)) will just jump to another host.

America has been parasitized by false doctrine and the output is thus that of an infected brain – an output that is crazy. Finance plutocracy typically will not let go willingly, but has to be removed forcefully.

jeff stryker , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT
Russia is a country of vodka drunks and Dubai prostitutes run by a syndicate of Israel oligarchs and ex-KGB who kill their journalists in foreign countries.

China is dependent on outsourcing and if the US factories were to withdraw tomorrow the Chinese economy would take a huge hit.

NoseytheDuke , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Erebus The US is vulnerable in so many other ways too, see how fast the store shelves empty just on the news of an approaching big storm. Panic buying is rife and some people keep minimal food available at home. I know people who have to stop at an ATM to get $20. All kinds of vital distribution of food, water, power, fuel and more seems to pass through a myriad of often vulnerable bottle-necks real or virtual. Easy targets for low cost, low tech sabotage teams I'd think.

I'm inclined to think also that this threatening hysteria possibly is a deep state psy-op designed to prime Americans prior to the enactment of some sort of "democracy" modifications.

Sean , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:28 pm GMT
America is the most powerful country solely because it has the most powerful economy in the world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land, navigable waterways, natural resources ect ect. . In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level and is in a global hegemon trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population . There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the West, especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from offshoring and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's power in the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump out. Trump is a populist not a creature of the Deap State alarmed at China's rise. The leading strategists of America's foreign policy establishment still don't realise what they are dealing with in China.

Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future.

Better to reign in hell. Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006, China has been the world's largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip service they accept no binding target for reduction; quite the opposite.

Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.

The manufacturing should be done in the most advanced regions of Earth ie the West, because that is where the technology and will exists to protect the environment. China is trying to churn out cheaper goods and does not care what damage they do in cutting environmental corners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_China
China still supports the "common but differentiated responsibilities" principle, which holds that since China is still developing, its abilities and capacities to reduce emissions are comparatively lower than developed countries'. Therefore, its emissions should not be required to decrease over time, but rather should be encouraged to increase less over time until industrialization is farther along and reductions are feasible

In other words the global environment is going to continue to be ripped apart like a car in a wrecking yard by China. "Industrialization is farther along" is obviously Chinese speak for "when China is able to dominate the world with enormous productive capacity and we do not even have to pay lip service any more".

In today's world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.

No, the appeal of a real war will increase precipitously for any clear loser in the economic competition who has a rapidly declining military advantage (especially in thermonuclear first strike capacity due to proximity fuses and sub location tech), and we all know who that is going to be. A shooting war will come, and the sooner it comes the better for the whole world. Reassuring Russia that it will not be subjected to the same treatment by the West at some point in the future will be the main problem inhibiting the coming military take down (and nuking if necessary) of China.

NoseytheDuke , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:30 pm GMT
@Shaun Eric Clapton, surely. Or was it Eric Idle? I forget. Who was it?
Reuben Kaspate , says: February 18, 2019 at 3:32 pm GMT
As to bringing in Hindoos and Pakis into to the America-China conflict with a singular example of the demand for defense related technology transfer by the former

India is a mediocrity but Pakistan is a nightmare for all concerned, given that after imbibing religious mumbo jumbo from moronic Arabs, with which havocs were created in Afghanistan via neoconnish America, now they are fellating uncircumcised Chinese for crumbs the ungodly Chinese will play the idiotic Pakis like a fiddle to the detriment of the West!

[Mar 04, 2019] Guess who made those clearly anti-Semitic comments

Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us something about the USA:

The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."

'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'

'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social ladder.'

The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of the most dedicated early Zionists:

  1. Theodor Herzl, Deutsche Zeitung, as cited by an Israeli documentary
  2. Our Shomer 'Weltanschauung' , Hashomer Hatzair, December 1936, p.26. As cited by Lenni Brenner
  3. The Economic Development of the Jewish People, Ber Borochov, 1916

[Mar 04, 2019] Harvard mafia sowed Dragon teeth in Russia

The USA in decline needs friends. Instead it got a powerful and well armed afversary, that stupid neocon jerks (including academic jerks like Summers) tried to play to get some dollars in theirs pockets... Add to this tentions with china and Harvard boys should probably be hanged on lampposts.
As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2 billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high and low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the Russobots.
When you beat a person who is down with boots and this person survive, you should not expect any mercy in the next fight.
Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:26 pm GMT

@jeff stryker Reality much?

Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc.

With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc.

Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian (Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of money, or in government.

With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and knowledge.

China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but as soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S. factories withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find markets in Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.

People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.

The Atlantics strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further, the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.

AriusArmenian , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both Russia and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance in hell of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The more it goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.

So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.

The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and is now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the next wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big question is how much suffering before it ends.

Cratylus , says: February 18, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT

... ... ...

Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/ ). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You find Huawei everywhere -- from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its best citizens .
wayfarer , says: February 18, 2019 at 6:55 pm GMT
China's "Petro-Yuan": The End of the U.S. Dollar Hegemony?
WorkingClass , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade war we are misusing the word war.

War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people. Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.

We are NOT already at war with China.

AnonFromTN , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged international banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced them to ally against a common threat: dying demented Empire.

As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff, write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few centuries you might get an answer.

Anonymous [375] Disclaimer , says: February 18, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
@joe webb Russia is currently trying to get China to ally against the West:

" Russia to China: Together we can rule the world "

https://www.politico.eu/blogs/the-coming-wars/2019/02/russia-china-alliance-rule-the-world/

In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.

Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in 2017.

At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to something Russia wants to realize. And soon

Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.

In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China in that direction.

peter mcloughlin , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
Where a war begins -- or ends -- can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right, 'War' and 'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological abstraction: the First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a global war one week later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of long duration. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were positioning themselves to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were defeated at the Battle of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.

Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war -- however destructive.

https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

[Mar 02, 2019] The Coup against Trump and His Military

The attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the military supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process.
The evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate with Mueller appointment very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
Dec 28, 2016 | www.unz.com

Introduction

A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup' is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.

The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.

The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives, mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.

The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and legitimacy.

The Coup as 'Process'

In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'.

Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies in Congress and the Judiciary.

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking office in January.

While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.

Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.

Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure – accusing President-Elect Trump of

  1. being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
  2. blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.

The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass media.

In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists.

The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!

The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.

Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia, the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like Jill Stein.

The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention: The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties, and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival 'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry' Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.

ORDER IT NOW

The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.

President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and place of our choosing".

Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo – and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.

Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance

Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress. He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.

Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three retired generals to key Defense and Security positions – indicating a power struggle between the highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.

Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his cabinet who had their own allied business associations.

One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL, George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security and intelligence positions.

The Coup: Can it succeed?

In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation' on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.

If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').

He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.

(Reprinted from The James Petras Website by permission of author or representative)

Kirt December 28, 2016 at 3:19 pm GMT

A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power. But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the whole system?

John Gruskos , December 28, 2016 at 4:16 pm GMT

If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a failure.

Robert Magill , December 28, 2016 at 5:30 pm GMT

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations

The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the Camelot image?

Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids?

Replies: @Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.

Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced: "This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"

I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.

I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1 challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.

Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). , @animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.

What a god-awful president.

An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.

The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless stupidity --

If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's & their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the drain if they thought it to their political advantage.

Brás Cubas , December 28, 2016 at 6:17 pm GMT

Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?

Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)

Happy new year!

schmenz , December 28, 2016 at 9:05 pm GMT
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a failure.

Exactly...

Svigor , December 28, 2016 at 9:28 pm GMT

The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists.

On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.

The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.

And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American forces' legitimacy.

The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!

This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.

The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating" "report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.

This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject to future events.

Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.

Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.

Replies: @Seamus Padraig

The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit less so.

So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about Russia.

Lieutenant Morrisseau , December 28, 2016 at 11:27 pm GMT

MAN PAD LETTER – DM 24 DEC 2016

I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.

Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.

Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's Air Force planes operating in Syria still–that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the UN.

Given this I think we are all in very great danger today–now– AND I think we have to press hard to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.

This truly is an emergency.

TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and substantive and decent or courageous.]

IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]–a felony under existing laws. –Quite possibly an impeachable offense.

"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.

If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things in the far fuzzy future–or NOT.

Respectfully,

Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–FOR TRUMP–
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775
[email protected]
802 645 9727

• Replies: @Bruce Marshall The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.

Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big, and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as we speak.

Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.

BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.

Bruce Marshall , December 29, 2016 at 6:05 am GMT • 100 Words @Lieutenant Morrisseau MAN PAD LETTER - DM 24 DEC 2016


I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.

Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.

Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the UN.

Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.

This truly is an emergency.

TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and substantive and decent or courageous.]

IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws. --Quite possibly an impeachable offense.

"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.

If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.

Respectfully,

Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775
[email protected]
802 645 9727

The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.

Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big, and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as we speak.

Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.

BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.

• Replies: @El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).

What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?

Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.

Oh my. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

Mark Green says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 29, 2016 at 6:39 am GMT • 600 Words

This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump–not Obama–that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump–out of fear and necessity–run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?–Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?–Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

• Replies:

@Authenticjazzman

Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.

Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist. ,

@Seamus Padraig

In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications, though:

Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,

@Rurik

Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.

For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that Trump is their man.

Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.

It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own game. , @map I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.

How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors. ,

@RobinG "

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "

THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more empty symbolism."
Meanwhile...
The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment
The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election

Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.

@Tomster

Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.

Pirouette , December 29, 2016 at 7:08 am GMT

The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now be tied by all the traitors that run the US.

You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.

(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.

You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality: are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?

This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?

Max Havelaar , December 29, 2016 at 10:45 am GMT

My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo loss!

The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's choir send to the bottom of the black sea.

Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.

Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:

• Replies: @annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Karl , December 29, 2016 at 11:20 am GMT

the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before Dr Stein's recount circuses.

They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches – it wouldn't fly.

Nothing else they try will fly.

Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.

@Seamus Padraig
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3] There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s) conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4] In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Summary

What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally--you know, a kosher nostra!

mp , December 29, 2016 at 11:23 am GMT

In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups

The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic. In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for a coup.

If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.

El Dato , December 29, 2016 at 11:39 am GMT
@Bruce Marshall The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.

Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big, and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as we speak.

Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.

BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.

Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).

What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?

Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.

Oh my.

Authenticjazzman , December 29, 2016 at 1:00 pm GMT
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.

Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.

Agent76 , December 29, 2016 at 1:59 pm GMT

D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.

Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)

It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984.

Skeptikal , December 29, 2016 at 3:00 pm GMT
@Robert Magill
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the Camelot image?

Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/

I expect Obama loves his kids.

Great analysis from Petras.

So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced: "This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"

I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.

I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1 challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.

Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).

animalogic , December 29, 2016 at 3:01 pm GMT • 100 Words

@Robert Magill

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the Camelot image?

Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/

Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's & their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the drain if they thought it to their political advantage.

Seamus Padraig says: • Website

@Svigor

The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.

The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating" "report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.

This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject to future events.

Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.

Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.

The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.

That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit less so.

So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about Russia.

Seamus Padraig says: • Website December 29, 2016 at 3:25 pm GMT • 1

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications, though:

Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.

Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just more empty symbolism.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all the Zios.

They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") – Caligula

Seamus Padraig says: • Website December 29, 2016 at 3:28 pm GMT

@Karl the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before Dr Stein's recount circuses.

They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.

Nothing else they try will fly.

Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.

Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.

It seems you may be on to something:

RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3] There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s) conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4] In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Summary

What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra!

annamaria , December 29, 2016 at 4:36 pm GMT

@Max Havelaar My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo loss!

The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's choir send to the bottom of the black sea.

Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.

Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0

The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell – who has never been in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor – is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.

• Agree: Kiza • Replies: @Anonymous
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.

So, what to do? , @Max Havelaar A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.

Maybe the Russian FSB an get to him.

Durruti , December 29, 2016 at 4:57 pm GMT

Nice well written article by James Petras.

I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as to when the Coup D'etat is going to – or has already taken place .

The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2 million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.

Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.

Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.

I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below, for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.

Respect All! Bow to None!

Merry Christmas!

God Bless!

[MORE]
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles "

The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.

We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.

The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the Republic were interrupted by their murder.

A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy, left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.

In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.

In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.

In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class, by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.

The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings cannot stay even with the inflation rate.

The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures, and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700 military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military and 16 associated secret agencies.

The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.

The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population; the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.

The United States is No longer Sovereign

The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.

The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government, with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.

For Love of Country

The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts, will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.

As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:

"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living':"

"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation."

Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means a world-wide reduction of armaments "

Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people. We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.

For the Democratic Republic!
Sons and Daughters of Liberty
[email protected]

Anonymous , December 29, 2016 at 5:02 pm GMT

@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.

The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.

It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.

So, what to do?

• Replies: @Bill Jones The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.

My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?

The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?

As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.

Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:

My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.

At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.

Miro23 , December 29, 2016 at 5:31 pm GMT

If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably split the same way.

The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined these agencies in the first place to serve their country – not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects, and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.

Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.

Rurik , December 29, 2016 at 5:42 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.

For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that Trump is their man.

Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.

It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own game.

Art , December 29, 2016 at 7:36 pm GMT • 100 Words

I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.

The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.

If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!

Peace - Art

• Agree: Seamus Padraig • Replies: @RobinG "If we get past the inauguration...."

Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?

Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.

Francis Boyle writes:

"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.

Just have the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)

Svigor , December 29, 2016 at 9:52 pm GMT

That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.

True.

alexander , December 29, 2016 at 10:08 pm GMT • 200 Words

Dear Mr. Petras,

It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of hacking the election against Hillary.

Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you seem to believe is in the offing ?

It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with Moscow.

What for ?

It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?

Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining to stuff ..like 9-11 ?

Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?

They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before Trumps inauguration.

Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?

• Replies: @annamaria

"They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before Trumps inauguration."

The subtitles are quite direct in presenting the US deciders as criminal bullies: http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/12/russia-obama-was-most-evil-president.html

@Tomster What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.

RobinG , December 29, 2016 at 10:25 pm GMT

@Art I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.

The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.

If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!

Peace --- Art

"If we get past the inauguration ."

Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) – doing his best to screw things up before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?

Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act – providing aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)

• Replies: @Art Hi RobinG,

This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!

The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.

Really - how pissed off can they be?

Peace --- Art

p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.

map , December 29, 2016 at 10:41 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors.

• Replies: @joe webb masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably did not come from Trump.

As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis."

That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public opinion.

Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.

I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now.
Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains for the jews.

Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...

Joe Webb , @RobinG "A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash."

Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians, while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

Realist , December 29, 2016 at 11:05 pm GMT • 100 Words

"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."

You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.

There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.

joe webb , December 29, 2016 at 11:35 pm GMT • 200 Words

@map I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors.

masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably did not come from Trump.

As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis."

That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public opinion.

Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.

I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now.
Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains for the jews.

Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but

Joe Webb

• Replies: @map The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

Stebbing Heuer says: • Website December 29, 2016 at 11:36 pm GMT

Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining to stuff ..like 9-11 ?

I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else.

annamaria , December 29, 2016 at 11:50 pm GMT

@Realist "The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."

You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.

There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.

The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration: http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies – the hordes of fanatical jihadis.

• Replies: @Realist Great observations. Thanks. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
Art , December 30, 2016 at 1:06 am GMT • 100 Words @RobinG "If we get past the inauguration...."

Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?

Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)

Hi RobinG,

This is much ado about nothing – in a NYT's article today – they said that the DNC was told about being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 – they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!

The RNC got smart – not the DNC – it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.

Really – how pissed off can they be?

Peace - Art

p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.

• Replies: @RobinG Hi Art,

I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking is nil.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.

Svigor , December 30, 2016 at 2:20 am GMT • 100 Words

Looks like I spoke too soon:

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/312132-fbi-dhs-release-report-on-russia-hacking

The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek inside the Democrat machine.

Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand!

RobinG , December 30, 2016 at 5:37 am GMT

@Art Hi RobinG,

This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!

The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.

Really - how pissed off can they be?

Peace --- Art

p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.

Hi Art,

I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking is nil.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.

• Replies: @Art
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
anon , December 30, 2016 at 6:33 am GMT

https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf

This is a very underwhelming document.

I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks' leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.

No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.

Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?

From WikiLeaks:

"From:[email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 2015-02-19 00:35 Subject: 2 things

Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd

The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.

Note the Disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .

• Replies: @Seamus Padraig
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC


Realist , December 30, 2016 at 8:17 am GMT

@annamaria The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration: http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html

"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ... the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently working on."

Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical jihadis.

Great observations. Thanks.

map , December 30, 2016 at 9:16 am GMT

@joe webb masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably did not come from Trump.

As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis."

That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public opinion.

Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.

I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now.
Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains for the jews.

Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...

Joe Webb

The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

• Replies: @Tomster "treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them. , @joe webb good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about
Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?

Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.

As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.

(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)

How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have ample resources and could pony up the dough.

The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on, even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion. The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.

As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.

Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like the Jews.

The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be
democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\

For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.

The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.

All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.

finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.

Joe Webb

Seamus Padraig says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 30, 2016 at 2:05 pm GMT

@anon https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf

This is a very underwhelming document.

I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks' leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.

No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.

Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?

From WikiLeaks:

"From:[email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 2015-02-19 00:35 Subject: 2 things

Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd

The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.

Note the Disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.

His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

• Replies: @geokat62
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:

Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker

https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ , @alexander Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people over the last sixteen years...

Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss or admit.

Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign, came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.

He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...

.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times, who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"

Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his bets.

In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although he did not state it outright.

Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close to what actually happened.

So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had him shot in the back.....four times...

And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute" Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.

But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?

Skeptikal , December 30, 2016 at 2:38 pm GMT • 100 Words

"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. "

The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."

A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist. A black mark on both countries' report cards.

geokat62 , December 30, 2016 at 2:52 pm GMT @Seamus Padraig
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

"Was" is the operative word:

Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker

https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/


RobinG , December 30, 2016 at 4:02 pm GMT

@map I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by?

The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors.

"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash."

Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians, while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.

RobinG , December 30, 2016 at 4:32 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "

THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more empty symbolism."
Meanwhile
The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment
The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election

Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.

Art , December 30, 2016 at 4:49 pm GMT

@RobinG Hi Art,

I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking is nil.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

RobinG - Agree 100% – some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art

Tomster , December 30, 2016 at 5:03 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.

Tomster , December 30, 2016 at 5:14 pm GMT @alexander

Dear Mr. Petras,

It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of hacking the election against Hillary.

Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you seem to believe is in the offing ?

It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with Moscow.

What for ?

It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?

Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining to stuff.....like 9-11 ?

Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?

They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before Trumps inauguration.

Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?

What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains are?). Who knows? – but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.

Tomster , December 30, 2016 at 5:16 pm GMT

@map The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.

alexander , December 30, 2016 at 5:28 pm GMT

@Seamus Padraig

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people over the last sixteen years

Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss or admit.

Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign, came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.

He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment

.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times, who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"

Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his bets.

In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although he did not state it outright.

Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close to what actually happened.

So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had him shot in the back ..four times

And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute" Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.

But hey, that's life in the USA .Right, Seamus ?

joe webb , December 30, 2016 at 6:15 pm GMT

@map The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about
Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?

Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.

As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.

(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)

How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have ample resources and could pony up the dough.

The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on, even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion. The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.

As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.

Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like the Jews.

The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be
democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\

For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.

The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.

All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.

finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
Joe Webb

Realist , December 30, 2016 at 6:57 pm GMT • 100 Words

Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.

January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.

lavoisier says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 31, 2016 at 1:38 am GMT • 100 Words

@joe webb

Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.

I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.

[Mar 02, 2019] The "Exceptional Nation" has now become the "Detestable Nation"!

Notable quotes:
"... The Puppet show display by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the American Empire are refusing to tow the line? ..."
"... A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world. ..."
Mar 02, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

KiwiAntz , February 20, 2019 at 6:31 am

The "Exceptional Nation" has now become the "Detestable Nation"!

The Puppet show display by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the American Empire are refusing to tow the line?

Trump has alienated & disgusted it's Allies, so much that they can now see how deranged, unworkable & destructive is the Americans Foreign Policy & its bankrupt disfunctional , delusional Policies?

It's ridiculous, irrational & pathological hatred for Iran has shown that the US is the main Terrorist Nation on Earth not Iran who has never invaded anyone unlike the hypocritical US Empire!

Meanwhile in Sochi, the real Diplomacy for peace is taking place with Russia, Iran, Turkey & Syria having won the War against the US Empire & its cowardly, crony white helmeted, ragtag bunch of proxy Army misfits made up of Israel, ISIS, SDF & the Kurds now scurrying out of the Country like rats leaving a sinking ship!

And what was really laughable about VP Pences speech in Warsaw was the defeating silence to the pauses in that speech expecting people to clap on demand which never happened?

How embarrassing & really showed the lack of respect & utter contempt that everyone has for America these days!

Sam F, February 20, 2019 at 12:32 pm

A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world.

Let's hope we see the end of NATO as an excuse for US bully tyrants to "defend" us with greedy aggression.

Perhaps that will lead to strengthening the UN and isolating it from the economic power of US tyrants.
The UN would be far stronger if it taxed its members instead of begging for support, on pain of embargo by all members, and monitored for corrupt influence.

[Mar 02, 2019] Any nation which still trust any promise coming from the USA and its European, Australian and Canadian poodles deserves to be colonized and destroyed

Mar 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

b , Feb 28, 2019 1:23:41 PM | 38

It'll eventually dawn on the Yanks that it was NK's Nukes which brought AmeriKKKa to the negotiating table; NOT US sanctions which brought NK to the table.

The ability to "Manhattan" Manhattan is too strong a negotiating position to swap for some insulting threats and vague non-binding promises. The biggest problem for the US now will be the impossibility of "proving" that it can be trusted.

Deschutes , Mar 1, 2019 2:55:06 AM | link
Just more grist for the bullshit mill that is US foreign policy, i.e. the US government can never be trusted at the negotiating table. Ridiculous to demand N. Korea dismantle their nuclear reactor before sanctions are lifted. Fucking ridiculous demand, why in the hell would N. Korea do that? They need it to produce energy, and to make plutonium to defend themselves from total asshole country USA which, as everybody knows has been on a 25 year sanctioning/bombing/country destroying rampage, leaving entire countries laid to waste. Rest assured, that if N. Korea gets rid of all its nukes as USA wants -- before the drop of a hat USA will totally, completely wipe N. Korea off the map with its own nukes and massive military buildup surrounding N. Korea. As usual, the USA is the biggest problem for the entire world's progress towards peace and prosperity :-(((

Steve , Mar 1, 2019 6:03:28 AM | link

Any nation which still trust any promise coming from the USA and its European, Australian and Canadian poddles deserves to be colonized and destroyed.
">link

Sally Snyder , Feb 28, 2019 8:35:08 AM | link

Here is an article that explains why the North Koreans believe that the United States is not trustworthy:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/06/war-crimes-in-korea-guilty-as-charged.html

The Korean people have paid a very heavy price simply because of their unfortunate geographic location immediately adjacent to the world's largest Communist state.

Hoarsewhisperer , Feb 28, 2019 2:20:17 PM | link
The North Korean Foreign Minister gave a press conference in Hanoi. I updated the piece above at its end with the reports of what he said.

[Feb 27, 2019] Survival of the Richest by Nomi Prins

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Like a gilded coating that makes the dullest things glitter, today's thin veneer of political populism covers a grotesque underbelly of growing inequality that's hiding in plain sight. And this phenomenon of ever more concentrated wealth and power has both Newtonian and Darwinian components to it.

In terms of Newton's first law of motion: those in power will remain in power unless acted upon by an external force. Those who are wealthy will only gain in wealth as long as nothing deflects them from their present course. As for Darwin, in the world of financial evolution, those with wealth or power will do what's in their best interest to protect that wealth, even if it's in no one else's interest at all.

In George Orwell's iconic 1945 novel, Animal Farm , the pigs who gain control in a rebellion against a human farmer eventually impose a dictatorship on the other animals on the basis of a single commandment : "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." In terms of the American republic, the modern equivalent would be: "All citizens are equal, but the wealthy are so much more equal than anyone else (and plan to remain that way)."

Certainly, inequality is the economic great wall between those with power and those without it.

As the animals of Orwell's farm grew ever less equal, so in the present moment in a country that still claims equal opportunity for its citizens, one in which three Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom half of society (160 million people), you could certainly say that we live in an increasingly Orwellian society. Or perhaps an increasingly Twainian one.

After all, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote a classic 1873 novel that put an unforgettable label on their moment and could do the same for ours. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today depicted the greed and political corruption of post-Civil War America. Its title caught the spirit of what proved to be a long moment when the uber-rich came to dominate Washington and the rest of America. It was a period saturated with robber barons, professional grifters, and incomprehensibly wealthy banking magnates. (Anything sound familiar?) The main difference between that last century's gilded moment and this one was that those robber barons built tangible things like railroads. Today's equivalent crew of the mega-wealthy build remarkably intangible things like tech and electronic platforms, while a grifter of a president opts for the only new infrastructure in sight, a great wall to nowhere.

In Twain's epoch, the U.S. was emerging from the Civil War. Opportunists were rising from the ashes of the nation's battered soul. Land speculation, government lobbying, and shady deals soon converged to create an unequal society of the first order (at least until now). Soon after their novel came out, a series of recessions ravaged the country, followed by a 1907 financial panic in New York City caused by a speculator-led copper-market scam.

From the late 1890s on, the most powerful banker on the planet, J.P. Morgan, was called upon multiple times to bail out a country on the economic edge. In 1907, Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou provided him with $25 million in bailout money at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt to stabilize Wall Street and calm frantic citizens trying to withdraw their deposits from banks around the country. And this Morgan did -- by helping his friends and their companies, while skimming money off the top himself. As for the most troubled banks holding the savings of ordinary people? Well, they folded. (Shades of the 2007-2008 meltdown and bailout anyone?)

The leading bankers who had received that bounty from the government went on to cause the Crash of 1929 . Not surprisingly, much speculation and fraud preceded it. In those years, the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald caught the era's spirit of grotesque inequality in The Great Gatsby when one of his characters comments: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." The same could certainly be said of today when it comes to the gaping maw between the have-nots and have-a-lots.

Income vs. Wealth

To fully grasp the nature of inequality in our twenty-first-century gilded age, it's important to understand the difference between wealth and income and what kinds of inequality stem from each. Simply put, income is how much money you make in terms of paid work or any return on investments or assets (or other things you own that have the potential to change in value). Wealth is simply the gross accumulation of those very assets and any return or appreciation on them. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to have a higher annual income.

Let's break that down. If you earn $31,000 a year, the median salary for an individual in the United States today, your income would be that amount minus associated taxes (including federal, state, social security, and Medicare ones). On average, that means you would be left with about $26,000 before other expenses kicked in.

If your wealth is $1,000,000, however, and you put that into a savings account paying 2.25% interest , you could receive about $22,500 and, after taxes, be left with about $19,000, for doing nothing whatsoever.

To put all this in perspective, the top 1% of Americans now take home, on average, more than 40 times the incomes of the bottom 90%. And if you head for the top 0.1%, those figures only radically worsen. That tiny crew takes home more than 198 times the income of the bottom 90% percent. They also possess as much wealth as the nation's bottom 90%. "Wealth," as Adam Smith so classically noted almost two-and-a-half-centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations , "is power," an adage that seldom, sadly, seems outdated.

A Case Study: Wealth, Inequality, and the Federal Reserve

Obviously, if you inherit wealth in this country, you're instantly ahead of the game. In America, a third to nearly a half of all wealth is inherited rather than self-made. According to a New York Times investigation, for instance, President Donald Trump, from birth, received an estimated $413 million (in today's dollars, that is) from his dear old dad and another $140 million (in today's dollars) in loans. Not a bad way for a "businessman" to begin building the empire (of bankruptcies ) that became the platform for a presidential campaign that oozed into actually running the country. Trump did it, in other words, the old-fashioned way -- through inheritance.

In his megalomaniacal zeal to declare a national emergency at the southern border, that gilded millionaire-turned-billionaire-turned-president provides but one of many examples of a long record of abusing power. Unfortunately, in this country, few people consider record inequality (which is still growing) as another kind of abuse of power, another kind of great wall, in this case keeping not Central Americans but most U.S. citizens out.

The Federal Reserve, the country's central bank that dictates the cost of money and that sustained Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 (and since), has finally pointed out that such extreme levels of inequality are bad news for the rest of the country. As Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a town hall in Washington in early February, "We want prosperity to be widely shared. We need policies to make that happen." Sadly, the Fed has largely contributed to increasing the systemic inequality now engrained in the financial and, by extension, political system. In a recent research paper , the Fed did, at least, underscore the consequences of inequality to the economy, showing that "income inequality can generate low aggregate demand, deflation pressure, excessive credit growth, and financial instability."

In the wake of the global economic meltdown, however, the Fed took it upon itself to reduce the cost of money for big banks by chopping interest rates to zero (before eventually raising them to 2.5%) and buying $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds to lower it further. All this so that banks could ostensibly lend money more easily to Main Street and stimulate the economy. As Senator Bernie Sanders noted though, "The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

The economy has been treading water ever since (especially compared to the stock market). Annual gross domestic product growth has not surpassed 3% in any year since the financial crisis, even as the level of the stock market tripled , grotesquely increasing the country's inequality gap. None of this should have been surprising, since much of the excess money went straight to big banks, rich investors, and speculators. They then used it to invest in the stock and bond markets, but not in things that would matter to all the Americans outside that great wall of wealth.

The question is: Why are inequality and a flawed economic system mutually reinforcing? As a starting point, those able to invest in a stock market buoyed by the Fed's policies only increased their wealth exponentially. In contrast, those relying on the economy to sustain them via wages and other income got shafted. Most people aren't, of course, invested in the stock market, or really in anything. They can't afford to be. It's important to remember that nearly 80% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck.

The net result: an acute post-financial-crisis increase in wealth inequality -- on top of the income inequality that was global but especially true in the United States. The crew in the top 1% that doesn't rely on salaries to increase their wealth prospered fabulously. They, after all, now own more than half of all national wealth invested in stocks and mutual funds, so a soaring stock market disproportionately helps them. It's also why the Federal Reserve subsidy policies to Wall Street banks have only added to the extreme wealth of those extreme few.

The Ramifications of Inequality

The list of negatives resulting from such inequality is long indeed. As a start, the only thing the majority of Americans possess a greater proportion of than that top 1% is a mountain of debt.

The bottom 90% are the lucky owners of about three-quarters of the country's household debt. Mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit-card debt are cumulatively at a record-high $13.5 trillion .

And that's just to start down a slippery slope. As Inequality.org reports, wealth and income inequality impact "everything from life expectancy to infant mortality and obesity." High economic inequality and poor health, for instance, go hand and hand, or put another way, inequality compromises the overall health of the country. According to academic findings, income inequality is, in the most literal sense, making Americans sick. As one study put it , "Diseased and impoverished economic infrastructures [help] lead to diseased or impoverished or unbalanced bodies or minds."

Then there's Social Security, established in 1935 as a federal supplement for those in need who have also paid into the system through a tax on their wages. Today, all workers contribute 6.2% of their annual earnings and employers pay the other 6.2% (up to a cap of $132,900 ) into the Social Security system. Those making far more than that, specifically millionaires and billionaires, don't have to pay a dime more on a proportional basis. In practice, that means about 94% of American workers and their employers paid the full 12.4% of their annual earnings toward Social Security, while the other 6% paid an often significantly smaller fraction of their earnings.

According to his own claims about his 2016 income, for instance, President Trump "contributed a mere 0.002 percent of his income to Social Security in 2016." That means it would take nearly 22,000 additional workers earning the median U.S. salary to make up for what he doesn't have to pay. And the greater the income inequality in this country, the more money those who make less have to put into the Social Security system on a proportional basis. In recent years, a staggering $1.4 trillion could have gone into that system, if there were no arbitrary payroll cap favoring the wealthy.

Inequality: A Dilemma With Global Implications

America is great at minting millionaires. It has the highest concentration of them, globally speaking, at 41%. (Another 24% of that millionaires' club can be found in Europe.) And the top 1% of U.S. citizens earn 40 times the national average and own about 38.6 % of the country's total wealth. The highest figure in any other developed country is "only" 28%.

However, while the U.S. boasts of epic levels of inequality, it's also a global trend. Consider this: the world's richest 1% own 45% of total wealth on this planet. In contrast, 64% of the population (with an average of $10,000 in wealth to their name) holds less than 2%. And to widen the inequality picture a bit more, the world's richest 10%, those having at least $100,000 in assets, own 84% of total global wealth.

The billionaires' club is where it's really at, though. According to Oxfam, the richest 42 billionaires have a combined wealth equal to that of the poorest 50% of humanity. Rest assured, however, that in this gilded century there's inequality even among billionaires. After all, the 10 richest among them possess $745 billion in total global wealth. The next 10 down the list possess a mere $451.5 billion , and why even bother tallying the next 10 when you get the picture?

Oxfam also recently reported that "the number of billionaires has almost doubled, with a new billionaire created every two days between 2017 and 2018. They have now more wealth than ever before while almost half of humanity have barely escaped extreme poverty, living on less than $5.50 a day."

How Does It End?

In sum, the rich are only getting richer and it's happening at a historic rate. Worse yet, over the past decade, there was an extra perk for the truly wealthy. They could bulk up on assets that had been devalued due to the financial crisis, while so many of their peers on the other side of that great wall of wealth were economically decimated by the 2007-2008 meltdown and have yet to fully recover .

What we've seen ever since is how money just keeps flowing upward through banks and massive speculation, while the economic lives of those not at the top of the financial food chain have largely remained stagnant or worse. The result is, of course, sweeping inequality of a kind that, in much of the last century, might have seemed inconceivable.

Eventually, we will all have to face the black cloud this throws over the entire economy. Real people in the real world, those not at the top, have experienced a decade of ever greater instability, while the inequality gap of this beyond-gilded age is sure to shape a truly messy world ahead. In other words, this can't end well.

Nomi Prins, a former Wall Street executive, is a TomDispatch regular . Her latest book is Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World (Nation Books). She is also the author of All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power and five other books. Special thanks go to researcher Craig Wilson for his superb work on this piece.

obwandiyag , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:22 pm GMT

As Ernest Hemingway said, "Yeah, the rich are different from the rest of us. They have more money."
Aryan Racist , says: February 26, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
I read a stat in Mother Jones magazine that 90% of Americans have an average income of $31,000 a year and the richest .1 percent have an average income of $27 million dollars. So how does one pay all these living expenses and various debts with $26,000 after taxes? The Trump tax cuts just exacerbated the problem by giving more money to the wealthy and practically nothing to the 90% (at the bottom, which is almost everyone else). A good book on the subject of wealth inequality is "Billionaire's Ball."

[Feb 27, 2019] Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day

Notable quotes:
"... Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media. ..."
"... I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country ..."
"... There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: February 26, 2019 at 2:38 am GMT

Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.

Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist period.

Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we are today.

Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media.

There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not define the authentic socialist agenda.

I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!

I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11 truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.

It doesn't take an Einstein to see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out, what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the only way out of this evil system.

Sad!

TimeTraveller , says: February 25, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT

There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it.

It worked in France, though.

[Feb 27, 2019] John Hopkins effectively exposes Sanders as being fatally compromised by his role as Clinton lackey after the evidence emerged that the party engaged in fraud securing the predicted result

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

exiled off mainstreet , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:32 am GMT

This is a great article which effectively exposes Sanders as being fatally compromised by his role as Clinton lackey after the evidence emerged that the party engaged in fraud securing the predicted result. I also fully endorse Hooch's response to the commentary. Great job on both counts.

[Feb 27, 2019] I think that Sanders is able to change half of the USA. He is likely to do something about inequality, unemployment, health care, but he will not touch the MIC.

Notable quotes:
"... This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as Chomsky explained, new dealism. ..."
"... As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4 yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Willem , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:58 am GMT

@Bern I think that Sanders is able to change half of the USA. He is likely to do something about inequality, unemployment, health care, but he will not touch the MIC.

The US is a rich country, and if the US wants stay rich it has to do something about this third world-isation of the USA that is in play since the 1990s (outsourcing of jobs, leaving the home population with less and less means to buy stuff US corporations produce abroad).

This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as Chomsky explained, new dealism.

Socialism would be if Sanders promoted that workers would take over the corporations, or would allow to re-open factories, warehouses, and farmland where the workers were in control, not the bosses. Sanders is not promoting any of that.

Sanders may be a Roosevelt, but he is not an Upton Sinclair (who nearly became governor of California in the 1930s by running a truly socialist platform). And, as said, he will certainly not touch the MIC.

IMO he is the lesser evil of candidates who run for the 2020 US elections, but to consider him a socialist, as Sanders calls himself, will lead to disappointment.

Here is Michael Parenti talking about his former compatriot:

George , says: February 26, 2019 at 9:24 am GMT
the Bernster really means it!

As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4 yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up.

[Feb 27, 2019] Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen"

Yes Bernie is a scam artist, but then again, so is Trump.
Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ned Ludlam , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT

Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.

That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without an army.

Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and are as tough as jello.

Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.

While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.

ploni almoni , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
@redmudhooch "See how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her -- but now murderers!"
(Isaiah 1:21-23)
AnonFromTN , says: February 26, 2019 at 3:17 pm GMT
Bernie is not a magic socialist. He is a fraud: he was cheated out of nomination, and then supported the cheater. Shame on him! He will never get my vote, period.

[Feb 27, 2019] Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era Newspeak.)

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bern , says: February 25, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

follyofwar, I hate to be Debbie Downer, but who do think Mueller works for?

https://digwithin.net/2018/04/08/muellers-history/

Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era Newspeak.)

What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.

CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.

Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.

[Feb 27, 2019] Microsoft employees petition against Hololens contract with US Army

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Feb 25, 2019 10:55:17 AM | link

A curiosity:

Microsoft employees petition against Hololens contract with US Army

[Feb 27, 2019] Trump or no Trump the next couple of years might be very interesting

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike from Jersey , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:53 pm GMT

Great article.

I honestly think that had the media and the deep state treated Trump fairly, they would have still have some credibility now. But the blatant attempt to derail his candidacy only egged on his supporters. Then, the concerted attempts to nullify the election results convinced people all over the political spectrum that our "democracy" is only a "simulation of democracy" as Hopkins points out.

Don't the people pulling the strings behind the media understand what they have done? They have convinced a large part of the nation that everything that they were taught from childhood is a fraud.

Civilizations are only held together by the "glue" of shared beliefs. The deep-state-media-complex has just applied a solvent to the very glue that holds the entire culture together.

This is going to make the next couple of years very interesting.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees."

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [228] Disclaimer , says: February 27, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT

@Thomm Bolton tweeted:

Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism & preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against Iran.

Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got virtually no notice in the media?

Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple clues.

Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees."

https://lobelog.com/large-payments-to-bolton-might-explain-his-uani-tweet/

[Feb 26, 2019] It is illegal for any insurer to offer a bare bones catastrophic plan that doesn't cover Obama's hopey-changey list of progressive surgical procedures.

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bragadocious , says: February 26, 2019 at 2:49 pm GMT

@animalogic I don't know if you live in the US, sounds like you don't, but one could argue that the healthcare system has already been nationalized. Consumers must shop for policies that meet Obamacare standards which include coverage for gender reassignment and other things that 10 years ago no private insurer would dream of paying for. This is a direct result of government's boot on the market's throat. (And the market likes it, based on HMO stock prices)

It is illegal for any insurer to offer a bare bones catastrophic plan that doesn't cover Obama's hopey-changey list of progressive surgical procedures. 15 years ago, those catastrophic plans were everywhere, and very affordable.

And to your point about providing healthcare to people who can't afford it. We already have that, it's called Medicaid. When those receiving it die, the government comes in and grabs all of their estate's assets, because they used a government program that was forced on them. Like I said, it's been taken over.

[Feb 26, 2019] That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jake , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT

"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."

Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire, it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.

The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.

[Feb 26, 2019] The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates", which has veto power over the little people

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [427] Disclaimer , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT

The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates", which has veto power over the little people.

The SJWs and Bernie bots may be too dumb to know who their real daddies are, but the Superdelegates know exactly whose ring they need to kiss to regain power: the same globalist capitalist Davos scums who now have Trump exactly where they want him, between their legs sucking up while busy implementing their agendas of endless wars and endless immigration.

The Superdelegates will never let things get too far with the socialists, they're good for entertainment, to give off the pretense of a real race. I'm betting my money on Kirsten Gillibrand -- Dems know if there's a woman who could beat Trump, she needs to be a blonde. Uncle Joe has too many skeletons in his closet. It's just a matter of time before the cockroaches come out of the woodwork and #MeToo him into the orbits.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen".

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ned Ludlam , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT

Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.

That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without an army.

Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and are as tough as jello.

Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.

While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.

[Feb 26, 2019] Bernie Sanders Goes Insane, Declares 2020 Candidacy

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:44 pm GMT

"Bernie Sanders Goes Insane, Declares 2020 Candidacy."

https://youtu.be/eEwPNJJF1sM

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT
Nothing like a little truth to start your morning. Caution: Strong Language Content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AduM6Uo5znU

ploni almoni , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:49 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike What a thoughtful comment. What does it say?

[Feb 26, 2019] Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: February 26, 2019 at 2:38 am GMT

Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.

Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist period.

Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we are today.

Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media.

There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not define the authentic socialist agenda.

I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!

I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11 truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.It doesn't take an Einstein to see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out, what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the only way out of this evil system.

Sad!

TimeTraveller , says: February 25, 2019 at 11:10 pm GMT

There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it.

It worked in France, though.

[Feb 26, 2019] Attacking Iran by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S., that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. ..."
"... The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S. Congress. ..."
"... So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue. The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is fair game ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Observers of developments in the Middle East have long taken it as a given that the United States and Israel are seeking for an excuse to attack Iran. The recently terminated conference in Warsaw had that objective, which was clearly expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it failed to rally European and Middle Eastern states to support the cause. On the contrary, there was strong sentiment coming from Europe in particular that normalizing relations with Iran within the context of the 2015 multi party nuclear agreement is the preferred way to go both to avoid a major war and to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.

There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S., that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. They seek pretexts in various dark corners, including claims that Iran is cheating on its nuclear program, that it is developing ballistic missiles that will enable it to deliver its secret nuclear warheads onto targets in Europe and even the United States, that it is an oppressive, dictatorial government that must be subjected to regime change to liberate the Iranian people and give them democracy, and, most stridently, that is provoking and supporting wars and threats against U.S. allies all throughout the Middle East.

Dissecting the claims about Iran, one might reasonably counter that rigorous inspections by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirm that Tehran has no nuclear weapons program, a view that is supported by the U.S. intelligence community in its recent Worldwide Threat Assessment. Beyond that, Iran's limited missile program can be regarded as largely defensive given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S. and one might well accept that the removal of the Iranian government is a task best suited for the Iranian people, not delivered through military intervention by a foreign power that has been starving the country through economic warfare. And as for provoking wars in the Middle East, look to the United States and Israel, not Iran.

So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the subject is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to hang their war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an old story to give them what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that would justify an attack on Iran without a declaration of war while also lacking any imminent threat from Tehran to justify a preemptive strike.

What may be the new Iran policy was recently outlined in a Washington Times article, which unfortunately has received relatively little attention from either the media, the punditry or from the few policymakers themselves who have intermittently been mildly critical of Washington's propensity to strike first and think about it afterwards.

The article is entitled "Exclusive: Iran-al Qaeda alliance May Provide Legal Rationale for U.S. military strikes." The article's main points should be taken seriously by anyone concerned over what is about to unfold in the Persian Gulf because it is not just the usual fluff emanating from the hubris-induced meanderings of some think tank, though it does include some of that. It also cites government officials by name and others who are not named but are clearly in the administration.

As an ex-CIA case officer who worked on the Iran target for a number of years, I was shocked when I read the Times ' article, primarily because it sounded like a repeat of the fabricated intelligence that was used against both Iraq and Iran in 2001 through 2003. It is based on the premise that war with Iran is desirable for the United States and, acting behind the scenes, Israel, so it is therefore necessary to come up with an excuse to start it. As the threat of terrorism is always a good tactic to convince the American public that something must be done, that is what the article tries to do and it is particularly discouraging to read as it appears to reflect opinion in the White House.

As I have been writing quite critically about the CIA and the Middle East for a number of years, I am accustomed to considerable push-back from former colleagues. But in this case, the calls and emails I received from former intelligence officers who shared my experience of the Middle East and had read the article went strongly the other way, condemning the use of both fake and contrived intelligence to start another unnecessary war.

The article states that Iran is supporting al Qaeda by providing money, weapons and sanctuary across the Middle East to enable it to undertake new terrorist attacks. It is doing so in spite of ideological differences because of a common enemy: the United States. Per the article and its sources, this connivance has now "evolved into an unacceptable global security threat" with the White House intent on "establishing a potential legal justification for military strikes against Iran or its proxies."

One might reasonably ask why the United States cares if Iran is helping al Qaeda as both are already enemies who are lying on the Made in U.S.A. chopping block waiting for the ax to fall. The reason lies in the Authorization to Use Military Force, originally drafted post 9/11 to provide a legal fig leaf to pursue al Qaeda worldwide, but since modified to permit also going after "associated groups." If Iran is plausibly an associated group then President Trump and his band of self-righteous maniacs egged on by Netanyahu can declare "bombs away Mr. Ayatollah." And if Israel is involved, there will be a full benediction coming from Congress and the media. So is this administration both capable and willing to start a major war based on bullshit? You betcha!

The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S. Congress.

Curiously, though several cited administration officials wedded to the hard-line against Iran because it is alleged to be the "world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" were willing to provide their opinions on the Iran-al Qaeda axis, the authors of the recent Worldwide Threat Assessment issued by the intelligence community apparently have never heard of it. The State Department meanwhile sees an Iranian pipeline moving al Qaeda's men and money to targets in central and south Asia, though that assessment hardly jives with the fact that the only recent major attack attributed to al Qaeda was carried out on February 13 th in southeastern Iran against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a bombing that killed 27 guardsmen.

The State annual threat assessment also particularly condemns Iran for funding groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are, not coincidentally, enemies of Israel who would care less about "threatening" the United States but for the fact that it is constantly meddling in the Middle East on behalf of the Jewish state.

And when in doubt, the authors of the article went to "old reliable," the leading neocon think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, by the way, works closely with the Israeli government and never, ever has criticized the state of democracy in Israel. One of its spokesmen was quick off the mark: ""The Trump administration is right to focus on Tehran's full range of malign activities, and that should include a focus on Tehran's long-standing support for al Qaeda."

Indeed, the one expert cited in the Times story who actually is an expert and examined original documents rather than reeling off approved government and think tank talking points contradicted the Iran-al Qaeda narrative. "Nelly Lahoud, a former terrorism analyst at the U.S. Military Academy and now a New America Foundation fellow, was one of the first to review documents seized from bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. She wrote in an analysis for the Atlantic Council this fall that the bin Laden files revealed a deep strain of skepticism and hostility toward the Iranian regime, mixed with a recognition by al Qaeda leaders of the need to avoid a complete break with Tehran. In none of the documents, which date from 2004 to just days before bin Laden's death, 'did I find references pointing to collaboration between al Qaeda and Iran to carry out terrorism,' she concluded."

So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue. The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is fair game. Iran and terrorism? Perfect. Let's try that one out because, after all, invading Iran will be a cakewalk and the people will be in the streets cheering our tanks as they roll by. What could possibly go wrong?

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


wayfarer , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT

Israel, the World's Richest Beggar.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Boy

Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans.

Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.

Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of over a billion people.

And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.

Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

source: https://ifamericaknew.org/stat/cost.html

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:03 am GMT
In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?
Mark James , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:04 am GMT

given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S.

And it has been more than threats: the Stuxnet virus and Mossad assassinations. While I think even Trump may be reasonably nervous about a potential attack, if he has cheerleaders like Kushner, Friedman, MBS, AIPAC, et al, it does seem almost a certainty. Is this not what NSA Bolton has been waiting for most of his career?

And the neocon media crew will likely be out in full force soon doing their "mushroom cloud" thing.
I saw Rubin, Boot, Pletka, Todd in shock over what Rep Omar had said. Poor David Brooks felt the Democrats had "slapped him the face (PBS Newshour)."

Democrats need to be talking about this early. They can't let this happen. As for the GOP I'm sure the words at the AIPAC convention will be supportive.

chris , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:54 am GMT
The patent absurdity of the 'indispensable nation,', in one administration, making peace with Iran and then, in the very next (on the basis of no palpable facts) making war, should eventually wake even the most catatonic to the monstrous activities that have led us to this point.

I suspect that this (seemingly imminent) attack on Iran will, also become the noose to hang Trump with. Thus, the Neocons, with Stalinesque subtlety will have killed two birds with one shot.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website February 26, 2019 at 9:49 am GMT
An excellent piece.

Just solid stuff.

But in a world of America attacking countries over non-existent weapons of mass destruction or over supposed destruction of democracy, both plainly false claims, does it make any difference?

America will do what it wants to do. Simply because it can.

That is just how bullies behave.

jacques sheete , says: February 26, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT
@Anonymous

The European powers allowed World War II to unfold by wringing their hands rather than taking a stand while Hitler built up his forces, threatened his neighbors and bit off chunks of their territory.

You have to be kidding. You're re-spouting nearly century old war propaganda as fact. You need to go back and read the article and focus on the parts where pretexts are made up.

Here, start with this.:

So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the subject is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to hang their war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an old story to give them what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that would justify an attack on Iran < /blockquote>

Z-man , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@renfro Thanks for the tweets renfro .
I saw the news of Iran's FM Zarif's resignation yesterday and I was immediately alarmed. If Zarif is actually removed from power a Western educated man with TV charisma will be taken off the 'airs'. Iran will lose a big positive public relations asset with Zarif's departure to the glee of Netanyahu and the rabid Zionists in Isra-hell and here in Trump's administration and the Beltway. Bad news.
jacques sheete , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:01 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?

I agree. Who'd be stupid enough to "ally" themselves with the money bags "one world" crowd after seeing so many others get tossed under the bus?

CAIRO, Egypt, May 27, -- The last hope of 30,000,000 Arabs to win freedom for their race without further bloodshed vanished when cables from Washington announced that the United States had concluded an agreement with Great Britain The Arabs came into the war on the side of the allies against their Turkish co-religionists in- response to the allies' promise of freedom The Arab support" was determined and effective."

Newspaper article by Junius B. Wood on the American recognition of Britain's mandate in Palestine, Chicago Daily News,27 May 1922 (also The Sunday Star, Washington)

http://dcollections.oberlin.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/kingcrane/id/1686/rec/18

When the smoke of [WW2] cleared only three purposes had been achieved, none of them disclosed at its start: the world-revolution, with Western arms and support, had advanced to the middle of Europe; Zionism had been armed to establish itself in Palestine by force; the "world-government", obviously the result which these two convergent forces were intended to produce, had been set up anew in embryo form, this time in New York. The war behind the war was the true one; it was fought to divert the arms, manpower and treasure of the West to these purposes.
-Douglas Reed, "the Controversy of Zion," p 333 (written ~1955 )
https://archive.org/stream/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZi

Agent76 , says: February 26, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years

"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

July 23, 2006 Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon

Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark. "[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes] a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark) According to General Wesley Clark–the Pentagon, by late 2001.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-2001-pentagon-plan-to-attack-lebanon/2797

wraith67 , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:49 pm GMT
The problem with this (sky is falling) analysis is the number of troops available to wage a war over there. We're in 150 countries with 165,000 people deployed OCONUS. There's no 150,000 here for this potential war, 150,000 there for that potential war (and the list of wars we're apparently going to start is pretty long, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela ).

And there's no draft. The composition of a US division has significantly fewer trigger pullers than support people and nobody thinks the mechanics and admin people are going to conquer another country.

I think that before indulging in paranoia it would seem like you'd want to be looking for mass mobilizations and significant movements of armored vehicles. You can't hide it and troops are dumb about social media None of that's happening now.

follyofwar , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Before the US psychopaths start bombing Iran, Russia and China need to step up to the plate and just tell them NO, your world empire will NOT expand further. I'd rather see the US nuked than to see it kill millions of innocent Persians and wipe out their ancient society.

If war with Iran can somehow be prevented before the coming presidential election, I'd rather see any of the Dems far-left loony candidates elected than to hear the rantings of psychos like Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo for one more day. God, the US and Israel are horrible, evil countries that must be stopped!

follyofwar , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:50 pm GMT
@wraith67 That's why all US wars are now fought with bombs and missiles, not infantry. The US no longer has to invade countries to destroy them – witness Libya where there were no military casualties. As for the draft – bring it on and draft the wymyn. I'd love to see middle class parents start rioting in the streets once their 19 year-old daughters were drafted. I've read, also, that there is a dire shortage of qualified pilots. Perhaps our high schools and universities are not graduating enough psychos willing to kill great numbers of civilians from high altitude for no reason. I've heard that a lifetime PTSD is a bitch, as the veteran suicide rate of 22 a day demonstrates.
Talha , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:56 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

"genociding entire generations"

I'm actually not sure that is inaccurate. If trends continue in the current way, there may well eventually be a push to force all Palestinians out of the West Bank. There is nothing controversial about this:
"Over the past 50 years, Israel has demolished tens of thousands of Palestinian properties and displaced large swathes of the population to build homes and infrastructure to illegally settle its own population in the occupied territories. It has also diverted Palestinian natural resources such as water and agricultural land for settlement use."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/

I think the only mistake Br. Daniel made is using language that may give the impression that it is a completed (rather than ongoing) project. But if you read his full post, he mostly quotes from Zionist groups or Israeli sources and just puts in commentary here or there:
https://muslimskeptic.com/2019/02/23/israeli-political-party-so-racist-so-evil-even-zionists-like-aipac-denounce-it/

"Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel The survey makes no distinction between Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and citizens of Israel in its question about whether Arabs should be expelled from Israel. And yet, 48% of Jewish Israelis said they were in favor, 46% were opposed, and 6% said they didn't know. Breaking it down into religious groups, the Modern Orthodox (the report uses the Hebrew term dati'im), were the most likely to support such a measure, at 71%."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/plurality-of-jewish-israelis-want-to-expel-arabs-study-shows/

If that number grows (and there is little to doubt it will because of demographic patterns in the Jewish populace) and it eventually becomes the case, then Daniel's statement will just be a statement of fact; Palestinians used to live there and now they do not because they were killed or forced out. So the jury is still out on that as far as I'm concerned. Maybe slightly hyperbolic, but – meh – it's the internet. Hardly qualifies as "hate speech" though.

AnonFromTN , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
My bet is on false flag, like Tonkin incident and many others. Or WMD fairy tale. Or something else on these lines.
Philip Giraldi , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz Of course there are numerous options but containment only works if the targeted country does not strike back, which would instantly escalate the conflict. Bear in mind that all the pre war estimates of what would happen with Iraq were wrong. Assumptions that a conflict with Iran would be manageable or containable are likely to be equally misplaced particularly as there are hardliners on both sides that would welcome a shooting war
bucky , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:09 pm GMT
What no one, not even in alternative media, has picked up on is the real reason for Iran being a threat.

An Iran war is itself a distracting event for the real issue: Palestinians.

Israel always tries to provoke a war with Iran. This is to stoke unifying nationalism among the Israelis. Iran is a far preferable opponent than the Palestinians.

Furthermore, in the event of an actual war, you now have a global state of emergency which allows you to expel the remaining Palestinians. The world powers will all be occupied with fighting Iran. So will the regional powers. The Palestinians will be a legitimate security threat in the event of a war with Iran. So an expulsion would be justified.

But of course the instigators of such a conflict would be Israelis and their toadies among the idiot Christians of the GOP.

There is a high degree of cognitive dissonance here. I do not think that even Netanyahu can admit to himself this is why he keeps on hyping the Iran threat. But deep down, this is why. Otherwise, Israel has made its bed among the Palestinians. Jews are a white minority governing and oppressing a brown Muslim majority. Their only population growth is coming from the religious ultra orthodox, who they view with disdain and disgust.

Israel needs Iran more than anyone else in the world.

Talha , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
@Philip Giraldi If I recall, the Iranian leadership has made it clear that any direct attack on it of this magnitude will be considered an attack by proxy by Israel and they will respond in kind. Am I correct?

Peace.

densa , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:18 pm GMT
@NoseytheDuke Agree. The continued destruction of the economy and social fabric has no downside for the people who plan to rule through globalized tyranny. It's a feature, not a bug. Middle class America still has memory of freedoms. Not much of an impediment to real power, but nonetheless they must go.
geokat62 , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT

So going after Iran is the name of the game

The script has already been written:

Act I – Remove Sunni regimes (e.g., Iraq, Libya) that are hostile to the Zionist Project

Act II – Take a Sunni Turn by funding, arming, advising Sunni "terrorist" groups (e.g., al Qaida, IS) to attack Shia regimes (e.g., Syria, Iran) that are hostile to the ZP

Act III – push the KSA-led Sunni coalition to wage an eternal war against the Iranian-led Shia coalition, while the ZP continually expands.

Rurik , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:02 pm GMT
@Anonymous

"has likely been the goal from the get-go" of what?

"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

― George Orwell, 1984

never-anonymous , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT
Al Qeada=CIA created BS. The smarter sort of zombies know this. Americans, however are one of the most heavily propagandized populations outside of 1984, a true story. The media reliably spreads fear of groups like al Qaeda, ISIS, the Viet Cong, Iraqis, Iranians, Martians, New America Foundation you name it – fear, credulity and obedience sustains the taxpaying class of war mongering morons. The US needs to end trying to run every country. It costs the hard working and mostly underpaid voters a lot of money to overthrow foreign Governments with CIA fake revolutions. Moreover, every time the military drops a bomb the tax payers pay to replace it and a billionaire profits.

There are tons of reasons to continue all the wars or start a new one, all related to Profit, the central concept of Capitalism. War means Profit. The propaganda war means the rich get to loot other countries without any complaints from the confused, moronic voting class who pay for it and support it while they debate the merits of the latest CIA prepared Al Qeada narrative. Usually pro-Jew Giraldi does a better job faking a divisive meme with his propaganda. Another "debate" that misses the real questions.

Anon [427] Disclaimer , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
Anyone who knows anything about the Muslim world would know this link between Al Qaeda and Iran is a complete sham. Al Qaeda is Sunni, Iran is Shia. They are mortal enemies. Al Qaeda is about as likely to ally themselves with the Shias they are with the Jews, which is to say, over their dead bodies.

But this Jew driven war machine is definitely hard at work building its case, not just drumming up support from the left, but even more so, from the right, through their Zionist mouthpieces esp. Breitbart. Jews are now in total control of America, controlling both sides of the aisle in congress, and both sides of the debate in the media.

If Trump is dumb enough to invade Iran, he'll have signed his own death warrant.

renfro , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:24 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova

In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?

The US and Israel already have a proxy group–the MEK– who has been doing assassinations. bombings and false flags for them for years.

The MEK (People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran or the Mojahedin-e Khalk is a Iranian political–militant organization that advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership and installing its own government.
It was listed as a terrorist group by the US for blowing up American embassies and killing americans.'

BUT then ..

Pro-Israel voices want MEK off US terror list – International news
https://www.jpost.com/International/Pro-Israel-voices-want-MEK-off-US-terror-list
Feb 29, 2012 – Pro-Israel voices want MEK off US terror list. Dershowitz, ex-Canadian justice minister, Eli Wiesel joing prominent voices calling for US to

So it was taken off the terrorist list so it could be used as proxies for Israel

[MORE]
How Israel Could Take the Fight Directly to Iran – Arab-Israeli Conflict
https://www.jpost.com/ Israeli /How-Israel-could-take-the-fight-directly-to-Iran-542&#8230 ;
Feb 17, 2018 – While conventional military options targeting Iran are unlikely, Israel The Paris-based MEK maintains a presence in Iraq and covertly in Iran,

Israel-MEK relationship 'intricate and close' – NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/ /israel-mek-relationship-intricate-and-close-44575299799
Feb 9, 2012Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what

MEK tied to Israel-backed Terrorism Regardless of US Designation
https://lobelog.com/mek-tied-to-israel-backed-terrorism-regardless-of-us-designation/
Sep 26, 2012 – By Richard Sale. I believe that delisting the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list is in every way

Just who has been killing Iran's nuclear scientists? | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk › Voices › Comment
Oct 6, 2013 – Is it a last-minute attempt by Israel or the Iranian dissident group the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) to sabotage talks – or at least to show that they

Why Trump's Hawks Back the MEK Terrorist Cult | by Trita Parsi | NYR
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/ /why-trumps-hawks-back-the-mek-terrorist-cult/
In the 1980s, the MEK served as a private militia fighting for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. Today, it has a different paymaster: the

As of 2018, MEK operatives are believed to be still conducting covert operations inside Iran to overthrow Iran's government. Seymour Hersh reported that "some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today," with the MEK's prime goal of removing the current Iranian government.

The MEK use to be anti Israel . BUT THEN . Israel offered them a deal they couldnt refuse .the Jewish lobby would get them of the terrorist list in exchange for them ceasing to support Palestine.

"In the beginning, MEK used to criticize the Pahlavi dynasty for allying with Israel and Apartheid South Africa, calling them racist states and demanding cancellation of all political and economic agreements with them. MEK opposed and was anti-Zionist.
The Central Cadre established contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), by sending emissaries to Paris, Dubai, and Qatar to meet PLO officials. In one occasion, seven leading members of MEK spent several months in the PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon. On 3 August 1972, they bombed the Jordanian embassy as a means to revenge King Hussein's unleashing his troops on the PLO in 1970.
After their exile, the MEK changed into an 'ally' of Israel in pursuit of its ideological opportunism"

I could write all week about how Israel uses its control of the US to further its goal of being the Super Power of the ME .coming into play now also is how they offering their control of the US to help Egyptian mad man, General Sisi, to implement his President of Egypt for life plan in exchange for being Israel's side kick.

Makes you want to vomit doesnt it?.. to know what the US has become.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:28 pm GMT
@Philip Giraldi There are hardliners in Alaska, Texas, North Dakota and other oil-producing states that wouldn't be too troubled if the horse manure hit the fan in Iran.

Haven't the Iranians said they would pulverize Saudi Arabian oil installations if they are attacked by Israel or the United States?

Two hundred dollar a barrel oil could buy a lot of joy in the USA oil patch!

Tweets from 2015:

republic , says: February 26, 2019 at 11:38 pm GMT
This old article from February 2017 by the Saker on Iran is worth rereading for its clarity on the situation

http://www.unz.com/tsaker/u-s-against-iran-a-war-of-apples-vs-oranges/

[Feb 26, 2019] Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about the country

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bern , says: February 25, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

follyofwar, I hate to be Debbie Downer, but who do think Mueller works for?

https://digwithin.net/2018/04/08/muellers-history/

Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era Newspeak.)

What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.

CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.

Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.

[Feb 26, 2019] Calling a spade a spade

Feb 26, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , Feb 24, 2019 11:58:04 PM | link

Calling a spade a spade......
"
TEHRAN, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday that the West has turned the Middle East into a "powder keg" through arms sales to the Arab countries in the region, Press TV reported.

Over the past year alone, the West sold weapons worth 100 billion U.S. dollars to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said Zarif.

"The weapons did not bring security to anyone," he added.

The Iranian minister made the remarks in a foreign policy speech at the University of Tehran.

Since the United States withdrew from the 2015 landmark Iranian nuclear deal last May, Iran has been under unprecedented sanctions from Washington.

Iran has also repeatedly denied the West's criticism of its alleged "interfering" policies in the region.
"

[Feb 26, 2019] Neoliberalism might be more resilient that we initially thought due to utilizing the power of survellance over citizens to prevent any meaningful political challenge

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Endgame Napoleon , says: February 26, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT

We live in a goon-run surveillance economy, backed up by the strong arm of a mighty surveillance state apparatus, and nobody -- I mean nobody -- really stands up to it, calling out the real economic problems without a politically correct overlay that focuses on drummed-up social issues or other media-driven diversion tactics. As much as Hollywood theatrics are used as a way to sell the current setup as a functioning Republic to the serfs, none of our never-been-so-wealthy elected leadership has the morality to challenge the corrupt system. There's a reason for their crumbly back bones.

Despite the fake-morality play, using kids and babies as props in this fake-feminist era, we don't even have leaders morally uncompromised enough to take on the Swamp in minor ways, not in a surveillance state / surveillance economy, where all of the morally blemished political elites have a lot to lose -- financially.

Political elites have a lot to lose financially, even though few of them ever took the classic road to riches, including taking on financial risk to create quality jobs for US citizens, as opposed to using cheap foreign wage slaves whose low wages are pumped up by welfare for US-born kids, making it easy for them to work cheaply for elites.

Most of our rich political elites have never started businesses, employing US citizens to make tangible items, like cake mixes or ketchup, but somehow in this finacialized surveillance economy, all of our political leaders are flat-out rich with a lot to lose from speaking out against the rigged system, much less actually doing something about it.

Even without extra, ratings-boosting, sexual or other Swamp-exploitable foibles, that means a lot of leverage for surveillance goons to hold over political decision-makers' heads if they don't do their bidding, especially in a survelliance state / survelliance economy, wherein every nook and cranny of their lives is scrutinized to the hilt.

And it's perfectly okay for our power couples to put riches over morality because, like the aristocrats producing golden heirs to assume the throne in other eras when aristocratic couples and static wealth reigned supreme, our business and political leaders have all reproduced, putting them as above firing and above morality as other elites in the family-friendly, fake-feminist era. Everything elites do is for their babies, regardless of how venal it is.

Despite all of the surveillance that renders the Fourth Amendment null and void for cash-strapped serfs no less than elites and that stymies the First Amendment, suppressing the serfs from calling out the economic situation for what it is no less than elites, corruption is at all time highs.

Think that has anything to do with the brass-knuckle silencing tactics, made possible by the surveillance state?

Our so-called leaders don't even bother to challenge the most basic threats to constitutional liberty, much less the shaky foundation of our part-time / temp / churn-job economy, with its welfare-subsidized legal & illegal immigrant workforce and our single-mom & married-mom workforce, able to work part-time and in temp jobs for beans, thereby supplementing spousal income, rent-covering child support or the welfare they collect by staying under the earned-income limits for multiple welfare programs during working months in single-breadwinner households with US-born kids.

It is not even semi-quality jobs that support most households at the growing bottom. It is the already intact socialist system propping up a willing, cheap labor force for big corporations, that supports a large percentage of American households. Who needs Bernie's socialism when we already have a platter of 100%-free, non-contributory, pay-per-birth socialism, offered up by the Republican and Democratic Uniparty to drive down wages for non-welfare-eligible citizens 40 years?

Bernie is no stand-out Rebel. American corporations love socialism.

Even though the rebel Bernie has never held more than one senate seat, single-breadwinner households with US-born kids are already supplied with hundreds in free EBT food, reduced-cost housing, hundreds in monthly cash assistance, free electrcity and up to $6,431 in refundable child tax credit cash when they are willing to work part time or in temp positions for low wages, staying below the earned-income limits for welfare during working months. That's how they undercut millions of underemployed citizens who lack unearned income streams from .gov, and no corporate-owned political rebel in the surveillance state is willing to stand up to it.

No politician on the right or the left is free enough from the surveillance economy / surveillance state's goon squad to say what that means for vanquished middle-class prosperity in the USA.

It's not just student loans, either, no matter how much the establishment wants that to be the main problem so that they can blow another housing bubble with the mostly unmarried Millennials in their part-time / churn jobs. Truth is: Few of those college grads except the dual-high-earner parents in their family-friendly / absenteeism-friendly jobs -- keeping two of the few jobs with benefits and good wages under one roof and halving the size of the house-buying and rent-covering middle class while low-wage daycare workers or grandparents raise their kids -- can afford to buy a house. The above-firing group in the top 20%, however, can afford more palatial houses than any non-rich group of non job creators in US history.

In the long-gone America with the broad middle class and the mostly married, stay-at-home moms, most couples paid off modest houses by retirement, and most single earners with one, earned-only income stream could afford the dignity of a modest apartment, whereas most of today's working women will face insurmountable rent costs in retirement, just like they do during working years.

That is what the fake feminists have accomplished for the bottom 80%, but the family-friendly princesses in their palaces have not made any compromises. They humanize that by adding layers of absenteeism privileges for low-wage mommies in discriminatory voted-best-for-moms jobs, plus welfare and cash handouts through the progressive tax code to soften the brutality of this churn-job economy. But those womb-privileged single moms find themselves in the same dismal economic boat with the single, childless women in the bottom 80% after their kids turn 18, and the wage-supplementing, pay-per-birth freebies from goverment dry up.

Lacking a student loan debt does not overcome the insurmountable cost of housing for single breadwinners, whether they are male or female, non-custodial parents, middle-aged or older with no kids, older with no kids under 18 or younger in the years before family formation beefs up their income with cash-check tax code privileges, monthly welfare access and crony-parent workplace privileges. With none of the unearned income streams accruing to womb-productive single earners, the single earners relying relying on earned-only income from one person cannot even afford rent for a one-room apartment in a safe or unsafe area, much less a house. And there are more single earners than ever; we are the majority.

https://oftwominds.cloudhostedresources.com/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fduckduckgo.com%2F&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oftwominds.com%2Fblog.html

The childbearing-aged Millennials will be the focus of every economist and of all political hacks, seeking votes from the mostly older and middle-aged citizens who bother to show up on voting day, not the Xers with one, earned-only income stream and no kids under 18 and, thus, no handouts from Uncle Sam and the Treasury Department pumping up their wages in this dismal scam landscape of a churn-job gig economy.

Thanks to feminism, there are more & more of us in that category in this era of single, "independent" career women, and it is going to get worse and worse as this group hits retirement age. It will be worse for everyone except the dual-high-earner parents -- the tax-advantaged, "needs-the-job," above-firing "talent" who were needed at work because of their talent, but who were somehow on a an expensive, lengthy, family-friendly vacation every couple of months during their above-firing, childbearing-aged working years, not to mention all of the mornings and afternoons of excused absenteeism (for kids, for kids!) and their multiple pregnancy leaves.

These working-parents-in-charge, with their libertine, back-watching, family-friendly work schedules, sure do fire a lot of the non-family-friendly non culture fits whose every day, all-day hard work helps to keep their bonus numbers up. They fire away for the most trivial and pettiest of infractions in the churn machine of America's unprofessional-to-the-max corporate workplaces. Use and lose. Churn and burn. It equals family-friendly job security.

But regardless of how they did it, they will still retire into their luxury apartments or cathedral-ceiling homes, with two streams of SS income and two 401k streams.

Whereas, however hard they work and however much they help to pump up the crony-parent managers' bonuses, a huge number of divorced or never-married, single-breadwinner Xers who, since they did not have kids, did not need tax credit handouts to boost up their low wages, nor above-firing absenteeism privileges, benefits, decent-paying jobs or even a modicum of job security will retire into the most spartan and hopeless of "retirement" situations.

They will have nothing but one stream of very inadequate, non-rent-covering SS, into which they contributed either 7.5% or 15.3% of every dime they earned, unlike these glorified single moms and immigrants, raking in 100%-free monthly welfare by the truckloads, in addition to bigly, refundable cash-assistance welfare checks from the progressive tax code that top out at $6,431 all through their childbearing years, even though they do not pay income taxes in many cases and even though they work part time .

The average employed person in the USA is a part-time worker. That is the reality of automation, fake womb-productivity-based feminism and 4 decades of welfare-supported mass immigration.

Retirement will be just as bad, if not worse, for the even bigger group of hear-them-roar, fake-feminist, ever-more-never-married, part-time-job-holding, pink-hatted "career" women -- with all of their hypocritical, un-feminist, womb-focused demands of .gov and their much-maligned soy-boy sperm providers -- in the equally underemployed Millennial generation.

But in an anti-individual, anti-liberty and corrupt-to-the-core survelliance state economy, with a Constitution based on individual liberty in suspension, all that counts is a functioning feudal structure for aristocratic baby makers in the top 1 -- 20%, pumping out heirs to the thrones in a financialized economy that favors static wealth, and the illusion of benevolence that they create by throwing lots of mom-pampering cake crumbs to their womb-productive, welfare-qualified, legal & illegally-in-this-country cheap, groveling servants. A ton of Hollywood-lite, weepy-eyed media concern for the mommies and babies around the globe adds gloss to this fake-morality veneer.

Trump said something about the immigration part of this corrupt equation, saying it loudly enough to divert attention from the fact that he is not really doing anything about the onslaught of 40 years of mass-scale, welfare-aided legal & illegal immigration that keeps wages at rock bottom for cashing-in employers.

Turns out, Bernie, however saintly by comparison with other politicians in the surveillance state / surveillance economy, was not without goon-exploitable human foibles, like a $600,000 rustic lake house needing "help" from interior designers and a spousal-income controversy. Bernie fans should not forget that the Deep State cutthroats are not at all above exploiting it with no mercy, no matter how many cutesy baby pics they wave around to prove their humanity. They are shameless enough to use it against him, no matter how knee-deep in Swamp dollars they are.

That goes for the lovely, family-friendly leaders in both of our corrupt, Swamp-controlled parties. And it would not matter if a truly kick- *** superhero arose to take on the Swamp Goliath.

This Surveillance Swamp is too deep even for Mister Rodgers to wade through. If he ran for office on a platform of true reform, the Surveillance Swampers would be accusing him of bacchanalian bathroom activity, telling him they have video conformation of that, along with proof from credit-rating agencies of his cardigan sweater-buying shopaholic sprees right down to his last bank transaction.

We live in KGB country, where it is easy to pull politicians off of any real reformist path. No wonder, swampers are so concerned with Russia, thirty years after the Cold War ended. Rich US politicians, in a rigged surveillance economy, live in Stalinist Russia -- Stalinist Russia with an increased surveillance capacity, whereas the serfs live under the same economic & government surveillance without even the reward of a quality non-churn job, an independent roof over their heads or a safe neighborhood.

What a great trade off: our liberty and our widespread middle class in return for end-to-end financial security for the top 1 -- 20% and womb-productivity-based welfare security for some part-time-working, womb-productive citizens and noncitizens in the bottom 80% during their baby-making years. Oh, we serfs also get to hear the virtue-signaling chorus of the racism and sexism fighters, and a few of them make bank off of discrimination lawsuits.

[Feb 26, 2019] Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.

Notable quotes:
"... Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants. ..."
"... If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds? ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:03 pm GMT

@Commentator Mike Today's system is a hybrid of a late finance-stage global capitalism and cultural–not economic–Marxism. Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.

So the right-wingers (like Peter Hitchens) who say that 'Marxism won' are half right culturally, not economically. What causes all the confusion (among the libertarian types especially) is that capitalism in reality does not in any way resemble how it ought to work according to libertarian theories and never did. But when you point out to them that capitalism never worked in practice to begin with, they answer: 'But true capitalism has never even been tried!' And of course, they're right. 'True' capitalism (i.e., what libertarian theory calls capitalism) really never has been tried, and for exactly the same reason that perpetual motion machines have never been tried either: they're impossible.

None of which means I'm a 'pure' socialist. I'm open to mixed-economies and new experiments. I usually characterize myself more as a national socialist, mostly to differentiate myself from the 'world revolution' Trotskyite socialists who now predominate on the far-left.

That means I also take some inspiration from some fascists and national-syndicalists, although I don't regard any of them as holy writ, either.

In my opinion, the number one success factor for a civilization is not what theory it professes, but rather who controls it. Theories will always have to be modified to suit the circumstances; but the character of a people is much harder to change.

China's prospering because it's controlled by Chinese engineers; our civilization is suffocating because it's controlled by Jew-bankers and Masonic lawyers. Get rid of them first, and we can debate monetary theory till we're blue in the face.

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 26, 2019 at 1:25 pm GMT
@Captain Willard You must be under the delusion we live in a Constitutional Republic.

Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning 'to rule or to command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or corporate, religious, political, or military control. Such states are often controlled by families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.

"Their names are prick'd"

Authenticjazzman , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:30 pm GMT
@redmudhooch " Socialism is government by the working class"

Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants.

Your transparent mindset of : Socialism never worked because the wrong people were in charge of every attempt to actualize it, and if the right folks go at it in the "right" manner it will finally work., has been exposed as the lie it is.

This nonsense of : the Russians, Chinese, all of East Europe, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, etc. they really did not understand Marx, and they really did not want to establish a true " Farmers and Workers paradise", as according to Marx, so if we, the new generation of "Woke" "Jungsozialisten", if we go at it, there will be no failure this time, this nonsense has run it time and more and more otherwise unknowing peoples are finally waking up it's the lies and madness

Myself, I spent time in the seventies behind the "Iron Curtain" before the wall came down and I will never forget the morgue-like atmosphere of the grey cities and the dead eyes of the hopeless natives, and ignoranti like you are striving to repeat these humans tragedies over and over, regardless of how many time they fail and how much travail and suffering they generate.

Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.

Authenticjazzman , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT
@Stephen Paul Foster " The profit motive" after being replaced with the Socialist rubber-stamp which holds power of life or death over it's hapless subjects, and make no bones about wielding it's ruthless fatal power, would seem like altruism and benevolency in retrospect.

AJM

ploni almoni , says: February 26, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman

If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds?

Sparkon , says: February 26, 2019 at 11:13 pm GMT
@ploni almoni T he runaway over-use of the narcissism cliché has been fueled mostly by copy-cats with weak vocabularies who use it deliriously as a general purpose put-down of men who aren't slobs.
AceDeuce , says: February 27, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT
"The Bernie Sanders Story: From Brooklyn to Vermont-One Man's Odyssey in Search of Diversity".

[Feb 26, 2019] "'Free market?!'" he exclaimed. "No such thing. Because it's all crooked.

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

obwandiyag , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT

@Digital Samizdat Excellent intelligence. As opposed to the "high IQ" idiocy promulgated on here.

You may like the way an acquaintance, a PhD from Chicago School of Business, who had just finished working on a project for Big Pharma, observed when I brought up the concept of "free market."

"'Free market?!'" he exclaimed. "No such thing. Because it's all crooked."

[Feb 26, 2019] The British wars in the middle east in the 1920's, after ending "all war" at Versailles, mercilessly waged against less technologically developed countries, were all highly aggressive

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Benjy , says: February 26, 2019 at 8:28 pm GMT

@Chris Mallory

"Poor lil Hitler was a good boy. He dindu nuttin."

Already after the turn of the last century Southern Iran became a British "sphere of influence". Through the 1920's, after making the world free for democracy, and fighting the war to end all wars, England was gassing and murdering the kurds and Iraqi's with in their "mandate".

The British wars in the middle east in the 1920's, after ending "all war" at Versailles, mercilessly waged against less technologically developed countries, were all highly aggressive.

... ... ...

[Feb 25, 2019] Forget Jussie Smollet, Here Are the Real False Flags by Kevin Barrett

Feb 25, 2019 | www.unz.com
Kevin Barrett February 24, 2019 •

The world slipped closer to nuclear war. Big false flags -- actual, suspected, and anticipated -- were a key factor. But hardly anybody noticed. Everyone was riveted by the story of actor Jussie Smollet, who supposedly paid a couple of Nigerian-American bodybuilders for a staged racist-homophobic near-lynching. The ostensible motive: Add a zero to Smollet's pathetic little million-a-year salary.

[Feb 24, 2019] In England and in France, as well as in the US, the Jews became a symbol of the present neo-liberal regime

If true this is a great danger. For Jews.
Feb 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website February 22, 2019 at 10:05 pm GMT

In England and in France, as well as in the US, the Jews became a symbol of the present neo-liberal regime, as the scams and hoaxes make it apparent.

The pride and pressure of Jews as high-achievers could be fueling the scams and frauds in so many fields.

Non-Jews don't feel particularly bad if they don't achieve much. But Jews have this reputation, indeed a point of pride among Jews, as being intelligent and high-achieving. So, it seems like many many Jews come under the pressure to be high-achieving or at least appear so. To be a 'loser' Jew is far more humiliating that it is to be a loser goyim. It's like a black guy losing to a white guy in boxing or one-on-one basketball. Unheard of. Consider the movie BOILER ROOM where lesser Jews resort to fraud to make easy money and seem successful.

conceptpolitico , says: February 22, 2019 at 11:34 pm GMT
Shamir, you missed a very simple point. This Jussie Smollett is Jewish. His father is a Jew. He isn't black, he is bi-racial and since Judaism is not a race (like being black) but an ethnicity Jussie actions are more that of a jew than it is as a black person. In fact a lot of black people didn't believe him and show his actions as a means to exploit the black identity even before his actions where exposed as a hoax
byrresheim , says: February 23, 2019 at 7:41 am GMT
@Rabbitnexus

He is not. His mother is not jewish and as far as is known, he is not a convert himself.

Anonymous [223] Disclaimer , says: February 23, 2019 at 10:57 am GMT
@Asagirian

tribal noblesse oblige

That's tribal nepotism. Hostile tribal nepotism in case of jews.

noblesse oblige

noblesse oblige noun
no·​blesse oblige

Definition of noblesse oblige

: the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth

TimeTraveller , says: February 23, 2019 at 11:57 am GMT
@swamped I believe he's pointing out the supremacy that the Jews enjoy in Israel/Palestine is due to the role that Jews play in the neoliberal institutions – that Israel is dependent on corporate patronage, trade concessions, capital flow from the West, etc.
alexander , says: February 23, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT
Thank you Mr. Shamir, for a very informative and interesting article.

In many ways the exposure of the "Smollett Hoax" as a "hoax" is a watershed event in post 9-11 America.

It is, perhaps , the first time that the deliberate defrauding of the public through the enacting of a "staged event" has been given the media attention for being uncovered "as such".

And actually prosecuted.

Amazing.

But to many of us, increasingly aware we are living in (what could only be fairly described as) an Empire of Fraud the "Smollett Hoax"attention is akin to one noticing a tiny chipmunk urinating on your toe while standing, hapless, under a torrential deluge raining down from the mammoth elephant above you.

We live in the great age of fraud, Mr. Shamir, and Mr. Smollett's phony act was but a drop in the bucket.

Consider the fact that nearly every pretext for war, especially since 9-11, has been proven to be founded on fraudulent narratives , hoaxes, lies , and staged events . and you will see what I mean.

Do I need to remind you of the media's "iron clad" certainty it was "Saddam's Anthrax" deposited in both Tom Brokaw and Senator Leahy's office in the run up to the Iraq war ?

Why they even had the 'matching spores from Baghdad' to prove it .Right ?

How about the "Yellow Cake" from Niger ? .or the "aluminum tubes" ? .or the impending "mushroom clouds" from Saddam's imminent WMD's ?.

All "hoaxes" .All "lies" A veritable cornucopia of war and terror "fraud" which has led to the unconscionable death of millions of innocent people and the greatest debt crisis our country has ever faced.

Were it only that our leaders and the oligarchs (for whom they serve) be faced with same accountability from their "defrauding" as Jussie Smollett ..we would be living in a much different world , today.

.

Wally , says: February 24, 2019 at 5:19 am GMT
@byrresheim said:
"He is not. His mother is not jewish and as far as is known, he is not a convert himself."

You're quite wrong.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5467558,00.html
US Jewish actor goes from victim to accused felon in just 3 weeks

ex.: "Jewish, black and gay actor Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday with making a false police report, after he had told Chicago police last month that two men physically attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him."

Colin Wright , says: February 24, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT
' In England, seven (now eight) Jewish and Judeophile MPs have stormed out of the Labour Party claiming Labour has been 'infected' with 'anti-Jewish racism' '

I noted some details on the latest of these, an Ian Austin, who supposedly quit because of 'anti-semitism.'

His recorded foreign trips over the last three years:

'Kurdistan', AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Jerusalem, Israel, Israel, 'Kurdistan', AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Israel, Israel Admittedly, there's also a visit to Auschwitz.

Sponsors: Nokan Group, Labour Friends of Israel, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australia Israel Cultural Exchange Ltd -- all multiple times.

The data comes from a site somewhat ironically called 'They Work for You.'

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11553

[Feb 22, 2019] Western Oligarchs raped Russia in the 90's. The (((harvard))) boys foisted dollar debts on Russia, and then converted Russia to an extraction economy

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: February 21, 2019 at 9:28 pm GMT

@TKK https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html

The U.S. is an Oligarchy.

Western Oligarchs raped Russia in the 90's. OK, most of them were Jews – but still Western. The (((harvard))) boys foisted dollar debts on Russia, and then converted Russia to an extraction economy. Putin cleverly taxed the Oligarchs and prevented them from further predations.

No country can survive if it has an internal hostile elite. Nobody here can claim that Russia's government is hostile to its people. A fair claim can be made that the "international" elite that infest America IS HOSTILE. Why would you immigrate a replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?

You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.

So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.

[Feb 22, 2019] An interesting case of self-sufficientcy: the USA is a net importer of around 4 million barrels of oil per day.

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Carlton Meyer , says: • Website February 21, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT

@Shouting Thomas Wrong, the USA is a net importer of around 4 million barrels of oil per day.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6

Here is some background on that hoax you repeated.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/12/09/no-the-u-s-is-not-a-net-exporter-of-crude-oil/#1b2232814ac1

Fracking has helped the USA boost oil production, but that is pressuring to get oil out of older wells. Once those have been sucked dry, we'll need to import lots more. You read news about occasional big new discoveries in the USA, but read the details to see that each amounts only to a few days of oil consumption in the USA.

The world still runs on oil and the USA wants to control it all. If you doubt the importance, look at a freeway or airport or seaport to see oil at work.

[Feb 22, 2019] And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Biff , says: February 22, 2019 at 2:15 am GMT

@onebornfree You are probably the most whacked out idealist on this site. In your mind all the ills of society is because of socialism.

Well next time your toilet backs up, don't use that socialist phone network to call a plumber to clean those socialized drainpipes that keeps your stinky shit flowing down hill and away to be socially treated – just move to certain parts of India where none of that takes place – it's your idealist utopia. Wallow in it.

And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid – it's the only thing that keeps you on this site spewing your nonsense. And stay off those socialized roads.

[Feb 22, 2019] Population is destiny

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sean , says: February 21, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT

I don't think the American decline is self inflicted. America became the most powerful country and has 800 foreign (literally) bases solely because it has the most powerful economy in the world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land, navigable waterways, natural resources ect.

The US's population was high quality but it was prime real estate that others could only dream about. The USA developed advanced technology not because it had a particular system and set of beliefst let Americans innovate and cooperate better than other people, or because Americans are more individualistic and freedom loving than Chinese. Indeed the performance of the Chinese in the Korean war if anything showed the Chinese could do more with less.

In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level and is in a global hegemon trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population. With access to Russian resources and no intention of giving the US any excuse for a war, China is going to gain on the US and perhaps overtake it in technology. That is their plan and why wouldn't they? This giant awakening had to happen sooner or later.

There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the West, especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from offshoring and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's power in the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump out.

[Feb 22, 2019] Pockets of resistance to Israeli lobby emerged in the country

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 21, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT

I wouldn't give up on America yet. There are pockets of resistance to the PTB popping up around the country.
Here we have a Arkansas newspaper suing the state over the Israel Boycott ban .. that it is a newspaper doing the suing is significant.

ACLU and ACLU of Arkansas to Appeal Ruling on Boycott Ban
February 21, 2019

LITTLE ROCK –The Arkansas Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation today filed a notice of appeal in their lawsuit challenging a state law that requires government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce their fees by 20 percent. The lawsuit, which was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in January, was filed on behalf of the Arkansas Times LP. The Times was penalized by the government after it refused to certify that it is not boycotting Israel or Israel-controlled territories.

The case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

"The district court's decision would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott if allowed to stand," said Rita Sklar, ACLU of Arkansas executive director. "Allowing the government to force people to relinquish their First Amendment rights or pay a penalty for expressing certain political beliefs disfavored by the government would set a dangerous precedent. This 'pay-to-say' tax is blatantly unconstitutional and we're committed to seeing the law struck down."

[Feb 22, 2019] I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT

@Moi

To be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus. This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.

LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.

[Feb 22, 2019] Summary of Fred Redd notes on American neoliberal empire, which probably entered the stage of decline in 2008

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS says: February 20, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT 200 Words Not bad overall.
Especially

..empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind's cerebral package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops.

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire.

Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet.

For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must be neutralized.

To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."

Minor quibble:
.

..the developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia.

Canada, United Kingdom and Australia are not occupied by American troops. Those troops, and not that many in the first place, are stationed there. Majority of Australians do not mind that at all. Well, depending on skin colour, that is.

As for:

The present moment is an Imperial crunch point.

and

It is now or never.

Not so sure about that.
Because

Another decade or two of this ..

is a long time. A lot of things can happen, including some bad , to Russia and/or China.

foolisholdman , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT

Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I particularly liked:

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy.

[Feb 22, 2019] The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence." Utterly false. Our government is one of oligarchy, democratic elections have essentially zero impact on policy.

We've all been deceived. Almost everything "we're told" is a lie. It's up to each of us to discern the truth.
Notable quotes:
"... Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out ..."
"... Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to take its place, much less wish it. ..."
Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

TG , says: February 22, 2019 at 1:34 am GMT

Indeed, well said. A few minor quibbles:

"The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors." Wrong. The United States once dominated by NOT competing – until around 1970, foreign trade was a negligible fraction of the economy. The United States historically was a functional autarky. With a modest population, abundant resources, and no need to worry about competing with slave-labor level wages, America's economy and power boomed.

"The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence." Utterly false. Our government is one of oligarchy, democratic elections have essentially zero impact on policy. Our government is not incompetent because of 'democracy' but because our elites and their institutions are corrupt and insulated from the consequences of their decisions. One is reminded that Chinese industry is still overwhelmingly US industry that was moved their because US elites wanted quick shot-term profits – and were just too greedy to think about the long-term consequences of giving away the work of centuries to a large competitor nation.

redmudhooch , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:15 am GMT
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.

I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.

Capitalism always fails. Capitalism is growing and the white population is dying .hmmmm

The 'flaw' (intentional) in capitalism is that it was never intended to improve the conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes, kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.

And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of capitalism, wealth disparity, homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages, staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying), unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.

The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago. You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our "leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day.

AaronB , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:22 am GMT
@Citizen of a Silly Country

country that is 15% black and 25% Mestizo (and growing) will not rebound to the former heights of a country that was 90% white. Won't happen.

Why not? Where are all the high ability whites gonna go? Will they just vanish? They're still around, and aren't going anywhere. The talent pool will continue to have the same absolute number of people, even if a lower fraction of the whole.

There is a difference between percentages and absolute numbers. All that will have happened is that a large number of slightly less able people will have been added to the pie. That doesn't diminish the number of more able people. They're still around.

Here's another little secret. A country is great because of its top 15% of people. The average Chinese, or the lower class Chinese, is far from impressive.

If the gap between the top 15 percent and everyone else is too large, that may create some problems, but Hispanics are a fairly capable people.

This doesn't mean I support immigration. But adding say 50 million slightly less able people to 250 million slightly more able isn't exactly going to ruin a country, realistically. And other countries may have more serious deficiencies.

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:32 am GMT
Interesting article, and good timing too. China's president today reiterated China's commitment to developing its strategic partnership with Iran. The US may have pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, but China remains committed to that deal, and EU doesn't seem quite ready to jettison it either.

WSJ reported today that India is ignoring US warning about Huawei and will use their equipment for 5G anyway. Germany is reportedly doing the same.

Thanks to the Zionist stranglehold on the US and UK, I see the world developing into two factions, one of US-UK-Israel-Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries, and the other of Russia-China-Iran, and potentially India, with EU sitting uncomfortably in the middle. F is on the Ziocon side as long as Macron is in office, but once he leaves, France could well join Germany and the rest of the EU and switch side.

The Europeans were not too enamored with Pence at the recent Munich Security Conference, they all know what a Jew puppet he is, esp. after he used a visit to Auschwitz to convey to the Europeans that if they do not join the US on our antagonism towards Iran, they are as good as anti-Semites. The only 2 people who gave him a standing O after his speech were Javanka. Sad.

Zionists will turn America into an international pariah, as isolated and alone as Israel.

Cyrano , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@Harold Smith Socialism means equalizing and socializing – of rich and poor – at the expense of the rich who got that way at the expense of the poor, so you can say – it's little bit of a payback time. Americans have very clear minds about socialism – that's because they have been brainwashed during decades long running propaganda.

Then they got introduced to a wrong kind of "socialism" – where they were forced to socialize with a wrong kind of people – from alien lands and cultures. That's not socialism, that's cheap propaganda stunt, worthy of the Adolf himself.

I think they were introduced to that type of "socialism" under the motto: "Fake it, so you don't have to make it". I think that the time will eventually come, where the more traditional motto will come into play: "Fake it, until you make it".

AaronB , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@Citizen of a Silly Country

Just because this produce has the label "United States" doesn't mean that it's the same as the old product. Grow up.

No, it definitely won't be the same product. But nations change character fairly often. Elizabethan England was very different than Georgian England. The one was known as merry and licentious and highly emotional, the other was melancholy, stiff and inexressive, and more Puritan. Nations literally flip over into their opposites. In the past century Jews went from being physical cowards to tough physical adventurers in the Middle East. The Germans went from being the land of poets and thinkers to the land of blood and iron and war.

America will change, very drastically. Immigration will eventually stop, and the new people absorbed and integrated. Something new will emerge to replace a European civilization that had grown old. Something partly European and probably very capable.

And yes, I know that ethnic changes aren't the same thing. And I don't supplier immigration. I'm just pointing out realities.

Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT
@CanSpeccy

That's because the America see no advantage in placing its boot upon Canada's neck as long as Canada, recognizing its absolute dependence on the US for its territorial integrity and economic prosperity, remains subservient, sending token military forces wherever NATO directs, extraditing foreign nationals as America requires, and assimilating every appalling American cultural meme.

LOL how true. Canada to the US is like NZ to Australia. They just don't matter.

Hapalong Cassidy , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT
How old is Fred Reed anyway? I first became aware of him in late 2001. Back then he posted his picture at the top of his articles and I thought he looked ancient even back then.
Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:02 am GMT
@anonymous

Could it be because that their religious elites correctly figure that it would be difficult to sell rapist/gay/androgynous deities, phallus/vagina/devil/animal worship, etc., to the world, except to some whitey hippies (e.g. Tulsi's mother)? They feel ashamed to proselytise except to braindead whitey hippies.

LOLOL. You really have to wonder what kind of people could be dumb/crazy enough to follow a religion with 33 million gods! It's no wonder India is such a fucked up country, completely ungovernable. The worst thing is, these nutcases are now invading the US en masse (and soon to be let in by tens of millions more courtesy of Trump), are increasingly running for office, and winning as zealous socialist leftists running in uber liberal districts.

These bullshit artist nutjobs are not satisfied having completely destroyed their own country, they now want to destroy ours. We are on our way to becoming the next India, completely with people defecating out in the open like our growing homeless population, just like in Mumbai.

Patricus , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:17 am GMT
@flashlight joe Agree with Flashlight Joe on the duties and imposts and the Civil War. That was the major cause of the war as far as I can tell from reading books. Of course there were other factors including slavery as a lesser cause. What a waste of lives and treasure.
Patricus , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT
@Harold Smith I find it hard to believe the masses in the US will choose Bernie's socialism. It doesn't work and the evidence for failure is overwhelming just in the last 100 years. We should stop the migrations of impoverished third worlders. Lacking any education these migrants would be most susceptible to hair brained socialism.
Patricus , says: February 22, 2019 at 5:51 am GMT
@Biff Socialist phone network? Last I heard the phone companies are 100% privately owned.

All those sewage pipes were privately built and private companies collect your water and sewer bill.

The definition of socialism: the government or community owns the means of production. Some nations have more regulations than others but successful nations are capitalist, including Scandinavians.

Roads are built by private contractors. Missiles and jets as well.

Sam J. , says: February 22, 2019 at 6:16 am GMT
@Thomm's Purple haired femiNAZI " Before you know it, they'd wriggle their way to the top like they do everywhere. "

HAHAHHA silly Jews. They tried this already and failed. Look at them. Look what happened to them. They control nothing in China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews

The Jews think far too much of themselves and are screwed. Their hollowing out of the manufacturing of the US was premature before they could guarantee a home in China. The Chinese thing of course is not working out so well. The Chinese are not nice individualist like Europeans that they can manipulate with "caring" for others as the Chinese don't "care" and will laugh at Jewish cries of "victimization".

Jewish parasitism is only functionally able to work among Europeans and only last so long in each region they go to. I suspect the Western Ukraine take over was to have a plan "B" place to go if they get overrun in Israel. I'm not so sure that will work out in the long run either.

Erebus , says: February 22, 2019 at 9:37 am GMT
@AaronB From Comment #59

I just returned from a two month trip to Asia.

I noted your impressions, but Asia is a big place. There's a great variety of peoples and cultures between Japan and Saudi Arabia, and I'm curious which you're actually commenting on.

The US is having a little bit of a bad period, and everyone is rushing to say it's completely finished for all time.

It isn't simply a "bad period" from where I sit, and I don't think any serious person would claim "it's completely finished for all time". In the first place it's not that "bad" (yet), and it has a long way to go before it gets genuinely bad for no greater reason than that it's starting its decline from a fully developed state. A lot of things have to go to hell for it to become hell.

And its debatable just how bad a period the US is going through. I think its overstated, although there are undoubtedly some serious problems that need to be addressed.

The issue for America is that having lost its civilizational strengths, it's running on the fumes of Empire. So, we're really talking about just how much of those fumes there are left. The former didn't simply get weakened. For the elites and approx half the population they seem to have been replaced by something alien and corrosive. "Freedom", "Democracy", "Rule of Law" and even "American Know-how" have visibly dissipated to invisibility for those looking honestly for them. The fumes it's running on are the preeminence of the U$ dollar system and such fear as the USM is able to generate. Both are past their tipping point, and well into decline.

great nations go through bad periods, and then rise again.

They do, but Empires generally don't. It's all about resource flow, and when the flow stops, or worse reverses, the nation at the core of empire rarely survives in anything like its original form. Greece, Italy, Mongolia or Iran are very different than simply diminished versions of their former selves at the core of Empires. The original versions disappeared.

In any case, America wasn't great for long enough to be called a historically great nation. Great nations build civilizations that endure through trials such as the loss of Empire. Russia and China have, and arguably remain modern versions of their original selves.

In 4thC Rome, things didn't look so bad either. There was lots of asset speculation for the rich, and bread 'n circuses for everyone else, while the Empire's ability to bring resources in from the periphery shrank a little every day. Without new resources being brought in, the Empire inevitably ate its tail. The people remained blithely certain that there would be even more bread 'n circuses in the future. So Americans are today. They'll stay quite certain until a modern-day Alaric hammers on the Imperial Gates and says "It's over". Rome never recovered its Empire, and the city itself went from a population of ~1M to <50,000 at its depths. It and the area that became Italy took centuries to recover a halfway decent standard of living.

Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out and became dependent on such tithes a shrinking Empire can deliver to keep the bread 'n circuses going. Rome, however, had no peers and so could continue on well beyond its sell-by date. America, through a breathtaking series of strategic blunders, has lost that advantage. There's more peers now than America can hope to deal with and they, not America control the clock. The resources the Empire needs to continue have been taken off the table. It needed Russia's natural resources, and China's human resources. It lost both, and what's worse forced them into partnership. As the recent Warsaw "conference" so vividly exposed, even its vassals know that the Empire has lost its mojo, if DC's brain-trusts don't.

Can it recover and become a normal country again? Absolutely, though I give it less chance of coming through the process intact than either Russia or China did. Cultural homogeneity is what carries a civilization through hard times, and the US ain't got much of that. Perhaps it will undergo a similar split to Rome's, where the Eastern Empire went on to develop a very different society than the one it split off from. Rome split along more or less logistical and administrative lines, whereas the US' fissures are marbled across the continent. It'll take some serious statesmanship to hold it together.

As for wishing

Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to take its place, much less wish it.

Maybe one will arise in the fullness of time, but not in mine, or in anyone's that's currently alive. The resource base just ain't there any more. A Eurasian Empire? Maybe. Global? Nah.

[Feb 22, 2019] An interesting obituary to neoliberalism from unz.com

I changed the term Capitalism to Neoliberalism, as Capitalism has multiple forms incliudong New DealCapitalism and Neoliberlaism. It is Neoliberlaism that won in 1980 with "Reagan revolution."
Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

redmudhooch , says: February 22, 2019 at 3:15 am GMT

Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.

I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.

Neoliberalism always fails. Neoliberalism is growing and the white population is dying .hmmmm

The 'flaw' (intentional) in Neoliberalism is that it was never intended to improve the conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes, kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.

And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of Neoliberalism, wealth disparity, homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages, staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying), unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.

The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago. You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our "leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day .

MEFOBILLS , says: February 21, 2019 at 9:28 pm GMT
@TKK immigrate a replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?

You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.

So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.

[Feb 21, 2019] In a sense Sanders probably is "the best hope that the U.S. had in the last 50 years."

Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT
I think that Bernie Sanders was the best hope that US had in the last 50 years. And they killed that hope by stealing his nomination and highly probable presidency from him. I don't care what the orange clown says about "US will never be a socialist country". One other individual of his ethnic background once prognosticated a 1000 year Reich – and we all know how that turned out.

I don't know what Bernie views on immigration are, but on social and economic issues – he is bang on. And I just heard on the news that Bernie new campaign for 2020, has broken all previous records – raising 6 million $ in the first 24 hours.

All that nonsensical talk about empire is just a product of idle (and deranged) minds of individuals who have achieved personal wealth and success based on rules of questionable fairness, and now have nothing better to do than play some retarded game of world domination – which doesn't benefit the average American at all. It's just a way for the degenerates to achieve "immortality" and get into the history books – where they don't belong – certainly not based on their abilities.

Cyrano , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT

February 22, 2019 at 1:15 am GMT 100 Words @onebornfree

"Yeah right. Sanders is just another scammer, like Trump and all the rest of them:"

Yes of course they're all scammers, but there's a reason they picked the orange clown scammer rather than the Sanders scammer or the Clinton scammer. And I think that reason is because orange clown is actually the most evil of the three; evil enough to risk planetary extinction in pursuit of world domination and control, whereas Sanders probably isn't.

So in a sense Sanders probably is "the best hope that the U.S. had in the last 50 years."

[Feb 21, 2019] Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Looks like the USA enterprising the period which can be called Perestroyka
Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Philip Owen , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:22 pm GMT

Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.

India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power, not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.

Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire America cannot compete with China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future.

But all the bright minds come to the US. There is no brain drain in China's way, but the best and brightest in Asia come to the US. Also, as the Asian mind respects power and status above all, most Asians in the US become loyal servitors of Empire. Asians will serve Asian power only in Asia where they are dominant. When they are in a non-Asian land, they will suck up to the non-Asian power. In this, they are unlike Jews. Even in Ancient Times, Jews always felt as #1 even when surrounded by much bigger powers. They were defined by the Covenant with the one and only God. Wherever Jews go, they expect others to revolve around them. In contrast, wherever Asians go, they revolve around the dominant power, whatever it is. Asians lack the centrism of Jews. Maybe Hindus do a little bit, but Chinese don't. China regarded itself as the Middle Kingdom only in the Middle Kingdom. But outside it, they feel as strays who must serve another master. (To be sure, Chinese resist assimilation into foreign nations when they regard the natives as inferior. Chinese see Southeast Asians as inferior and don't assimilate much with them. But Chinese regard whites as superior, and so, they try to serve and be white in the West. And trashy Chinese try to imitate blacks, the masters of badass coolery in Pop Culture and Sports.) East Asians mainly define themselves by service and loyalty? To what? To whatever happens to be the most powerful.

Here's the difference between Jews and East Asians.

If the US were to turn anti-Israel and made war against it, American Jews will NOT join in the effort to kill fellow Jews in Israel. No way in hell, and this is the admirable aspect of Jewish consciousness. Jews will not be manipulated by goyim to kill other Jews.

But Asian dogs in the US will gladly serve the US empire in killing tons of Asians in Asia, even ethnic kin. Muslims are the same way. Look at those Muslims in US military who bombed and killed Muslims in the 'Wars on Terror'. There's no way any American Jew will participate in US war on Israel that kills tons of Jews, but Asians will gladly kill fellow Asians in the service to what they deem to be the highest power. Look at Japanese during and after WWII. During WWII, Japanese loyally served the Emperor, the symbol of power. After the way, they loyally served Uncle Sam as the New Top Power.

... ... ...

US has lots of problems, but most smart people around the world want to move to the US to work in Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Real Estate, and etc. There are foreigners in China, but the system is rigged by nationalism to keep top positions in Chinese hands. But in the US, due to demise of white race-ism and nationalism, non-white newcomers can rise to the very top very fast. Look at all the obscenely rich Hindus in Silicon Valley. Also, white goyim who made America let Jews take over. The Jewish takeover of a majority white Christian nation sent a message to the world that ANYONE can come to the US and reach the top. If Chinese elites still favor fellow Chinese, white elites no longer favor white folks and prefer to do business with non-white elites. So, most of the top talents will flow to the US.

Also, tons of peons are willing to move to the US to do jobs Americans won't do. So, US will have tons of brains and tons of peons. (The Middle will suffer though as it's hard for the middle class and working class to have bargaining power if they can be replaced by foreigners or if their jobs can be shipped overseas.) US population is likely to be 700 or 800 million by 2100. Also, America has much more resources than China. It has more oil, better land, more minerals. And US also has Alaska, a world unto itself. (Russians sure were stupid to sell it.)

Rabbitnexus , says: February 21, 2019 at 1:36 am GMT
@Asagirian That's a very selective reading of things, and a lot of debatable generalizations about other nations the US one it seems is all you know personally. Too much to challenge it all but just the point about Jews not killing other Jews has to be questioned. Jewish elites sacrifice Jews without qualms when they see it as a means to an end, witness the "Holocaust" which was instigated and fed by Jewish elites who did all they could to ensure Jewish refugees from Europe only went to Palestine or back to oppression.

There were Jews in armies on both sides of the two world wars. Over 150,000 German Jews fought in WWII in the Wehrmacht. Then there have been the instances of Zionist false flag terrorism in various Middle Eastern countries to drive yet more Jews to Palestine.

As for the best and brightest making a beeline for the USA that was yesterday. These days that flow is slowing and by no means are the best and brightest headed that direction and more to the point, many of America's best and brightest are beginning to emigrate to greener pastures as the writing on the wall becomes more obvious.

What you describe as a US renaissance is no such thing. Although the demographics are probably about right. It represents the end of the USA in it's traditional self perception and the aftermath of empire collapse. History doesn't support the rosy outlook you project.

[Feb 21, 2019] The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon. ..."
"... Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice. ..."
"... A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has. ..."
"... America cannot compete with China commercially ..."
"... Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future. ..."
"... Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." ..."
"... As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder. ..."
Feb 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.

Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.

The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line. The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.

A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has.

Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God's chillun love the Empire.

For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland, plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).

China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America has to stop China's economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it will not get another chance.

The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future.

America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." The indispensable country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China's stuff.

Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered. But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.

As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder.

The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and 920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing edge.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new administration.

The first rule of empire is, "Don't let your enemies unite." Instead, Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and recognition that America is not an ally but a master.

It is now or never. If America's great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another country.

To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."


WorkingClass , says: February 20, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT

The U.S. is broke. And stupid. Soon she will be forced to repatriate her legions.
Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 8:04 pm GMT
Great summary!

"Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire."

Turkey may soon join them, then Iraq might revolt. South Korea has tired of the warmongering and may join too, which is why Washington is giving them the lead in dealing with North Korea. But a united Korea identifes more with China than the USA, so the USA wants to block that idea. The Germans are unhappy too, with all the warmongering, immigration, and American arrogance.

Isabella , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:05 pm GMT
Sorry Fred, but you're too late. It's all over. Just that your maniacal rulers, i.e. Pompeo, Bolton et al can't see it. Or, Cognitive Dissonance being painful, refuse to.

Warsaw recently was a case in point. The two biggest European countries, Germany and France refused to even send a senior representative. All people did was listen in an embarrassed silence while Pompeo tried to make like a latter day Julius Cesear. At the same time, Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Sochi, and worked out how they were going to take the next solving the mess in Syria, the way they want it.

Incidentally, you could also go onto YouTube and watch RT's subtitled [also horrible voice over, but you can't have everything I guess] of President Putin's "Address to Parliament and the Nation". It runs for close to 1.5 hours. You will hear the problems Russia has, how Putin addresses the concerns of the people, their complaints re poor access in country areas to medicine, and his orders on how this is to be fixed.

But you will also hear the moves forward, that Russia now has a trade surplus [remember those?] and can afford all the programs it needs. It's the world leading exporter of Wheat, and other commodities are catching up.

Then he will tell you and show videos of the latest 2 defense weapons – and they are things America cannot defend against. He also in light of the US withdrawing from the INF treaty made a very clear statement, should the US be so stupid as to think it can use Europe as it's war ground, and have Europeans get killed instead of Americans. "Put Intermediate sites in Europe and use just one, and not only will we fire on the European site that sent it, but we will also take out the "decision making centre", wherever this is".

Ponder that for a while. There is nothing US can do. The dollar is slowly being rejected and dumped. The heartland is reamed out after billions took the productive facilities and put them in China [so kind]. The homeless and desperate are growing in numbers.

It's all over, Fred. Time to start planning what to do when the mud really hits the fan.

foolisholdman , says: February 20, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I particularly liked:

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy.

Asagirian , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside down.

But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites.

Andrei Martyanov , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT

It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.

Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:

The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence.

Philip Owen , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:22 pm GMT
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.

India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power, not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.

Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?

Si1ver1ock , says: February 20, 2019 at 10:24 pm GMT
I for one do not wish the Chinese any ill. They have worked hard to get where they are, whereas our leaders have betrayed us.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?103023-1/the-great-betrayal

Philip Owen , says: February 21, 2019 at 12:46 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts Something wrong here. Government spending in either country is far more than 2%.
atlantis_dweller , says: February 21, 2019 at 2:19 am GMT

The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.

.

Not to notice (or rather, not to notice one's own noticing) what the majority doesn't notice (OK: they don't notice that they notice, actually) is part of humankind's cerebral package too.
You once called it the law of the pack. It can be given innumerable names -- just it doesn't change.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted.

.
It's what follows ripe democracy, invariably -- meanjng that it can arguably not be helped.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website February 21, 2019 at 2:23 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts Finally a bright spot in an otherwise depressingly-fairly-truthful article. Less Government spending is a GOOD thing, I mean, unless you are a flat-out Communist, of course ohhhhh .

And yes, the scale is WAY off. How could those 0.8 to 2.05% numbers seem even close to reality to anyone who has a clue. I can't vouch for China, but the US number is off by a factor of 20 to 25 . Come on, Godfree, you're (a tad bit) better than that!

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website February 21, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
That's not a bad article in general, but, as usual, Mr. Reed doesn't really have that analytical mind to know what's really been, and is, going on.

1) There were PLENTY of Americans, many of them even politicians who wanted a "peace dividend" after the Cold War was won. G.H.W Bush and the neocons put the kibosh on that. The current version of empire-building didn't have to be. The Israeli-influenced neocons are most of the reason for the post-Cold-War empire building.

2) It's not ALL about oil anymore – it seems to be a diminishing factor, what with the US producing more oil than it imports, at this point. Mr. Reed could use a dose of Zerohedge.com, as, along with their gloom-and-doom, they have opened my eyes to the American meddling around the world to keep support of the Reserve Currency, the US dollar. Lots of the countries in which the US causes trouble were trying to get out of the dollar world with their trade.

3) Related to (2) here, China and Russia both want to eliminate the use of the dollar in trade, including with each other. That bothers a lot of people who understand how bad the outlook for the US economy really is, and what it would mean for the dollar to no longer be used around the world for trade.

4) American government has handed China a completely one-sided deal (FOR China) in trade since the mid-1990's and Bill Clinton. It's time to end that, which is what the trade war is about. I don't dispute that American could be in a whole lot more pain over it than the Chinese, but it's like medicine – take it now, or suffer even more later.

America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

AGREED wholeheartedly!

Bruce County , says: February 21, 2019 at 3:33 am GMT
@peterAUS I agree .. Canada is "not" under America's boot. As a Canadian I respect the security America provides Canada on the world stage but it would be a cold day in hell when i would submit to an America with a gun in his hand. And im pretty sure our best buddies in jolly ol England might have something to say. This isnt a pissing match. Empire is a fickle bitch.
peterAUS , says: February 21, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
@Bruce County Pretty much.
As far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned it's crystal clear. Somebody has to provide security for our way of life here; before it was United Kingdom, now it's USA.
Hehe definitely preferable to China.
Or Japan.
Or anyone here in Pacific.

If Americans want to deploy a full corps, whatever, no prob. Again, as far as "fair skinned" English speaking citizens here are concerned. I'd even say it applies to Polynesians around.
Now, can't say it applies to our Mohammedan citizens, and definitely not to Chinese.

It's amusing to see Westerners around here keen on replacing USA empire with Chinese. Hehe talking about self-hate.
Granted, there are people among them who really believe in all that propaganda coming from Beijing. Well better than taking Prozac or similar, I guess, so all good.

swamped , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:09 am GMT
"Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice." That is pretty astonishing, given that most of the columns on sites like this & even in more MSM-style publications rehash this theme ad infinitum. It may, in fact, be more a matter of people simply getting tired of hearing it over and over that leads them to shrug and turn to something different. It's not news anymore. How many columns can anyone squeeze out of the same threadbare topic. Many years ago, during first Cold War, it was still somewhat daring to expose this partially hidden truth; but now it's old hat on both the left & right.No one really needs someone to tell them again what everyone already knows, that's easy – but what to do about it, that's the hard part!
Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
@Simply Simon I'm not an economist either, but it looks like the Chinese have outspent us 2:1 in R&D since 2012.

That, plus their better educated youngsters, gives them an awesome advantage going forward.

Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:27 am GMT
@Philip Owen This is a subset of government spending and only covers R&D.

It doesn't cover corporate R&D spending, though I'm guessing that in that regard, the two countries are even. If anyone has the numbers I'd be grateful if they'd share them.

Godfree Roberts , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Can you provide sources and figures for your claim that the US number is off by a factor of 20 to 25?

That would imply that the USG is spending $9 trillion–50% of GDP–on R&D alone.

chris , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
@Isabella Excellent comment, Isabella!
Stevelancs , says: February 21, 2019 at 5:47 am GMT
@Simply Simon Godfrees graph should be entitled "USA v China in Gov't R&D Spending".
It's here..

https://www.quora.com/There-are-predictions-about-Chinas-economy-surpassing-the-USs-economy-in-the-future-but-are-there-predictions-of-China-surpassing-the-US-in-science-and-innovation-in-the-future

[Feb 19, 2019] THE NEW YORK TIMES IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

That's too harsh, but the commenter has a point: NYT times is mostly a propaganda outlet. That does not exclude publishing rare objective articles.
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rational says: February 18, 2019 at 6:29 am GMT 100 Words

Thanks for the article, Sir. Welcome to unz.com.

The media in most countries report the news in a neutral manner. Since the Judaists bought the media, they turned media into weapons of terror, by:

a. Fake news -- outright lies (eg. calling alien invaders "migrants").
b. Manufacturing scandals that THEY make up eg. blackface.
c. Harassing and abusing patriots and others and calling them racists, getting them fired from jobs, etc.

None of these are legitimate jobs of the media. The New York Times and most Zionists controlled media in this country are therefore criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations and these criminals belong in prison.

[Feb 19, 2019] Iranian spying Or neocon 9-11 coverup by Kevin Barrett

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Most of the US attendees might better be described as sincere American patriots. Former Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), whom I personally recruited for the conference, is widely acknowledged as an all-American hero for his principled stance against the Vietnam war, his role in exposing the Pentagon Papers, and his courageous advocacy of 9/11 truth.

Merlin Miller, a family values oriented filmmaker who once ran for president, is another all-American hero who attended the Hollywoodism Conference. Merlin Miller's pro-American, anti-Zionist-Hollywood perspective is as patriotic as it gets.

And then there was Culture Wars editor E. Michael Jones, another conservative American patriot who wants to take his country back.

While all three all-American heroes are in varying degrees critical of Israel and its occupation of American politics and media, none could possibly be viewed as America haters.

Notes

[1] I was witch-hunted in 2006 by State Rep. Steve Nass for "teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories" at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But in fact I had never done so, nor had I any plans to do so. While teaching African Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison between 2001 and 2006, I had never once revealed to students my personal views of 9/11, nor did I ever discuss the research that gave rise to those views.

None of my students up to that point even knew what my views of 9/11 were, unless they had stumbled upon one of my occasional teach-ins, or read my published work on the issue, which I did not bring into the classroom.

Yet Stanley Fish lied brazenly about me in his NYT op-ed , libelously claiming: "Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled 'Islam: Religion and Culture' acknowledged on a radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government."

I immediately wrote to The New York Times urging them to correct their libelous error. They refused to do so. Instead, they published several other letters all taking for granted Fish's outrageous and utterly baseless lie.

[Feb 19, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.veteranstoday.com

Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:

" We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."

It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.

As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American taxpayers at least six trillion dollars. [1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries." [2]

Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.

The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here.


[Feb 19, 2019] Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube

Highly recommended!
This is a powerful political statement... Someaht similar to Tucker Carlson stance...
Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com

"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."

[Feb 19, 2019] Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt says: February 19, 2019 at 3:01 pm GMT 200 Words ...

...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.

US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.

[Feb 19, 2019] What does that sound like? A Stalin-era confession? "I have betrayed the Party. I have betrayed the Revolution."

Notable quotes:
"... The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT

Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and recanted. She apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying "Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."

What does that sound like? A Stalin-era confession? 'I have betrayed the Party. I have betrayed the Revolution. I humbly request to be sent to Joo-lag.'

That 30s Show!

DESERT FOX , says: February 19, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT
The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm and in fact the Zionists are in fact in that special place here in America where they reign above all and none dare call them out for their genocide of the Palestinians or the fact they did 911 and murdered some 3000 Americans.

So great is the Zionist control of the US government that no congressman who values his position in congress dares criticize Zionists and goes along with everything that Israel and the Zionists do, and if fact congress would be more accurately called the lower house of the Knesset!

... Orwell has got to be spinning in his grave!

Charles Pewitt , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:01 pm GMT
Accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" are used by the JEW/WASP ruling class to cover up the treasonous activities of the JEW/WASP ruling class.

When CIA Leprechaun Boy Buckley wanted to attack Pat Buchanan because Buchanan was skeptical of wars that benefited Israel, Buckley the whore called Buchanan an "anti-Semite." In fact, the CIA Leprechaun scumbag Buckley wrote a whole book screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" and Pat Buchanan. Buckley is a disgusting Leprechaun rat who is now roasting in the hottest pits of fiery Hell!

When disgusting rat whores in the US Congress such as Charles Schumer want to cover the fact that they are pushing JEW NATIONALISM by pushing to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel, they accuse those who call them out on their actions by the swear word of the ruling class: "anti-Semite."

Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia. US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.

[Feb 19, 2019] The Growing Anti-Semitism Scam by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite effective. ..."
Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

It was manufactured outrage, with political leaders from both parties latching on to a media frenzy to score points against each other. Even though it is perfectly legitimate for a Congresswoman on the Foreign Affairs Committee to challenge what AIPAC does and where its money comes from, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi complained that Omar's "use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel's supporters" was "deeply offensive." Chelsea Clinton accused Omar of "trafficking in anti-Semitism." President Donald Trump, who has admitted that his Mideast policy is intended to serve Israeli rather than U.S. interests, also jumped in, saying "I think she should either resign from congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee."

Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and recanted. She apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying "Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize." But she also bravely wrote "At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."

Pelosi approved of the apology. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who is running for president in 2020, chimed in to make sure that everyone knew how much she loves Israel, saying "I'm glad she apologized. That was the right thing to do. There is just no room for those kinds of words. I think Israel is our beacon of democracy. I've been a strong supporter of Israel and that will never change."

Two days later, a motion sponsored by Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York passed by a 424 to 0 vote. It was specifically intended to serve as a rebuke to Omar. It stated that "it is in the national security interest of the United States to combat anti-Semitism around the world because there has been a significant amount of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hatred that must be most strongly condemned."

Congressional votes professing love for Israel notwithstanding, the fact is that there is a massive , generously funded effort to corrupt America's government in favor of Israel. It is euphemistically called the Israel Lobby even though it is overwhelmingly Jewish and it boasts fairly openly of its power when talking with its closest friends about how its money influences the decisions made on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Its combined budget exceeds one billion dollars per year and it includes lobbying powerhouses like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which alone had $229 million in income in 2017, supporting more than 200 employees. It exists only to promote Israeli interests on Capitol Hill and throughout the United States with an army of lobbyists and its activities include using questionably legal all expenses paid "orientation" trips to Israel for all new congressmen and spouses.

McCarthy and the other stooges in Congress deliberately sought to frame the argument in terms of Ilhan Omar having claimed that he personally was receiving money from pro-Israel sources and that money influenced his voting. Well, the fact is that such activity does take place and was documented three years ago by the respected Foreign Policy Journal , which published a piece entitled "The Best Congress AIPAC can Buy" as well as more recently in an al-Jazeera investigative expose using a concealed camera.

And Kevin McCarthy does indeed receive money from Israel PACs – $33,200 in 2018 . The amount individual congressmen receive is dependent on their actual or potential value to Israel. Completely corrupt and enthusiastically pro-Israel Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey received $548,507 in 2018 . In the House, Beto O'Rourke of Texas received $226,690. The numbers do not include individual contributions of under $200, which are encouraged by AIPAC and can be considerable. In general, congressmen currently receive over $23,000 on average from the major pro-Israel organizations while Senators get $77,000.

But, of course, direct donations of money are not the whole story. If a congressman is unfriendly to Israel, money moves in the other direction, towards funding an opponent when re-election is coming up. Former Rep. Brian Bard has observed that "Any member of Congress knows that AIPAC is associated indirectly with significant amounts of campaign spending if you're with them, and significant amounts against you if you're not with them." Lara Friedman, who has worked on the Hill for 15 years on Israel/Palestine, notes how congressmen and staffs of "both parties told me over and over that they agreed with me but didn't dare say so publicly for fear of repercussions from AIPAC."

A good example of how it all worked involves one honest congressman, Walter Jones of North Carolina, who recently passed away. In 2014, "Wall Street billionaires, financial industry lobbyists, and neoconservative hawks" tried to unseat Jones by bankrolling his primary opponent . The "dark money" intended to defeat him came from a PAC called "The Emergency Committee for Israel," headed by leading neoconservative Bill Kristol. Jones' war views, including avoiding a war with Iran, were clearly perceived as anti-Israel.

And one should also consider contributions directly to the political parties. Israeli/U.S. dual nationals Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the largest single donors to the GOP and to the Democrats, having contributed $82 million and $8,780,000 respectively in the 2016 presidential campaign. Both have indicated openly that Israel is their top priority.

If they have demonstrated fealty to Israel while in office, many Congressmen also find that loyalty pays off after retirement from government with richly remunerated second careers in Jewish dominated industries, like financial services or the media. And there are hundreds of Jewish organizations that contribute to Israel as charities, even though the money frequently goes to fund illegal activity, including the settlements. Money also is used to buy newspapers and media outlets which then adhere to a pro-Israel line, or, where that does not work, to buy advertising that is conditional on being friendly to Israel. So the bottom line is indeed "the Benjamins" and the corruption that they buy.

Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Education Trust said in January that "One person questioning the truth of the Holocaust is one too many." That is nonsense. Any, and all, historical events should be questioned regularly, a principle that is particular true regarding developments that carry a lot of emotional baggage. The Israel Lobby would have all Americans believe that any criticism of Israel is motivated by historic hatred of Jews and is therefore anti-Semitism. Don't believe it. When the AIPAC crowd screams that linking Jews and money is a classic anti-Semitic trope respond by pointing out that Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media over Israel. Terrible things are being done in the Middle East in the name of Jews and of Israel and it all comes down to those Benjamins and the silence they buy by accusing all critics of anti-Semitism. Just recall what the Israeli minister admitted, "It's a trick, we always use it."


wayfarer , says: February 19, 2019 at 5:15 am GMT

Israel, the Trust Fund Nation.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Boy

Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans.

Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.

Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of over a billion people.

And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.

Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

source: https://ifamericaknew.org/stat/cost.html

Colin Wright , says: February 19, 2019 at 5:37 am GMT
Here's Nancy Pelosi on what's most important about America.

"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are."

RobinG , says: February 19, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT

.Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media over Israel.

Absolutely, and this 4 part documentary, "The Israel Lobby in the U.S." proves it's every bit as bad as you imagine, maybe worse.

Start with this, Part 2, which focuses on Congress. (Part 1 introduces the undercover reporter, and shows how the Israel Lobby operates on college campuses.)

The Israel Lobby in the U.S. – Documentary by Al Jazeera (Part 2 of 4 )

Wizard of Oz , says: February 19, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT
@Marcus Aurelius Tarkus If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to learn that the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism accusation. It stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset about the shame of antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.
Technomad , says: February 19, 2019 at 7:27 am GMT
A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the "Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they think Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven, but don't want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.
Tyrion 2 , says: February 19, 2019 at 9:23 am GMT
Rashida Tlaib believes that US States must be banned from making geopolitical considerations a part of which companies they do business with. She calls it a free speech issue.

On the other hand, she also believes that States, and the Federal Government, must discriminate in favour of companies not owned by white people. She calls that an equality issue.

She often calls into question all manner of other people's loyalties, while she is also endlessly talking about Palestine, and how Israel must become majority Palestinian.

In a one off piece of consistency, she also supports the same thing for America though, as she want to abolish immigration enforcement. Which would obviously directly lead to abolishing America itself.

Meanwhile, Philip Giraldi pretends that he thinks $23,000 of campaign contributions will buy a US Congressman. In which case, Jezz Bezos could have bought 10 literally every single minute with the money he made in 2018.

People disagree with you. They have reasons. Cluelessly implying it is because they are all bought by the Jews makes you look dumb, especially to them.

Father Coughlin , says: February 19, 2019 at 11:45 am GMT
Klobuchar:

"I've been a strong supporter of Israel and that will never change."

I've been noticing this twist a lot lately/ I.e. .. Israel could start launching its many nukes indiscriminately and she would still support it.

Sean , says: February 19, 2019 at 11:47 am GMT
Israel came into being because Britain needed to get America into the WW1, and the American leadership were glad of the the PR/ Media and political wherewithal of Jews to help get the USA in. Even Germany felt it had to match the Balfour Declaration. The Jewish community has not declined in influence since WW1.

If the US had nothing better to worry about they could, and would, deal with the subjugation of the whole political system on the issue, but the fact is the priorities lie elsewhere. The Israel Lobby are an opponent best avoided, and the West has to concentrate on China.

Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website February 19, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
If one were to read the U.S. mainstream media one would think that there has been a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, but that claim is incorrect. What has been taking place is not hatred of Jews but rather a confluence of two factors

As well as the factors you mention -- Israeli behaviour and broadening the definition of anti-Semitism -- the Internet has enabled millions of gentiles to become 'Jew woke', which inevitably leads to a rise in what Jews perceive as anti-Semitic comment.

The Irish Savant recently blogged about a lecture by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim: 'He sees Jews as having no moral obligations to us [gentiles] at all, we're there to be robbed, exploited and, where possible, physically destroyed.'

Memo to Jews: Has it crossed your minds that anti-Semitism is your fault?

dearieme , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:22 pm GMT
I'd always reckoned myself soundly philo-semitic, based mainly on my father's dealings with British Jews, backed up by my own acquaintanceships amongst them.

I've cooled in the last few years. That's because two or three times one website comment threads I've made factual remarks about Palestine that have led to vituperative responses from commenters who have presumably been Jewish, perhaps Israelis.

I'm not so daft as to think that a few internet nutters or crooks should outweigh personal experience but it has made me a little more sensitive to institutionalised bullying on behalf of Israel. An example was the pressure recently put on the (British) Labour Party to adopt Israel's favoured definition of anti-semitism. I accept, of course, that there are lots of disgusting anti-semites in that party but I'm damned if I see why a whole political party should be expected to swallow uncritically some other buggers' definition of anti-semitism.

Anonymous [388] Disclaimer , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:27 pm GMT

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pompeo-in-poland-urges-the-country-to-pass-holocaust-restitution-legislation/

In Warsaw, Pompeo urges Poland to pass Holocaust restitution law
Poland is the only EU member without comprehensive legislation to return, or provide compensation for, private property confiscated by the Nazis

By JTA
14 Feb 2019

As part of his remarks, Pompeo called on the Polish government to resolve outstanding restitution issues.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of Holocaust-era property restitution during his first official visit to Poland.

"We also appreciate the importance of resolving outstanding issues of the past, and I urge my Polish colleagues to move forward with comprehensive private property restitution legislation for those who lost property during the Holocaust era," he said.

Gideon Taylor, chair of operations for the World Jewish Restitution Organization, said he welcomed Pompeo's "expression of his commitment to securing justice for Holocaust survivors and their families. This is a powerful affirmation of the importance of this issue to the United States."

His first state visit and he makes this the key issue.

Bardon Kaldian , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:28 pm GMT
Here we go again.

1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom

2. Jews, as a national collective, have some unpleasant traits, among them, recently, emotional blackmail misusing the shoah to extort money from most white/Euro-derived nations. This behavior, similar to divorced women's scheming, should be publicly exposed & denounced. OK guys, you suffered, we admit, but others suffered too, so to hell with this game

3. US political system, Jews & Gentiles, is too plutocratic, with all these PACs, big donors, super PACs & whatnot. This should be reformed because the very system perpetuates corruption & suicidal policy at all levels

Rurik , says: February 19, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

Thus, is there a significant difference, ethical or otherwise between being bought by the NRA, the health insurers, the organised aged, the arms industry, the sugar/biofuels/cattle lobbies, trial lawyers etc as compared with Israel?

Well wiz, while it's true that the arms industry and Big Sugar, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and others, are responsible for the deaths of millions of people, including Americans, there's no evidence that they deliberately murdered Americans in cowardly and treacherous acts of war, as Israel has done repeatedly, as with the cowardly and treacherous attack on the USS Liberty, and the cowardly and treacherous false flag attack on 9/11.

So as to your query over the ethical question of extorting Americans to lavish lucre on an enemy state with the blood of thousands of Americans on its hands, this question should answer itself.

Why are Americans looted to fund an enemy state that murders Americans with fiendish glee, as the "dancing Israelis" so egregiously demonstrates.

It's like the people of Iraq being taxed to pay for Tony Blair or Dubya's new private jet. Forcing the victims of war crimes to fund their abusers.

Lobbyists for Big Tobacco are saints by comparison.

Mikhail , says: Website February 19, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
Hypocrisy Over Omar

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/02/18/putting-new-cold-war-into-proper-perspective.html

Excerpt –

American mass media is especially two faced when it comes to outing intolerance. A good deal has been made over over Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's comments on the influence of AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee). The anti-Russian establishment hack journalist Julia Ioffe tweeted her belief that Omar's comments are "anti-Semitic" (anti-Jewish). I'm not too familiar with what Omar has said about Jews over the course of time. I doubt that it['s more repugnant than what Ioffe has stated about Russians.

There has been no letting up with Ioffe. In one recent mass media TV appearance, she said (in a joking tone) that a relaxation of Russian gun laws isn't a good idea because Russians drink too much. In another prominent TV segment, Ioffe stated that when the Russians call someone corrupt, that person must be pretty bad.

Some generalizations are hypocritically more acceptable than others. A good number of Western reared Russians see thru this gross hypocrisy. On the subject of Russia, these individuals regularly get limited coverage in Western mass media.

Anonymous [388] Disclaimer , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:08 pm GMT
@Realist

A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the "Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they think Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven, but don't want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.

Aaahhh the beauty of religion ..a very old method for controlling people.

This is Protestantism, which was a Jewish revolutionary movement.

jacques sheete , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:15 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom

Who's blaming them for that?

Here's what they get the blame for

"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us." Explaining why God allowed non-Jews long lives, he added: "Imagine that your donkey would die, you'd lose your income. [The donkey] is your servant. That's why he [the gentile] gets a long life, to work well for the Jew."
This summer, Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira, who head an influential seminary in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, published The King's Torah, a 230-page guide to how Jews should treat non-Jews.
The two rabbis concluded that Jews were obligated to kill anyone who posed a danger, immediate or potential, to the Jewish people, and implied that all Palestinians were to be considered a threat. On these grounds, the pair justified killing Palestinian civilians and even their babies.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/12/10/israel-s-racist-rabbis/print

PS: The Israeli goons get the blame for much more, if you're able to catch the drift.

Colin Wright , says: February 19, 2019 at 1:19 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz 'If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to learn that the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism accusation. It stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset about the shame of antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.'

The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite effective.

Islamophobes feel entirely free to publically walk their dog these days. Speaking for myself, I feel entirely free to express my opinions about blacks, and frequently do. I'd do the same with respect to other groups if I felt strongly enough.

But to be labelled anti-semitic? I'll caught myself hesitating to click 'publish' when I notice that my post could reasonably be read as 'anti-semitic.'

The club still works.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:06 pm GMT
The United States of America must have political leaders who will stop the JEW/WASP ruling class rats from using accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" to stop debate on policy issues. The rats who screech about so-called "anti-Semitism" must be ignored!

Tweets from 2015:

Bragadocious , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
With all the dirty cash swirling around the Swamp, it's almost hard to believe that Kevin McCarthy can be bought for $33,200. Seems to me the figure has to be much higher, probably in the mid 6 figures per year. Those sub-$200 donations need to be reported, with names attached. I wonder how many of them are precisely $198, since the Saturday people love gifts that are a multiple of 18. Funny since 18 is also the alphanumeric code for a famous world leader.
Charles Pewitt , says: February 19, 2019 at 3:19 pm GMT
Marco Rubio is a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jews. Marco Rubio puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. Jew billionaires pay Marco Rubio to put the interests of Israel over the interests of the United States.

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire will screech on about so-called "anti-Semitism" if you call Marco Rubio a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jew billionaires.

Tweet from 2015:

[Feb 19, 2019] Empire is always dominated by a group, and US empire is dominated by Jews. If the US is merely after Empire, why not cook up excuses to sanction, invade, and destroy Israel?

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: Website February 17, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMT

They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.

I disagree. Empire is always dominated by a group, and US empire is dominated by Jews. If the US is merely after Empire, why not cook up excuses to sanction, invade, and destroy Israel? After all, the world community has condemned Israel many times over for its myriad crimes. Also, why not invade and smash Saudi Arabia as well? If US is just after empire and more wars, why not wage war on Israel and Saudis? More bucks for the military industrial complex.

In truth, the US empire is selective. It is not empire for empire's sake but empire for Zion's sake. That is why US empire targets Russia, Syria, and Iran while hailing Israel and protecting Saudi Arabia. US empire is premised on the biases and hatreds of its ethnic super-elites. "Is it great for the Jews?"

[Feb 19, 2019] The new definition of anti-semitism

Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

"An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews."– Joe Sobran

[Feb 18, 2019] Trump pandering to Jewish lobby: Pittsburgh shooting an assault on humanity

Notable quotes:
"... Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. ..."
"... Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life". ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Seraphim , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:11 am GMT

@Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash.

But he takes them very, very seriously.

"Trump: Pittsburgh shooting an 'assault on humanity', by Tal Axelrod – 10/27/18" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/413492-trump-pittsburg-shooting-an-attack-on-humanity

"President Trump continued to condemn the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed at least 11 people.

"The hearts of all Americans are filled with grief following the monstrous killing of Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., you've all seen it, you've been watching it, it's horrible," he said at a rally in Murphysboro, Ill.

"This evil anti-Semitic attack is an attack on all of us, it is an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst," Trump added. "The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue It must be confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head."

Through the centuries, the Jews have endured terrible persecution And those seeking their destruction, we will seek their destruction. And when you have crimes like this, whether it's this one or another one on another group, we have to bring back the death penalty," he said. [the audience exploded in wild ovations].

Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life".

*The Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל‬, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, previously הפונד הלאומי‬, Ha Fund HaLeumi) was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine (later the British Mandate for Palestine, and subsequently Israel and the Palestinian territories) for Jewish settlement.

[Feb 18, 2019] While highly unlikely Tulsi Gabbard might be able to do what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to drain the swamp (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State)

it looks like alt-right is not that enthusiastic about Tulsi, but most will support it over Trump...
Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:

Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump

Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power, by the way. Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a "US Putin" nor does she have the kind of institutional and popular backing Putin had. So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one

Finally, if Gabbard truly is "for real" then the Deep State will probably "Kennedy" her and blame Russia or Iran for it.

Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like this one:

I don't know about you, but I am rather impressed!

At the very least, she does what "Occupy Wall Street" did with its "1%" which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much lower but politically very effective. In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like " warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die ". This is all very good and useful for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethink concepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing !

The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.

Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war. They also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a "normal" country and they couldn't care less about the fate of the people of the USA. All they want is for us all to become their serfs.

All of this is hardly big news. But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard's candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy. As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy. Be it the ongoing US aggression against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical euphemism and say with confidence: "the prognosis is poor".


Adrian E. , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:33 am GMT

In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:

– Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign
– Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump

I think it is unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard caves in so soon. The way she has started her campaign, she is certainly aware that she has cut off herself from the normal donors of Democrats, and the way she talks shows that she is not afraid of alienating them even more because she won't get money from them, anyway. The plan is to do the same like Bernie Sanders 2016 and raise small donations. Many Democratic candidates now say they don't take PAC money, but there are different ways of getting money from big donors – Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of those who are more serious about avoiding reliance on big donors. It could work. In 2016, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton regularly had to interrupt her campaign in order to attend dinners with superrich donors, while Bernie Sanders asked people to donate as a part of his campaign on social media, and Sanders regularly outraised Clinton. Of course, 2016, we just saw that for the primaries, but it might also work for the general election (and numbers are not everything, Hillary Clinton spent far more than Donald Trump and still lost, so even if small donations would lead to a somewhat lower sum, she could still win with a popular message). And not only could it work, I think it would be the only way for Tulsi Gabbard to succeed because she has probably already been too outspoken about some things to ever gain back the trust of the neocons and their allies in the media and the billionaire donor class.

Of course, if Tulsi Gabbard advances in the primaries, she will be attacked most viciously in the media. I am not so sure what the effect will be. On one hand, Trump's victory in the primaries and the general election showed that being hated by mainstream media does not have to be an obstacle that cannot be surmounted, and as long as there are so many primary candidates, such vicious attacks can also make her seem more interesting to some people. On the other hand, her main hurdle are probably the Democratic primaries, and, according to polls, Democrats have lost trust in the mainstream media to a lesser degree than the general public. But then again, vilifying her too much in the liberal media (as it has already started) is also a certain risk for them because it could become too obvious to see that the decisive feature that leads to such attacks is that someone is not seen as reliably pro-neocon, and that could also lead to doubts about the media in leftists who readily accepted the attacks on Trump because they hated him for other reasons. Therefore, I think the main hope of the establishment is that Tulsi Gabbard can be treated as a „minor candidate" and won't get far, in case she becomes a serious contender for the nomination, they are in trouble.

If Tulsi Gabbard wins the nomination, we can almost be certain that the pro-neocon establishment will a) see a re-election of Trump as the lesser evil and b) they will support a pro-establishment third party candidate (already last time, Michael Bloomberg threatened to run if the two major candidates are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, now Howard Schultz seems to have positioned himself that way, though I think he is too ridiculous and ineffective and will be replaced by someone else if the establishment needs a third party candidate because they lose the Democratic primaries). Such a third party candidate probably increases the chances of Trump's re-election (probably a desired side-effect, many of these liberal oligarchs probably prefer Trump to Gabbard and Sanders by far, but it would be difficult for them to support Trump in public, supporting a third party candidate is much easier), but a populist campaign against both Trump and that third party candidate as representatives of a corrupt billionaire class might well be successful.

Then, if Tulsi Gabbard is elected, she certainly runs the risk of ending like JFK, but the fact that so many people now already talk and write about this risk might also protect her to some degree – the danger is so obvious that many people won't believe theories about a lonewolf terrorist easily (and blaming Russia and Iran after Tulsi Gabbard had been vilified as an Assadist and Russian trolls' favorite candidate would also be difficult, if for some reasons relations with Saudi Arabia are not seen as so important any more, the more realistic option of blaming Saudi terrorists may be chosen). Another option would be to impeach her, though that could also be a big risk for the establishment, and depending on who would be her VP, it would not be enough. Of course, there could be bipartisan agreement about blocking all of her initiatives.

Even if she is extremely smart and tough, alone against the united forces of the deep state, establishment media and the bipartisan war party, Tusli Gabbard probably could not achieve very much – of course, she would still be commander in chief and probably could prevent new wars, and she could open some people's eyes about who really holds power, but she could hardly achieve very much. The question is whether she still might get some institutional support like Putin when he became president. I think that is not so unlikely because there are indications that the deep state is internally divided (one small example is that the communications of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were published) and that the neocons' grip on power is far from total. Therefore, it does not seem impossible that with a combination of support in the general public (and she certainly has the potential of becoming very popular) and the support of parts of the deep state that have not been subdued by the neocons, she might be successful – it would be a very harsh power struggle.

As far as caving in to Israel is concerned, Tulsi Gabbard has never been too critical of Israel – there was some relatively mild criticism of attacks on Gaza (in a way that is fairly common among progressives), but in general, she has not been too critical of Israel and has also had some friendly contacts with the pro-Israel lobby. So, while she is very strong and consistent in rejecting neocons and their regime change wars, as far as Israel and Palestinians' rights are concerned, people should probably not expect too much from her. But if she is serious about fighting the neocons and limiting the power of the military-industrial complex and still could win an election, that would already be a big achievement.

Biff , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:22 am GMT
After witnessing the temper tirades and the teeth gnashing of the deep states media minions after the anti-war-lite Donald Trump got elected, I'm guessing Tulsi Gabbard is in for one of two things:

1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom to most debates.

I don't think American Democracy(AKA Empire) is in any mood for another spoiler

Realist , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT

By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!

This is one of the few things I agree with Ilhan Omar about. Abrams is a felonious, warmongering prick.

Rich1234 , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
She is very photogenic. So is Kamala Harris.
Projecting an anti-war position against promoting the bonafides of her army service will be quite the balancing act of cognitive dissonance, but opposite the hyper-masculine affect a candidate like Trump or Hillary must emote to neutralize an absence of military experience in their résumé.
Then there's that first husband and her family's political machine.
But damn, Tulsi and Kamala photograph impeccably well from every angle.
What are the chances outside of India that three potential presidential candidates of the female persuasion all share a common ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala? No coincidence there.
der einzige , says: Website February 15, 2019 at 1:44 pm GMT
Saker is a serious analyst?

Finding all this information below takes less time than burning a cigarette.

United Christians for Israel, founded and led by pastor John Hagee, have millions of members and call themselves "the largest pro-Israel charity in the United States." The organization was an important factor in the decision of US President Donald Trump in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to transfer the US embassy there.

Gabbard sponsored the resolution of the Congress criticizing Amnesty International for revealing Israeli atrocities against civilians in his blitzkrieg in Gaza in 2014. The resolution stated that Israel "focuses on terrorist targets" and "goes to extraordinary efforts to attack only terrorist actors".
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/22/gaza-and-the-bi-partisan-war-on-human-rights/

What it looked like "focusing on terrorist targets" according to Gabbard can be seen here
https://www.google.pl/search?q=gaza+2014&source=lnms&tbm=isch

Zionism and Islamophobia Gabbard have gained recognition and support from all kinds of unpalatable characters – like right-wing billionaire and Zionist Sheldon Adelson, who loudly declared that "all Muslims are terrorists".

In addition to Israel's loyal defender, Gabbard has also proved to be a credible servant of Adelson's business interests. Introduced regulations against online gambling to protect the casino's empire from competition on the Internet. Adelson thanked her, giving her the Champion of Freedom award.
http://time.com/3695948/sheldon-adelson-online-gambling/

Her prejudices against Islam directly stem from her Hindu fundamentalism. Gabbard became one of the main American political supporters of Narendra Modi, the leader of the Hindu sectarian party Bharatiya Janata (BJP) and the current Prime Minister of India.

Being the main minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, Modi helped spark a pogrom against Muslims, in which they killed 2,000 people and displaced over 200,000 people in the ethnic cleansing campaign. Since his victory in the 2014 elections, Modi has been a decidedly pro-Israeli Indian politician and has strong relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the invitation of Modi, Gabbard traveled through India for three weeks during which various Hindu fundamentalists greeted her as their American master. In probably the worst part of the tour, the India Foundation, a formation tuned to the Hindu fascist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), hosted Gabbard to discuss the future of Indian-American relations. After the reactionary lovefest, the Indian newspaper Telegraph called it "the American Sangha mascot"
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/sangh-finds-a-mascot-in-american-tulsi/cid/1579985

After returning to the USA, Gabbard defended Modi against any criticism. She was one of the few democrats who spoke against the federal government's decision to refuse a Modi visa in 2014 because of his abolition of religious freedom

A year earlier, she carried out a successful campaign to abolish legislation calling on India to improve the treatment of religious minorities. Gabbard condemned the bill as an attempt to "influence the outcome of the national elections in India."
https://www.alternet.org/2015/02/curious-islamophobic-politics-dem-congressmember-tulsi-gabbard/

Gabbard's service for the most right-wing forces in Indian politics leaves no doubt about its Islamophobia.

Gabbard supported Donald Trump's claim that Islam itself is the source of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. She claimed that Obama "completely misunderstands the rational Islamic ideology that drives these people."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/knives-are-out-hawaii-dem-faces-backlash-for-taking-on-obama-over-islamist-extremism

As with other leading liberal democrats, Gabbard's alleged progressive values ​​do not extend to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. While she may support the resistance of Indian Native at Standing Rock, she will not support the indigenous people of Palestine and her struggle for self-determination against Israeli colonialism.
http://socialistworker.org/2014/08/13/liberal-champions-of-apartheid

RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:16 pm GMT
@Rich1234

an anti-war position against her army service will be cognitive dissonance..

How so? There's a long tradition of this. See Smedley Butler.

all share a common ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala?

NO! No, no, no . for the umpteenth time. Tulsi has NO Indian heritage. She's only "non-white" because her dad is half Samoan (i.e. Polynesian).

Ned Ludlam , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT
Yawn. Tulsi, Bernie, Corbyn – doesn't matter. The ruling elites have the power to co-opt, demonize or kill them. And, that regime is desperate enough to do this.

We are all waiting for the tectonic impact of some external shocks. Because the system is fragile, over-ripe. Collapse of debt bubbles, an infectious disease epidemic, a rogue general fires off some nukes. Whatever. Just passes the Global Tipping Point, then, everything disintegrates. The centre cannot hold. And at that point the tensions release and people go nuts. The regime divides against itself; the roof falls in. The whole world is waiting, expecting this to happen in some way or form.

Go and max out your credit card, get hard stuff, don't pay, stop buying anything. A few millions doing that. Empty your bank account. Stop paying your mortgage and car loan. Make them chase you. Work to precipitate the Big One. Help tear the fabric beyond its tensile strength. Do your bit.

Don't expect to see Tulsi on your side of the barricades.

sarz , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMT
@Rich1234 Nimrata Randhawa Haley is of Punjabi Sikh ancestry on both sides, genetically closer to southern Europeans than to most Indians.

Kamala Harris is descended from South Indian brahmins on her mother's side. You can't get more Aryan than that – look up the word. And she is Jamaican on her father's side. I haven't seen a picture of him but I imagine he's about as black as fellow Jamaican Colin Powell. An octoroon to use that old-fashioned term. But Negro blood was considered so polluting that just a smidgeon put you with the lower race. It's still working like that, but in victim politics less is more.

Tulsi Gabbard had a WASP mother who became a member of Swami Bhaktivedanta's Krishna devotees. Her father was Polynesian. There's no genes from India. It's a mistake to think of her religion as Hindu, but it's her mistake as well as that of many Indians. Hinduism is not *a* religion because Hinduism is the liberating realization that the idea of *a* religion is very shallow. It is a pleasure to see Tulsi, in videos, going about her devotions.

peterAUS , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:39 pm GMT
Well, apart from obligatory Putin accolade, as

.. "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power, by the way.

a good article, overall.

Especially:

USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.

Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don't understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby

the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.

Hari Hari , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:41 pm GMT
It's interesting to see the prompt [13] Democrat party oppo based on the "right-wing Indian agent" smear. It's exactly analogous to Democrat/CIA attack on "Russian puppet" Trump, when Democrats had absolutely nothing to offer in lieu of a famous loathsome TV asshole they hand-picked to beat like a drum and then lost to.

If it were the case that Tulsi were an Indian fifth-column traitor, like Rubio is a Israeli fifth-column traitor, So what? Objective indicators of world-standard state responsibilities show that the state of India is more developed, more legitimate, and more entitled to responsible sovereignty than the US government. India exceeds US performance on most of the top-level human rights indicators.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/HRIndicatorsIndex.aspx

You can see for yourself, in whatever level of detail you desire, with NGO input exhaustively compiled by elected independent international experts acting in their personal capacity.

Tulsi's exposure to superior Indian human-rights compliance is likely to build her capacity in terms of Responsibility to Protect Pillar 2. She will have a better understanding of rights and rule of law than provincial goober candidates with no international exposure. That will necessarily influence her evolving stance on systematic and widespread Israeli extermination of Palestinian indigenous peoples.

Christian S. Miller , says: February 16, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT
I have never voted for a Democrat. I plan to vote for Gabbard. I have contributed to her campaign. I cringe at her progressive agenda, but I fully support her positions on non-intervention.
Australian lady , says: February 16, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
@der einzige Hope is such a frail and tenuous emotion.
That said, l'm investing some of my dwindling reserves of hope in Tulsi. Your comments are very considered, and l share your concerns for peace with the current play of Theo-politics. Modi is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has successfully incited brutal communalism for electoral gain. But my personal loathing of him has ameliorated over time (I shock myself!) because he has steered a pretty independent course for India, maintaining friendly relations with China for example,despite U.S. pressure to use India as a wedge. His Hinduva ideology appears to be a domestic political tool. This is a cunning but pragmatic approach and is distinct from a religious ideology with global ambitions. The latter is the province of Zionism which is not really a religion but has (other) religious affiliations or "allies",including Hinduism but most importantly Christian zionism (or evangelicism or dispensationalism et al). It seems to me that a lot of what Trump is doing re. "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" is to appease the Christian Zionists who comprise a large chunk of his support base, and not American Jewry.(They are democrats as a foregone conclusion).There is great irony in this if you follow the fantastical narrative of the Christian evangelical apocalypse.
Political ambitions are the scourge of religion.I attend an Anglican Church,very traditional, because my preferred form of worship is hymn singing-the sung mass for Eucharist.I do this in contradistinction(!) to evangelicism. Unfortunately Islam too undergone a political makeover in recent history which has led to un utter corruption of prophet Mohammad's words.It's apogee is Wahhabism, a fad made manifest through money and power and war. Shia is also Islam, but not according to Wahhabis,who do not even relate to Shia as "self-hating Moslems."And do not imagine that the Moslem brotherhood is any better for all the acceptable styling. Sunnism needs to detach itself from ideology.God is in the poetry and not the small print.
Thanks for your patience with my digression. The Saker suggests we examine the Tulsi phenomenon as a diagnostic tool.
This may be useful. But Tulsi as a Hindi wooden horse?
WorkingClass , says: February 16, 2019 at 11:46 am GMT
She cannot be anti war without being anti Israel. Her candidacy is going nowhere.

It would be nice to have an anti war voice in the debates but Gabbard will be adrift in a sea of idiots. How many candidates will there be for the Democratic nomination? Twenty? Eighty? All of them competing for who hates whitey the most. Featuring as a side show Biden and Bernie expressing their shame at their skin color.

If Gabbard wants to be heard she should switch parties and primary Trump. Let him defend his Israel first foreign policy.

simple_pseudonymic_handle , says: February 16, 2019 at 7:56 pm GMT
She is the only prominent politician in the commander-in-chief discussion who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Is there a poll on her standing with the military demographic? An argument can be made that her credibility on fighting more war or fighting less war is an order of magnitude higher than a dozen Trumps, Clintons, et al all put together.

She has seen firsthand the pointlessness of the waste of blood and treasure. How can you root against Gabbard? She is near the only elected official to get any positive press at anitwar.com.

Si1ver1ock , says: February 17, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMT
I have a somewhat contrary analysis although admittedly, it's not based on much.

Tulsi's speech patterns closely resemble Hillary Clinton's. I put this down to various leadership classes they attended which likely have a common source. I think we are seeing a divergence of opinion in the Deep State with some wanting Globalism, while others are unwilling to accept the destruction of the United States as a price for Globalism. Call them the Fortress America wing of the Deep State. They want to rebuild America and preserve its wealth and autonomy while moving toward a world government.

In other words, Tulsi could emerge as the candidate of the MAGA section of the Deep State.

As for Trump, he is waist deep in the Swamp fighting for his life against pretty much everybody. If Omar had her way he would be impeached. Trump's support among Republicans is the only thing keeping from being impeached. His partisan attacks are probably designed to signal his willingness to lead the fight for Republicans, hoping they will defend him in return.

imbroglio , says: February 17, 2019 at 2:21 pm GMT
You make such a convincing case that you've painted yourself into a corner. Your point is that the Ziocons or whatever you call them are so bent on war and empire that they'll destroy anyone who tries to get in their way.

To be credible, because your claim is so extreme, you'd need to explain the abnormal psychology that drives this will to domination. Can you do that? If not, your article -- and a number of your others -- come off as routine Jew- and liberal-bashing. The bashing may or may not be deserved depending on your point of view. But that would be all it is: standard prejudice and bigotry in what you seem to take as a good cause.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: February 17, 2019 at 4:37 pm GMT
@simple_pseudonymic_handle I'm not rooting against her. I'm not rooting at all.

We see from where we've been. I supported Ron Paul. He was ignored, and then cheated.

Voting for Washington wannabes is like watching just the "good programs" on TV, or patronizing the non-disgusting movies that manage to emerge from Hollywood. Those doing so endorse and prop up the tottering, rotten Establishment.

chris , says: February 17, 2019 at 6:28 pm GMT
Another very important thing Tulsi is doing is being a completely different person from Trump but hammering home the same Trump campaign message against the war-lusting elites.

If it wasn't for her, the media and elite mafia could marginalize this entire argument. They'll never let the population vote on these points because then, the jig will be up.

Sir Launcelot Canning , says: February 17, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers. Why is anyone still expecting to get the truth from the MSM? Anyone with half a brain and an internet connection should be able to follow her. Tell all of your grandparents, uncles, and other old fogies to throw away CNN, NYT, Fox, WaPo, NBC, etc. and find the truth online.
Benjy , says: February 17, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT
@jacques sheete The Anti-federalist's never had a chance, nor would Aloha Tulsi. The Boston tea party itself was a false flag attempting to pass blame on to the Indians. How typically American. Lexington was caused by the that same Sam Adams and his free masons from the green dragon, who were firing at both the British and the Militia's, just like they did in Maidan 5 years ago. The US revolution in 1776 was just another Masonic color revolution on behalf of the Rothschild's. These are the same guys who killed Kennedy and pulled off 9/11. Now they have Trump 100% corralled and black balled, and he is one of them anyway.

That was when Wonder Woman Tulsi came surfin' into the Washington swamp, all ready to drain it.

Jake , says: February 17, 2019 at 9:46 pm GMT
True – "The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about. Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war."

The average Liberal voter thinks that Conservatives love Empire while Liberals oppose empires. Likewise, the average Middle American Republican voter thinks America is anything but the new British Empire and that America is always fighting against those bad empires and so must be very active globally to do good and prevent even worse bad.

True – "As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy."

The Anglo-Zionist Empire: the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism that was not stopped dead in its tracks.

It will get worse before it can get better. It cannot be corrected without a rejection of WASP culture, which is replaced with an authentically Christian culture.

Art , says: February 17, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
GOOD! NO TO MORE NUKES!

Tulsi Gabbard presents bill to stop Trump from pulling out of INF treaty

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has introduced a bill to Congress which would prevent President Donald Trump from withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

Speaking at a press conference on Friday morning, Gabbard said that Trump's decision to pull out of the 1988 treaty was "reckless," was "exacerbating a new Cold War" with Russia, and could spark another arms race.

"Walking away from this agreement doesn't solve our problems, it makes them worse. It doesn't bring us closer to peace, it moves us closer to war," she said.

https://www.rt.com/usa/451577-tulsi-gabbard-stop-inf-pullout-trump/

Think Peace -- Art

George , says: February 17, 2019 at 10:16 pm GMT
I am hoping that Gabbard is the next president because it would mean Hindus beat Jews to the White House, and if she serves a full term she will be the first nonprotestant* president to serve a full term, take that Catholics. She will be sworn in with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, bah ha hah ha. The Evangelicals will go berserk (I hope). She declared herself Hindu as a teen, was she baptized?

* Jimmy Carter was 'born again' so he might be the first non main line Protestant or even nonProtestant.

Art , says: February 17, 2019 at 10:37 pm GMT
@Sir Launcelot Canning A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers.

Gabbard will only get media attention when she gets votes.

She needs an ace campaign staff and time in voters faces.

She will win people over.

follyofwar , says: February 18, 2019 at 12:05 am GMT
@JL I think both the anti-war Left and anti-war Right are sizeable and growing. Speaking of the Dissident Right, which I am more in tune with, we just need a courageous leader to rally around. Right now the Dissident Right is more reliably anti-war than any other faction.

But, really, the dissident right is not doctrinaire right at all as they are against Big Business and reject Libertarianism. Tulsi probably doesn't even want the open support of the dissident right (very few are racist white supremacists, although the media has tarred us all with that brush)...

Asagirian , says: Website February 18, 2019 at 2:21 am GMT
@Biff 1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom to most debates.

But what about social media? The MSM mostly ignored Bernie Sanders but he got a huge boost.

I think the real problem with Tulsi is she comes across as too calm for politics. She's not low-energy like Jeb, but she lacks fire.

Also, I'm not sure most progs would be interested in her anti-war platform. They liked Bernie because his message was mostly domestic: Free Stuff!

Americans are anti-war only when too many Americans are getting killed overseas. In the Obama yrs, the US perfected a new way of Open Borders War where US uses proxies to destroy other nations. So, most Americans don't care.

Carroll Price , says: February 18, 2019 at 4:25 pm GMT
@Robert Bruce It's the same 'bait and switch' strategy, that occurs every 4 years. Why change a strategy when the old one works so well? To date, Trump holds the record for fooling the largest number of people, with anti-war candidate, John Kerry coming in a distant 2nd.
c matt , says: February 18, 2019 at 7:59 pm GMT
I suppose there is also a fourth option: Tulsi Gabbard keeps her no-war stance, and follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump did and caves.
peterAUS , says: February 18, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
@c matt Yep.

Not a problem, though. 4 years after she gets tossed out of office. People vote the real deal then.
Or so they think, because he/she caves in too.

And all the while, the game of demographics goes on

Nice, a?

[Feb 18, 2019] Links below could be summed up Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough . But the real reason for such a hostility towards her is that she is against foreign wars of choice

Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Well, as we all saw, the putatively "liberal" legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion. Maybe not as much as that legacy Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing. This may seem bizarre until you realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly "enough" to please the US Ziolobby. Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:

This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search. It could be summed up "Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough". But is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her? I don't think so. I believe that Gabbard's real "ultimate sin" is that she is against foreign wars of choice. That is really her Crime Of Crimes!

The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to "animal Assad", the (latest) "New Hitler", who "gasses his own people". And this is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined! She dared to disobey her AngloZionist masters.

So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times. And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male and "liberal" does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of "crimes".

What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?

It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did not come from "conservative" media outlets or journalists. Not at all! Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly "liberal" sources, which tell us that in 2019 USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.

[Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest?

Highly recommended!
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
Mar 23, 2018 | www.unz.com

denk , March 23, 2018 at 4:44 am GMT

Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake !

Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest,.

It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election !

hehehehhe

[Feb 17, 2019] Trump administration action in Iran, Korea, Venezuela are aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Collin, February 15, 2019 at 9:55 am

...[Trump] administration is still filled with Hawks ...

1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace. The nuclear deal was an effective way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15 years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally it makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly moving away from.)

2) Like it or not, Venezuela is another mission creep for the Trump Administration. Recommend the administration stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)

3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate their accomplishments. It is ridiculous that the administration signed big nuclear deals with NK that don't exist.

[Feb 16, 2019] Eugene McCarthy never became President, but he changed national politics. Gabbard could have a big impact even if she does not win.

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com
Mark Thomason , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:47 pm GMT
Eugene McCarthy never became President, but he changed national politics. Gabbard could have a big impact even if she does not win.

She could also become VP, and at her age that might well be a stepping stone.

[Feb 16, 2019] Do American people care enough about war to vote for Tulsi Gabbard

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

HEL , says: February 16, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT

Gabbard is going nowhere, and while it's true that the powers that be will try to bury her, they don't need to. The simple truth is this: the American public largely doesn't care about the wars and never has. There hasn't been an anti-war movement of any significance since Bush left office, and that was mostly a phony anti-war movement in the first place. It was primarily an anti-Bush movement, and the bulk of the people screaming 'no blood for oil' would've just been screaming some other anti-Bush slogan had our current path of destruction through the Mideast never occurred.

Yes, there has always been a small, independent-minded minority on both the right and left who genuinely oppose American interventionism.

The vast majority of voters, though, don't care much, don't have strong opinions and will largely just follow their leaders. Rank and file Democrats now oppose drawing down from Syria and Afghanistan and want to 'contain' Russia.

This is solely because Trump has made noises in the opposite direction, even if he hasn't done much of anything. And a good portion of the Republicans who say they want out of these wars would support them if Jeb or Rubio were in the White House.

There is a fair bit more genuine antiwar sentiment on the right now than there was 15 years ago. But it's not a dominant issue for many people on the right who didn't always oppose the wars from the get-go. And the mainstream left, again, has totally abandoned the issue.

Only a tiny proportion of the American public considers the endless wars to be the most important issue facing America today.

You don't win campaigns focusing on issues that are regarded as unimportant and where most of the voters in your party oppose you on this point. There is no real antiwar movement. Another full-scale invasion of a previously stable country would generate some serious opposition, sure, but the current slow bleed of endless occupations and occasional opportunistic attacks on already destabilizing regimes can continue forever with little pushback from the public at large.

How anyone could live through the last 15 years of American politics and not realize this is beyond me.

KenH , says: February 16, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT
@Art

That one trick happens to the most important trick that America is facing.

No Art, that would be unchecked legal and illegal immigration and as far as I can tell Tulsi Gandhi is pretty dreadful on that subject. True, the likudniks in the diaspora don't like her because she would be bad for an expansionist Israel...

If elected Tulsi would probably become a Jew tool just like Trump has become. If not, then they'll have another special counsel ready to take her down. That's how the (((deep state))) operates.

[Feb 16, 2019] What other organization/group then CIA is capable of such as perfect job of covering their tracks

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Peredur , says: February 12, 2019 at 11:02 pm GMT

@ariadna "What other organization/group is capable of such as perfect job of covering their tracks."

It is the organization that controls the government and the media that is capable of doing this. In other words, the same organization that was responsible for 9/11 and other major deceptions. It compartmentalizes knowledge of operational details using the need-to-know rule, but it can still be regarded as the same overall entity carrying out all of these deceptions, with the same general goals always applying.

[Feb 16, 2019] There is a tendency, especially among dissenters and conspiracy theorists, to equate the Kennedy family with the Gracchi brothers of the great late Roman republic

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Miville , says: Website February 12, 2019 at 8:29 pm GMT

There is a tendency, especially among dissenters and conspiracy theorists, to equate the Kennedy family with the Gracchi brothers of the great late Roman republic, a model of a good opportunity for the Republic to evolve for the best and that was missed thanks to timely assassinations. Unfortunately that's not the case : JFK was rather a behavioural model of utter political servility, to the point of psychic codependence, towards the media sphere. He was actually the first American president to have been entirely made by the media, and especially by the most intensively Jewish ones as well as by the Hollywood actors' milieu : people even worse than the power elite proper. Anyway the American presidential institution was designed right from the start as a hidden imperial monarchy by adoption where none is admitted except from families having being initiated into the inner occult circles of the oligarchy and consecrated their whole progeny to come for one century and more : there never was the slightest risk that a US President disobey. The fact that the father had slight pro-Nazi inclinations should fool no one : Israel's Likud party has always collaborated with such figures among the non-Jews and anyway JFK's family is nearly Jewish on his mother's side. The American republic, though draping in Roman architecture and symbols, is clearly far more Carthaginian in outlook.

If JFK is to be compared with a Roman character it would be more with a kind of Nero, judging by his general private conduct, his lavish use of public money for private luxuries, and his abundant use of secret services to dispose of no longer useful women. He was all shape and no substance, and also known for a preference for false flags as the royal way to disentangle all diplomatic quandaries, and some of those false flags were so ridiculous that they fell flat, like the Bay of Pigs operation where he had given the orders to simulate the return of Christ. JFK had been put into power to accomplish a very specific mission : highjacking the Catholic Church into a religion 100% compliant with American interests and values (not an easy task) and also with Zionist theology : a most preposterous (and pervert) task but which he carried out in a brillant way. Up to then that religion had been the most opposite to the American enterprise, even more so than the communist enterprise, after the VII Council which that president was made to supervise as a nominal Catholic, the religion was made into some kind of neo-episcopalian thing. JFK did it mostly through the assassinations of countless prelates who would oppose such a turn. JFK also launched the Moonlanding mission in perfect knowledge, through Van Allen and Von Braun, that it was not feasible due to the impossibility to send any living being into space beyond a quite low orbit : he just counted on Hollywood. What he didn't realize is that it would be simpler for the American secret services to ensure the perfect secrecy of his own scheme to eliminate him once all orders to make it work were given. Had he escaped or survived the assassination in Dallas he would have been rapidly known as the very disappointing false liberal and real decadent machiavellian prince he was, one year of tabloid media coverage would have revealed him as an embarrassment to America, even though he was most probably due to die from his chronic illness before campaining for reelection. Thanks to his assassination he was transfigurated from the Nero he was into a kind of perfect tragic hero he was to become in the American dreamworld. In brief he was killed for obeying just to well, to the point of being more useful after death as a model, not for dissent of any kind (even though like all corrupt politicians who feel death to be impending he started making timid regrets and confessions about the power structure around him just a few days before, but in doing so he did no better than for instance FBI's Hoover or France's Mitterrand or Israel's Sharon just before entering mysterious coma).

Let us not be fooled by some allegations as to him having envisioned to do away with the FED by giving back the American state the right to print money : all he did in reality was allowing the American state to emit BONDS (not currency units) payable in metallic silver rather than in USD proper, a way different thing, actually a first move (by avowing the USD was subject to inflation in metallic terms as a judicial precedent to impose other decisions later on) to stealthily undo the convertibility of the dollar into precious metal as was to be finalized under Nixon. Let us not be deluded he envisioned doing away with the CIA : if anything JFK was an overuser of its assassination services, he just wished for the agency, which was then quite decentralized, to be eventually conflated with the FBI. And let us not imagine he was anti-Israel : when he refused Israel the authorization to go nuclear that was under the American Nuclear Industry Lobby's pressure which was then a more Jewish thing than its Israeli counterpart : Israel was seen as too young, too lefty, too hippie-like to be entrusted with everything at once, the real Jewish capital of the world was Manhattan, not Tel Aviv. Israel as an offshore power centre was still in construction and JFK's only concern, shared by his close Jewish appointees as well as by most conservative American Jews, was that it might fall under Soviet pressure for lack of maturity in operating secret services. In those kinds of affairs JFK heeded and obeyed the voice of best-established moneyed interests without delving too much deeply. Thanks to the JFK perfect model of media-tailored politicians the way was paved for Clinton and Obama to come thereafter as natural heirs.

[Feb 16, 2019] The Broken Presidential Destiny of JFK, Jr. by Laurent Guyénot

Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com
JFK Jr. as conspiracy theorist

Let's move on to the next question: how dedicated was John to getting to the bottom of his father's assassination?

According to testimonies from his friends, John Junior was haunted by the death of his father and quite knowledgeable about independent investigations contradicting the Warren Report. In 1999, he was not a newcomer to JFK conspiracy theories; his quest for truth had started as early as the late 1970s. His old high school girlfriend Meg Azzoni, in her self-published book, 11 Letters and a Poem: John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Meg Azzoni (2007), writes that as a teenager, JFK, Jr. was questioning the official version of his father's death: "His heartfelt quest was to expose and bring to trial who killed his father, and covered it up." [28] Quoted in John Koerner, Exploding the Truth: The JFK Jr., Assassination, Chronos Books, 2018, kindle k. 540-45. Don Jeffries, author of Hidden History, claimed that "another friend of JFK, Jr.'s adult inner circle, who very adamantly requested to remain anonymous, verified that he was indeed quite knowledgeable about the assassination and often spoke of it in private." [29] Quoted in Koerner, Exploding the Truth, op. cit., k. 540-5. JFK Jr., said Jeffries in a radio interview, was on "a Shakespearian quest," "to avenge his father's death," like young Hamlet. [30] https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-093-donal...fk-jr/

John is the only Kennedy to have shown a serious determination to pursue this truth, besides his uncle Bobby. And he took the risk of making his interest public in October 1998, when he released a special "Conspiracy Issue" of George magazine , which included an article by Oliver Stone titled "Our Counterfeit History," introduced on the cover as "Paranoid and Proud of It!"

In an article published in 2009 , journalist Wayne Madsen claimed that, two weeks after John's death, "I was scheduled to meet with Kennedy at his magazine's offices in Washington, DC to discuss hiring on as one of a few investigative journalists Kennedy wanted to dig deep into a number of cases, but most importantly that of his father's assassination." [31] Wayne Madsen, "JFK Jr.'s Plane Crash Was Originally Treated As Murder Investigation," Wayne Madsen Report, August 12, 2009, on http://www.whale.to/c/jfk_jr5.html. Madsen told more details to Jeffries, who reports them in his book Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics, Skyhorse publishing, 2016, kindle k. 3981. (There is no confirmation of Madsen's claim.)


Jake , says: February 11, 2019 at 2:30 pm GMT

... ... ..

If Joe Kennedy Jr had not died in WW2, they would have killed him, because he was the smartest and toughest of the four brothers.

The WASPs and their Jewish allies assumed they could control JFK because of his war injury and resulting lifetime of medication, as well as from his having chosen to be a playboy when he assumed Joe Jr would be President. But in the White House, JFK began to understand that US was going to have major troubles if it did not pull out of Vietnam sooner rather than later and it if did not rein in Israel. He likely would have dumped LBJ in '64, and that was enough to guarantee his death.

Bobby Kennedy had to go because he was indispensable to John's movements in understanding how the Brits and their Jewish allies had cost the America that was neither WASP Elite nor Jewish a great deal. Plus, from his time working on organized crime, Bobby Kennedy knew that all big time organized crime was significantly funded by Jews and that at some point, virtually all major Jewish American big business and prominent law firms had direct ties to Jewish organized crime. And as President, Bobby Kennedy would have applied such knowledge to Israel. And so Bobby Kennedy had to be killed.

I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy brother, as well as the only coward.

Why risk JFK Jr? Get rid of him before he holds any office. Do not risk any movement growing up around him, because he might turn out to be some combo of his dad and dead uncles.

So Bobb

restless94110 , says: February 11, 2019 at 7:19 pm GMT
@Jake

I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy brother, as well as the only coward.

What makes you think that he was not supposed to die in that crash? He got out by the skin of his teeth, could not save his companion. What would be a better smear on the Kennedys that Teddy died with some woman in his lap?

As it turned out, he survived but forever smeared anyway

SunBakedSuburb , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:29 pm GMT
Interesting article. I believe JFK Jr.'s death was the result of a conspiracy, but the author's assertion that Mossad was responsible leaves me with doubt. Hillary Clinton was the person who had the most to gain from JFK Jr.'s demise; they were both on the same trajectory: the open New York senate seat, followed by a run to the White House. The Clintons have been shadow government players since at least the 1980s when, while governor, Bill helped facilitate the CIA's trafficking of guns and drugs in Arkansas, which is a state with a significant Rockefeller presence. The demoness Hillary is where investigators of JFK Jr.'s death should start. Whether that leads to the Mossad, I don't know. My guess would be a domestic CIA network.
Steve Naidamast , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT
I very much like the writing by Laurent Guyénot and I have read all of the articles by him that I have come across including purchasing his book, "From Yaweh to Zion".

And I have no doubt that some insidious form of foul play was what killed JFK Jr. and his wife.

As one who flew aircraft many years ago I can attest to the fact that on a fog-ridden night it is very easy to succumb to vertigo and crash your plane into the ground. You can do this very easily as well with the current bevy of highly sophisticated aircraft simulations that are available.

However, JFK Jr. was, to my knowledge, a consummate pilot and would have never attempted such a flight unless he was intsrument rated. As a result, he would have not succumbed to to the effects of vertigo since he would have been concentrating on his instruments.

Also, I understand that this was basically a night flight, which by law required an instrument rating.

From these generalizations alone one can see that JFK Jr. would have known how to fly his plane.

If the eyewitnesses to the explosion are credible along with other supporting evidence than there is no way any legitimate investigation could have concluded with verdict of "pilot error", unless of course JFK Jr. knowingly took a bomb on board his plane with the intent of blowing himself and his passengers up. A highly unlikely scenario.

If one were to look at the "only available picture" of JFK Jr.'s aircraft in this piece, even a layperson could see that there is no scarring anywhere to be seen on the debris, which would have been used then to support the stupidity of "pilot error".

You can see the same nonsense with the 911 pictures of the Pentagon after it was struck. There is literally no debris in any of those pictures from an aircraft freshly blown to pieces by its strike on the E-wing of the Pentagon.

Considering the insidiousness of the Clintons, especially Hillary herself, the author paints an excellent portrait of a likely pathway for the support and implementation of an assassination of JFK Jr through her. Given Hillary's background (and rabid incompetence) in nefarious operations such as the destruction of Libya, I wouldn't put it past this women to work with other planners to prevent JFK Jr. from obstructing her planned ascent into the US Senate from New York.

Despite her popularity in New York State, which was somewhat overrated in the media, many never considered her a welcome representative of our state. And JFK Jr. would have wiped the floor with her in a political contest.

Steve Naidamast , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:39 pm GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Achmed

As a former flyer myself, it is aviation law that you cannot fly any aircraft at night or non-VFR conditions without being instrument rated. If this was a night flight as stated then the moon could have been out lighting up every aspect of earth and still only instrument-rated pilots could fly.

And the airport he flew out of would have never allowed such a flight-plan for a non-instrument rated pilot unless they wanted to lose their license to operate an airport.

Cyrano , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:46 pm GMT
If JFK Jr. could send a message from the other world – it should probably be: "Don't cry for me Argentina".

Just because his father was a president (of dubious quality and of dubious control over the deep state – it probably was, as usual – vice versa, the deep state controlled him), doesn't mean that they had presidential DNA in their genes.

Sons of presidents are usually worse than their fathers in the same role. I have only 2 examples but they are adequate enough to prove the point. GW Bush was 10 times the disaster of a president his father was. And also Justin Trudeau is not even 1% the prime minister his father was. In fact, if JFK jr, lived long enough to be elected a president – he probably would have been the American Justin Trudeau.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 11, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT
Our media ignored breaking news a few years ago that Kennedy's TWA "conspiracy theory" was proven true. TWA Flight 800 did not explode in mid-air because of an electrical short. It was accidentally hit by a US Navy anti-aircraft missile during a training exercise.

An outstanding 2013 documentary: "TWA Flight 800" appeared on Netflix, but was removed after just a few weeks. It featured two senior federal NTSB investigators of TWA 800 who declared the investigation was a cover-up by the Clinton administration, and waited until they retired to speak out. Several books have appeared that provide undeniable evidence, such as:

http://militarycorruption.com/flight-800/

DESERT FOX , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:29 pm GMT
@SunBakedSuburb Agree, the book Compromised, Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed shows the connection between the Bushes and Clintons and the CIA and FBI and their CIA hit teams, or just read the customer comments on the book at Amazon.com.
renfro , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT
@Diversity Heretic As a 30 year instrument rated pilot myself I would agree except for .."and the overstressed airframe comes apart."
In light civilian air craft that is very rare and usually caused by some defect already existing.
Unless the NTSB itself is lying and the radar records and the recovery divers are lying I go with their determination.
First, the debris field was only 120 feet, if the plane had exploded or broken up in the air it would have been scattered over a larger area.
Second, records show the plane entered a banking turn in excess of 45 degrees, which is not recommended and dangerous .It can cause a accelerated stall and if you don't have the altitude to recover from it before you hit the ground or you panic you go 'spiraling' down and smash into whatever is below, you like the ocean.
So I really am not into the plane being blown up theory.

'A performance study of the radar data revealed that the target began a descent from 5,500 feet about 34 miles west of MVY. The speed during the descent was calculated to be about 160 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS), and the rate of descent was calculated to have varied between 400 and 800 feet per minute (fpm). About 2138, the target began a right turn in a southerly direction. About 30 seconds later, the target stopped its descent at 2,200 feet and began a climb that lasted another 30 seconds. During this period of time, the target stopped the turn, and the airspeed decreased to about 153 KIAS. About 2139, the target leveled off at 2,500 feet and flew in a southeasterly direction. About 50 seconds later, the target entered a left turn and climbed to 2,600 feet. As the target continued in the left turn, it began a descent that reached a rate of about 900 fpm. When the target reached an easterly direction, it stopped turning; its rate of descent remained about 900 fpm. At 2140:15, while still in the descent, the target entered a right turn. As the target's turn rate increased, its descent rate and airspeed also increased. The target's descent rate eventually exceeded 4,700 fpm. The target's last radar position was recorded at 2140:34 at an altitude of 1,100 feet. (For a more detailed description of the target's [accident airplane's] performance, see Section, "Tests and Research," Subsection, "Aircraft Performance Study.")

WRECKAGE INFORMATION

On July 20, 1999, the airplane wreckage was located by U.S. Navy divers from the recovery ship, USS Grasp, at a depth of about 120 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. According to the divers, the recovered wreckage had been distributed in a debris field about 120 feet long and was oriented along a magnetic bearing of about 010/190 degrees. The main cabin area was found in the middle of the debris field.
At 2139:50, the airplane entered a left turn, while slightly increasing altitude to 2,600 feet. The airplane reached a maximum bank angle of 28 degrees left-wing-down (LWD) and a maximum vertical acceleration of 1.2 Gs in this turn. When the maximum LWD bank angle was obtained, the altitude started to decrease at a descent rate close to 900 fpm. The LWD attitude was maintained for approximately 15 seconds until the airplane was heading towards the east. At 2140:07, the airplane bank angle returned to wings level. At 2140:15, with the airplane continuing towards the east, it reestablished a descent close to 900 fpm and then started to increase its bank angle in a RWD direction at nearly a constant rate. As the airplane bank angle increased, the rate of descent increased, and the airspeed started to increase. By 2140:25, the bank angle exceeded 45 degrees , the vertical acceleration was 1.2 Gs, the airspeed increased through 180 knots, and the flightpath angle was close to 5 degrees airplane nose down. After 2140:25, the airplane's airspeed, vertical acceleration, bank, and dive angle continued to increase, and the right turn tightened until water impact

https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001212X19354&ntsbno=NYC99MA178&akey=1

Rodney1111 , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
Creating conspiracy theories is lots of fun, and sometimes can even be productive, but for this one you really do have to go overboard ignoring Occam's Razor:

In reality, everyone who has ever acquired any kind of pilot's licence has been told repeatedly in training something like: "Understand, that without getting sufficient instruction to qualify for an instrument rating, if you lose visual reference to the ground, during the day or at night, you will be toast. Experiments have consistently shown that, even the world's most brilliant and experienced pilots, if they lose visual reference to the ground and cannot see the instruments to assess carefully what they are saying, in every case lose control of the aircraft in less than 45 seconds. And, having lost control, do not realize it, and are unable to figure out that they need to regain it, let alone what they need to do."

Most people find this surprising, which is why in the later stages of basic training a demonstration is usually done in which the pilot wears a hood that prevents him from seeing outside the aircraft, and is instructed to maintain straight and level flight. The instructor removes the student's hood when the aircraft is in a rapidly accelerating, 45 degree bank, descending turn, when the pilot had imagined he was still flying straight and level. I can vouch that this is a persuasive demonstration!

This isn't mere speculation. Loss of control is the inevitable consequence of a non-instrument rated pilot losing sight of the ground. It is enormously probable that this was JFK Jr's issue.

AriusArmenian , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:59 pm GMT
I remember a little after JFK was assassinated a report of a statement by an government official, I think someone in the FBI, saying there is evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK and other Kennedy family members. What happens is that after an attack or bombing the media filters are not coordinated for hours or days but then controls and directives kick in the narratives get stabilized. I always watch the news reports right after the event to catch leaks. The above reported statement was never again reported by anyone.

It is certainly looking like Israel had a hand in many operations inside the US to control its foreign policy and make sure major narratives are pro-Israel like the UK has a long history (at least from WW2 on) of using dirty tricks to control the US. Since US foreign policy is substantially controlled by the UK, Saudis, and Israel, we must suspect any of them of trying to keep control of the US with all sorts of dirty tricks. Israel in a prime candidate for assassinations and false flag operations in the US as they certainly knew by the 1960's that the survival of Israel depended on US support. There are just too many dual passport holders in these events to ignore this any longer.

Peredur , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Implicitly, this article takes the position that Jackie Kennedy was not involved in the JFK assassination conspiracy, but there is an intriguing connection between the Bouvier family and the assassination via a person named George de Mohrenschildt, who was a close friend of both the Bouviers and Oswald.
renfro , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Steve Naidamast That isnt correct.
There are 3 types of licenses a person can get:
Sport Flyer license restricted to local area and only certain types of small aircraft.
Recreational License restricted to local area and daylight hours only.
Private Pilot License ..not restricted, can fly at night . at their own risk

I did a lot of night time flying before I got my instrument rating. But wasn't stupid enough to fly in bad weather day or night.

niteranger , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT
@Sean I have no idea if JFK Jr. was bombed out of the sky by our friends in the Mossad, CIA, or other wonderful entities. But years ago an ex CIA guy told me bluntly that the reason the CIA and intelligence agencies get away with stuff is because much of it no one would be believe they would even try thus the invention of the Conspiracy Theory.

The Kennedys were family of egomaniacs and were often careless and their itinerary through life was filled with many people they destroyed and cast by the side of the road. They believed they were really the chosen ones and their opinion and their way of doing things were right and everyone else was wrong. So they mirrored the Jews except they were Irish.

lysias , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
@Peredur Mohrenschildt seems to have been Oswald's CIA handler for a while, but months before the JFK assassination he went off to Haiti. There's nothing to connect him with the JFK assassination, especially if -- as seems likely -- Oswald was not the shooter who killed JFK.
anon [228] Disclaimer , says: February 11, 2019 at 10:54 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer TWA Flight 800 Investigators Claim the Official Crash Story Is a Lie
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being leveled by the very investigators who put the report together.
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being leveled by some of the very investigators who put the report together. Six experts who appear in the film were members of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation team that concluded the crash was an accident, but they now claim they were silenced by their superiors. The movies, "TWA Flight 800" will debut on EPIX TV next month, on the 17-year anniversary of the crash.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/twa-flight-800-film-coverup/314092/
jeff stryker , says: February 11, 2019 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Che Guava JFK junior was really just not that bright. He failed the bar exam at least once. As Larry Elders once said, the best thing you could say about JFK junior was that he was a down-to-earth guy who never pretended to be more than an average person who happened to be rich.

Supposedly he loved alcohol and was obsessed with porn-he was friends with Irish-America's one porn mogul in a gallery of Jews, Larry Flint.

He was handsome-some say that his father was Onassis and not Kennedy, believable considering his Mediterranean looks which were nothing like Kennedy's fair Irish looks (Though JFK junior was eternally proud of his Irish roots).

His magazine was alright, supposedly advised under-the-table by Larry Flynt again.

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: February 12, 2019 at 1:30 am GMT
@Che Guava The magazine was in big trouble financially. It never did break even although the Kennedy PR machine and the Kennedy worshiping media pushed it for years
George was financed by the big French International publisher Hachette. Hachette was getting ready to stop financing a losing publication. The combination of People and New Republic just never worked.

I don't remember any announcements that JFKjr planned to run for any office. It was just speculation and part of the endless media coverage of JFKjr which increased a thousand times after he got married

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: February 12, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
There's a book Nemesis that claims that Jackie visited Onassis on his yacht in September? October? 1963 and they arranged that Jackie would divorce jack and marry Onassis ic Hack lost the 64 election

[Feb 16, 2019] Is Tulsi Gabbard for Real by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
"... What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic. ..."
"... What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still .. ..."
"... Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. ..."
"... Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. ..."
"... She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. ..."
"... Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? ..."
"... Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back ..."
"... Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. ..."
"... De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be ..."
"... Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following. ..."
Feb 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

The lineup of Democrats who have already declared themselves as candidates for their party's presidential nomination in 2020 is remarkable, if only for the fact that so many wannabes have thrown their hats in the ring so early in the process. In terms of electability, however, one might well call the seekers after the highest office in the land the nine dwarfs. Four of the would-be candidates – Marianne Williamson a writer, Andrew Yang an entrepreneur, Julian Castro a former Obama official, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman John Delaney – have no national profiles at all and few among the Democratic Party rank-and-file would be able to detail who they are, where they come from and what their positions on key issues might be.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has a national following but she also has considerable baggage. The recent revelation that she falsely described herself as "American Indian" back in 1986 for purposes of career advancement, which comes on top of similar reports of more of the same as well as other resume-enhancements that surfaced when she first became involved in national politics, prompted Donald Trump to refer to her as "Pocahontas." Warren, who is largely progressive on social and domestic issues, has been confronted numerous times regarding her views on Israel/Palestine and beyond declaring that she favors a "two state solution" has been somewhat reticent. She should be described as pro-Israel for the usual reasons and is not reliably anti-war. She comes across as a rather more liberal version of Hillary Clinton.

And then there is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, being touted as the "new Obama," presumably because he is both black and progressive. His record as Mayor of Newark New Jersey, which launched his career on the national stage, has both high and low points and it has to be questioned if America is ready for another smooth-talking black politician whose actual record of accomplishments is on the thin side. One unfortunately recalls the devious Obama's totally bogus Nobel Peace Prize and his Tuesday morning meetings with John Brennan to work on the list of Americans who were to be assassinated.

Booker has carefully cultivated the Jewish community in his political career, to include a close relationship with the stomach-churning "America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach, but has recently become more independent of those ties, supporting the Obama deal with Iran and voting against anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation in the Senate. On the negative side, the New York Times likes Booker, which means that he will turn most other Americans off. He is also 49 years old and unmarried, which apparently bothers some in the punditry.

California Senator Kamala Harris is a formidable entrant into the crowded field due to her resume, nominally progressive on most issues, but with a work history that has attracted critics concerned by her hard-line law-and-order enforcement policies when she was District Attorney General for San Francisco and Attorney General for California. She has also spoken at AIPAC , is anti-BDS, and is considered to be reliably pro-Israel, which would rule her out for some, though she might be appealing to middle of the road Democrats like the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi who have increasingly become war advocates. She will have a tough time convincing the antiwar crowd that she is worth supporting and there are reports that she will likely split the black women's vote even though she is black herself, perhaps linked to her affair with California powerbroker Willie Brown when she was 29 and Brown was 61. Brown was married, though separated, to a black woman at the time. Harris is taking heat because she clearly used the relationship to advance her career while also acquiring several patronage sinecures on state commissions that netted her hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.

Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.

Not afraid of challenging establishment politics, she called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a personal trip to Damascus in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are serious about pursuing peace." She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the country as well as ending American interventions for "regime change" in the region.

In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and more recently has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, but one presumes that, like nearly all American politicians, she also has to make sure that she does not have the Israel Lobby on her back. Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted.

Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years.

What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept describes how NBC news published a widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."

But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge, which was exposed by no less than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."

ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.

For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of American who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States. We the people can always hope.


peterAUS , says: February 14, 2019 at 7:41 pm GMT

For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.

Be that as it may, what is conspicously missing from the article are some minor things:

1. What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic.

2. What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still ..

Just those two. We can leave the rest of "globo-homo" agenda off the table, for the moment. And, the last but not the least, that nagging angle about automation and (paid) work in general. Let's not get too ambitious here. Those two, only, should suffice at the moment.

Si1ver1ock , says: February 14, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
I like Tulsi. but she hasn't been tested in a presidential campaign yet. At least we will have someone who could put peace on the ballot. She should write a book pulling her policies together and use it to get some publicity.
Adrian E. , says: February 14, 2019 at 9:14 pm GMT
Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. 2008, an important reason for Obama's victory against Hillary Clinton and John McCain was that he had been against the Iraq war. 2000, George W. Bush said he was against nation building. Then, after they are elected, the neocons remain in power. Something similar again with Donald Trump who campaigned against stupid wars in the Middle East and now has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme neocons.

Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. However, if she is serious about this and is elected, she will be fought by the deep state and its allies in the media much more harshly than Trump, who isn't even consistently anti-neocons, just not reliably pro-neocon. What they would probably do to her would make spygate, the Russiagate conspiracy theory, and the Muller investigation look harmless. She might end like JFK (a VP who is just as anti-neocons might increase the chances of survival).

But despite all the risks, I think it is worth trying. If the US was a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and the neocons had their own party, it would hardly have more than a handful of seats in Congress. Although they don't have, a significant base of their own, neocons have remained in power for a long time, whoever was elected. At the moment, Tulsi Gabbard is probably the best hope for ending their long reign.

anonymous [241] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:30 am GMT
She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. She won't have a chance. Besides, the Dem party has gotten radical and out of touch with the majority of Americans so who really wants them in? There's no cause for optimism anywhere one looks.
Gg Mo , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:21 am GMT
@the grand wazoo

Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? Greenwald himself has questionable backers and the WWF good guy/bad guy character creations (like Trump's pre-election talking points concerning illegal wars , now stuffed down the memory holes of many), all the FAKE and distracting "fights" etc etc

See Corbett/Sibel Edmonds on Greenwald

jack daniels , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:48 am GMT
@peterAUS

Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back.

Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. In that way she calls the bluff of her opponents: Just how confident are they that in the end the public will prefer war to peace? These points add up to a realistic chance of success but given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot.

Biff , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:04 am GMT
De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be, but I do understand that not all politicians are cut from the same dung heap, so it is probably best to find out who is funding the little pricks while they are campaigning – for once they are elected, payback is due.

In the case of Obama it was Robert Rubin( of Goldman Sachs) who bankrolled him, and of course, once elected it was bank bailout time. Then once Ghaddaffi's gold back Dinar became a monetary powerhouse, he committed another crime for the bankers.

"Is she the real deal?"

Elect her and you'll find out, and there lies the problem – you get to find out when it's too late. On the other hand, she could actually be honest and sincere, but that alone disqualifies her as a politician (the kind that Americans are used to anyway).

NTL, she's got people's attention and if for anything else – the people are anti-war, but the monied power brokers are definitely not which begs the question – will democracy actually happen?

animalogic , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:04 am GMT
@Adrian E.

Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following.

She will need to use tactics from both the Sanders & Trump play-books. She will need to appeal to a good number in both the Sanders & Trump constituencies. Regardless, she will need an iron-will & tsunami of charisma .

LondonBob , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:26 am GMT
@Biff Obama was a creation of the Pritzker and Crowne families, although the puppet did decide he wanted to somewhat act on his own. Gabbard is certainly taking flak from the Israel firsters, and her debating Trump on foreign policy in a US Presidential election would be a real paradigm shift.
RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
@renfro Where do you get this "obsessive hatred of Muslims and Islam?"

She's been [insistent and consistent] using the term 'radical Islamic terrorists' which, unfortunately, is an accurate description of ISIS (the bane of the ummah). OTOH, last year Tulsi was a featured speaker at a Moslem conference in NJ, and she has been outspoken about freedom of religion and mutual respect. If you've got some evidence that she excludes Islam from that, please show it.

RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
@jack daniels

[Gabbard's] policy views are already too good to be true.

Not really. Too good to be true would be if she understood Putin in the context of the US and oligarch rape of Russia in the 1990's and how he has restored the Russian economy and dignity; and if she recognized (openly) the US role in the Maidan coup and accepted the validity of the Crimean decision to return to Russia.

Unfortunately, even though she's taken a brave position on ending US regime-change war on Syria, in many other respects she remains quite conventional. She also promotes fear of DPRK, and who knows what she thinks about China.

she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.

Aggressive? Composed, confident, yes. Aggressive, no. Calm under fire is more like it. Take a look at the whole interview on Morning Joe. She really outclasses those squirming bitches. BUT, notice her (short) responses on Putin and Assad ("adversary" and "no"), real Judas moments. Does she believe that, or is she clinging to the Overton Window?
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/rep-gabbard-assad-is-not-an-enemy-of-the-us-1438093891865

Forcible Overthrow time , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:41 pm GMT
Tulsi's presidential timber but she's wasting her life with the Democrats. Their consulting apparatchiks are going to stuff a bunch of incoherent slogans up her butt. If she wants a real antiwar platform she should steal it wholesale from Stein and Ajamu Baraka. Baraka built a complete and consistent law-and-order platform. He's the only real antiwar candidate in this country.

Of course the Democrat's CIA handlers will crush Tulsi if she starts to make sense, so she's going to have to take her supporters and jump to the Greens.

She will lose, but arbitrary forcible repression of the party will discredit bullshit US electoral pageantry once and for all. Then we move into the parallel government zone in conformity with world-standard human rights law and destroy the parasitic kleptocratic USA.

peterAUS , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT
@jack daniels You know .there IS one thing nobody wants, really, to talk about.

.given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot

Why, in this age, the "stronghold on the media" is so decisive? A person who gets the most of media exposure wins? That's how it works?
Or, do anyone reading and posting here gets his/her information from the "media"? I'd say not.

Isn't the bottom, the very heart of the matter NOT a Deep State, Dem Joos, Anglo-Saxons, Masons, Illuminati and .whatever but simple, eternal, laziness and stupidity of an average person?
Or, even worse: the real, true, needs and wants of an average person are simply "breads and circuses". Nothing more.
Combine those two and here we are.

I am aware that throws the spanner into works of those into Aryans, White supremacy, Western man and similar stuff, but, the conclusion seems inevitable.

That's the heart of the problem "we" face at the moment. How to fix it, or even is it possible, I don't know. Have some ideas, of course.

anon [194] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:31 pm GMT
@2stateshmustate

If there was any justice in this country Mr. Chertoff would have long since been tried for treason for his involvement in the 911 attack.

The arc of something or other is long but tends toward justice er something like that:

Chertoff's business partner Mike Hayden had a stroke last November and is still "getting good care and working hard at therapy."

No doubt US taxpayers are paying to rebuild Scumbag Hayden's fried circuits.
Pity.

never-anonymous , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
CIA Giraldi probably has more Cherokee DNA than Warren. Another fact he failed to provide to the Government during the security clearance process. The troll has supported the republican establishment all his career, this distinguishes him from the trolls that support the democratic establishment all of their careers. The fact that people can debate the relative merits of political leaders from the dark lagoon reveals their complete lack of rational thought. No politician decides anything important.
Tulip , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
@Anonymous No, then she is toast in Hawaii politics, and she is probably running not because she plans on winning, but to raise her profile and perhaps open doors for herself on the national or state level, which won't happen if you shoot yourself in the foot at the same time.

Besides, leaving aside Krishna consciousness, she is too close to Sanders to get any traction among the Republicans. I suppose getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.

RobinG , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:19 pm GMT
@Tulip

..getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.

Brilliant.

Dem Juche , says: February 16, 2019 at 12:25 am GMT
You're never going to get anything worthwhile from a Democratic politician because they're indoctrinated worse that the brightest little Pioneer in Juche class. Take Ro Khana's meaningless pap.

https://fellowtravelersblog.com/2018/10/23/ro-khanna-five-principles/

What is this 'we should' crap? The law is perfectly clear. The right to self-defense is subject to necessity and proportionality tests, and invariably subject to UN Charter Chapter 7 in its entirety. See Article 51. Instead of this 'restraint' waffle, just say, the president must commit to faithfully execute the supreme law of the land, including UN Charter Chapter 7 and Article 2(4). That means refrain from use or threat of force. Period.

Second, national security is not a loophole in human rights. Khana uses the legally meaningless CIA magic word 'threat.' Under universal jurisdiction law, it is a war crime to declare abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. Domestic human rights are subject to ICCPR Article 4, HRC General Comment 29, and the Siracusa Principles. Instead of CIA's standard National Security get-out clause, state explicitly that US national security means respect, protection and fulfillment of all human rights. To enforce that, ratify the Rome Statute or GTFO.

Third, internationalism is OK as far as it goes, but Ro Khana doesn't deal with the underlying problem: CIA has infested State with focal points and dotted-line reports, and demolished the department's capacity for pacific resolution of disputes. You have to explicitly tie State's mission to UN Charter Chapter 6, and criminalize placement of domestic CIA agents in State.

Fourth, Congressional war-making powers are useless with Congress completely corrupted. Bring back the Ludlow Amendment, war by public referendum only, subject to Article 51.

Rich , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:21 am GMT
Tulsi is a far Left democrat. She supports raising taxes to pay for free college for people earning less than 125K and universal health care, she actually joined protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, supports homosexual marriage (changed her previous position in 2012), and has an F rating from the NRA. She's a Lefty. Not for me, anyway.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
In any case she is less vulnerable. She can call any opposition a misogynist.
Biff , says: February 16, 2019 at 5:30 am GMT
@obwandiyag

I like the one on here who says the Democrat party has "gotten radical."

I assume this is sarcasm, but there is no denying the fact that the neocons(radical whack jobs) have jumped ship from the Republicans and attached themselves to the Democrats (although there are filtering back into the Trump administration – drunk with power they'll suck up to anyone)

The DNC NeverTrump crowd is all but calling for a nuclear exchange with Russia because they colluded with Trump to throw the election, and they pose a National Security threat to the United States(in their head). Hillary also went on to say that Russians Hacking the DNC is another 9/11. The radical Antifa crowd is made up of 99.999999% of Democratic voters.

[Feb 15, 2019] The International Rogue Nation America by Eric Zuesse

Notable quotes:
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . ..."
"... At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it? ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.unz.com

In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was developing weapons of mass destruction . These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies . That's how bad the regime was -- it was virtually a total lock-down against truth, and for international conquest (in that case, of Iraq): it was mass-murder and destruction on the basis of sheer lies.

That's today's U.S. Government -- that's its reality, not its 'pro-democracy' and 'human rights' myth. (After all: its main ally is the Saud regime, which the U.S. regime is now helping to starve and kill by cholera perhaps millions of Houthis to death .)

In 2011, the U.S. regime, then under a different nominal leader than in the Iraq invasion, invaded and destroyed Libya -- also on the basis of lies that its press (which is controlled by the same billionaires who control the nation's two political Parties) stenographically published from the Government and refused ever to expose as being lies.

In 2011-2019 (but actually starting undercover in 2009 ), the U.S. regime (and its then allies King Saud and Tayyip Erdogan, and the Thanis who own Qatar ) hired tens of thousands of jihadis from around the world to serve as foot-soldiers (the U.S. regime calls them 'rebels') , in order to bring down Syria's secular, non-sectarian, Government, and thereby, via these jihadist proxy-forces , they invaded and destroyed Syria -- likewise on the basis of lies that the 'news'-media hid, secreting from the public such facts as that "The US Government's Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT." But the lies are never publicly acknowledged by any of the participating regimes and their press.This is an international empire of death and destruction based upon lies.

In 2011-2014, the U.S. regime perpetrated a bloody coup that ousted Ukraine's democratically elected Government and replaced it by a fascist rabidly anti-Russian regime that destroyed Ukraine and perpetrated ethnic cleansing . How much of this reality was being reported in the U.S. regime's press, at the time, or even afterward? It was hidden news at the time , and so those realities have since become buried, to become now only hidden history; and the U.S. regime and its 'news'-media continue to hide all of this ugly reality. It remains hidden, and isn't mentioned by either the regime or its press.

Right now, the U.S. regime (along with its other lap-dog Canada) is perpetrating, or at least attempting to perpetrate, a coup to take over Venezuela .

On February 8th, the Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) issued their study, "The Economic Consequences of the Boycott of Venezuela" , and reported that throughout the five-year period of 2013-2017, Venezuela's "economy and society suffered a suffocation [of] $ 22.5 billion in annual revenues, as a result of a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation [of Venezuela]. Evidently, this financial pressure intensified since 2015 with the fall in the price of crude oil." So: that's a total loss of over $112 billion from Venezuela during the entire 5-year period, and the result has become (especially after 2014) the impoverishment of the country. The U.S. regime and its allies and their propaganda-media blame, for that, not themselves, but the very same Government they're trying to take down. The U.S. regime and its allies have contempt for the public everywhere. The more that Venezuelans blame their own Government for this impoverishment, instead of blame America's Government for it, the more that their exploiters will have contempt for them, but also the more that their exploiters will benefit from them, because the exploiters' taking control of the Government will then be much easier to do.

The U.S-and-allied exploiters are attempting to install in Venezuela a man who has absolutely no justification under the Venezuelan Constitution to be claiming to be the country's 'interim President' . For some mysterious reason, Venezuela's President isn't calling for that traitor to be brought up on charges of treachery -- attempting a coup -- and facing Venezuela's Supreme Judicial Tribunal on such a charge, which Tribunal is the Constitutionally authorized body to adjudicate that matter. So, Venezuela's Government is incompetent -- but so too have been all of its predecessors since at least 1980, and incompetence alone is not Constitutional grounds for replacing Venezuela's President by a foreign-imposed coup . At least Venezuela's actual President is no traitor, such as his would-be successor, Juan Guaido, definitely is .

Did Venezuela invade America so as for America's economic war against it to be justified? Did Iraq invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Libya invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Syria invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Ukraine invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? None of them did, at all. In each and every case, it was pure aggression, by America, the international rogue nation.

Back in 1986, regarding America's international relations including its coups and invasions, the U.S. quit the International Court of Justice (ICJ), when that Court ruled against the U.S. in the Iran-Contra case, Nicaragua v. United States , which concerned America's attempted coup in that country. But though the U.S. propaganda-media reported the Government's rejection of that verdict in favor of Nicaragua, they hid the more momentous fact: the U.S. Government stated that it would not henceforth recognize any authority in the ICJ concerning America's international actions. The public didn't get to know about that. Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime, simply ignoring the ICJ except when the ICJ could be cited against a country that the U.S. regime is trying to destroy ('democratize'). And then, when the ICJ ruled on 9 March 2005 against the U.S. regime in a U.S. domestic matter where the regime refused to adhere to the U.S. Constitution's due-process clause regarding the prosecutions and death-sentences against 51 death-row inmates, and the Court demanded retrials of those convicts, the U.S. regime, in 2005, simply withdrew completely from the jurisdiction of the ICJ . Ever since 9 March 2005, the U.S. regime places itself above, and immune to, international law, regarding everything. George W. Bush completed what Ronald Reagan had started.

This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't really represent the American public at all . It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all the while. Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. They're not even being investigated by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That's a U.N. agency. Does the U.N. have any real legitimacy, under such circumstances as this? Can an international scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court? This mocks the U.N. itself. The U.S. places itself above the U.N.'s laws and jurisdiction and yet still occupies one of the five permanent seats on the U.N's Security Council and still is allowed to vote in the U.N.'s General Assembly. Why doesn't the U.N. simply expel America? It can't be done? Then why isn't a new international legal body being established to replace the U.N. -- and being granted legal authority everywhere regardless of whether a given national regime acknowledges its legal authority over matters of international law? Why is Venezuela being internationally isolated and sanctioned, instead of the U.S. being internationally isolated and sanctioned?

On top of all that, this is the same U.S. regime that has blocked the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and that has broken one international agreement after another -- not only NAFTA, and not only the nuclear agreement on Iran, and not only many nuclear agreements with first the Soviet Union and then Russia, but lots more -- and all with total impunity.

And it's not only the countries that the U.S. invades or otherwise destroys, which are being vastly harmed by this international monster-regime. How many millions of the flood of asylum-seekers who are pouring into Europe have done that in order to reach safety from America's bombs and proxy-troops -- jihadists and fascist terrorists -- which have ravaged their own homelands? What is that flood of refugees doing to Europe, and to European politics -- forcing it ever-farther to the right and so tearing the EU apart? Why are not Europeans therefore flooding their own streets with anti-American marches and movements for their own Governments to impose economic sanctions against all major American brands, and demanding prosecution of all recent American Presidents, starting at least with G.W. Bush -- or else to vote out of office any national politicians who refuse to stand up against the American bully-regime?

It isn't only weak nations such as Nigeria that are corrupt and rotten to the core. The entire U.S. empire, and especially its U.S. masters, are.

How much more will the peoples of the world remain suckers to the vast corporate propaganda-operation by that out-of-control beast of a rapacious regime, which displays the Orwellian nerve to label as being a 'regime' each and every Government that it seeks to overthrow and to call itself a 'democracy' ? The U.S. regime is itself actually allied the most closely with the world's most barbaric rulers, the Saud family, that own Saudi Arabia. The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and internationally aggressive regime in Israel. Is such an international gang, as this is, going to get off scot-free, as if there were no international law -- or at least none that applies to itself?

And, if the U.S. regime is so concerned to 'protect democracy' and 'protect human rights' all over the world (as that perennially lying bunch always claim to be the 'justification' for their invasions and coups), then why isn't it starting first by prosecuting itself? (Or, maybe, by prosecuting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, for his many crimes -- and prosecuting his predecessors for financing the 9/11 attacks against Americans?) Well, of course, Hitler didn't do anything of the sort. (Nor did he prosecute his allies.) He set the standard. Maybe, ideologically, Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito actually won the war, though this has happened after they first physically lost what everyone had thought was the end of WW II. After all, nobody is prosecuting the U.S. regime today. Isn't that somewhat like a global victory for fascism -- the Axis powers -- after the fact? Maybe "we" won the war, only to lose it later. Doesn't that appear to be the case? Mussolini sometimes called fascism "corporationism" , and this is how it always functions, and functions today by agreement amongst the controlling owners of international corporations that are headquartered in the U.S. and in its vassal-nations abroad.

Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?

What would happen if all the rest of the world instituted an international legal and enforcement system (under a replacement U.N.) in which all commitments and contractual proceeds to benefit American-based international corporations and the U.S. Government were declared to be immediately null and void -- worthless except as regards the claims against the U.S. entities? (The owners of those entities have been the beneficiaries of America's international crimes.) Contracts can be unilaterally nullified. The U.S. Government does it all the time, with no justification except lies. Here, it would be done as authentically justifiable penalties, against actually massive global crimes.

The U.S. militarily occupies the world; this is a global empire; it has over a thousand military bases worldwide. Why aren't the people in all of those occupied countries demanding their own governments simply to throw them out -- to end the military occupation of their land?

You can't have a world at peace, and anything like international justice, without enforcing international law. This is what doing that would look like.

What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.

-- -- -- -- --

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .


niteranger , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:46 am GMT

America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. The Intelligence Agencies are inseparable from the Corporations, The Bankers, and The Billionaires they work for. Most of the economic-social-media pathways are controlled by the Magic Jews. Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square. The entire Mueller Fiasco is a demonstration of the Intelligence State and a warning for anyone who doesn't play their game. The Super Jew Zionist Senator Shumer warned Trump in a Freudian Slip about upsetting the Intelligence agencies which the Jewish Media quickly tried to hide.

This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.

America and the world are headed for the dark ages. I doubt if anyone will really survive. Think Tanks for the super rich run by Intel know this and are preparing for the worse case scenario are you!

exiled off mainstreet , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:51 am GMT
The implications of this are enormous. This is the first time I've seen it wrapped up in a single article.
Zumbuddi , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:58 am GMT
"Total lockdown against truth and for internatio al conquest . . .mass murder and destruction on the basis of sheer lies. That's today's U. S. Government, that's it's reality."

It worked so well in WWI and WWII, why mess with a sure thing?

To behave otherwise, that is, honestly and decently would return a heap of millionaires to their rag-picker tin-peddlar origins.

Justsaying , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT

Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime

Why the leniency for a regime that has been led by gangsters of varying shades for the best part of the post-WWII era, hands down? Unless the Vietnam war and the companion Gulf of Tomkin lie, the mass murder in Laos and Cambodia and the Korean war are brushed aside. As was the kidnapping of Aristide of Haiti and Panama's Noriega are trivial mobster rule blips and the sodomising of Ghadhafi's cadaver by "rebels" after relentless bombing that left a once prosperous nation in utter ruin regarded as an unfortunate "aberration". The tainting of American hands with the blood of millions of innocents extends well beyond the leaders who presided over arguably the worst atrocities and crimes of the post-WWII era. For a nation that takes pride in its slogan of a government of, for and by the people, the people cannot escape responsibility for the horrendous crimes committed in their name.

animalogic , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:04 am GMT
@exiled off mainstreet Agree: great summary article.
Commentator Mike , says: February 15, 2019 at 8:27 am GMT
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
EliteCommInc. , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:07 am GMT
I think some of this is over the top. However, I am not sure that one can excuse challenging the case based on news reports. The case on its face had little of any supporting material. But there were news agencies that provided a counter narrative, they just weren't the mainstream sources. Which is why I think your giving an out where none exists.

Instead, a better case could be made as to how those that questioned the case got the boot and in some cases got it good. Those voices were not only muted out by the media, the advocates, but the public as well. One cannot ignore the palpable anger after 9/11. The country wanted revenge. And they would have it. Unlike Mr. Neeson, we did not restrain ourselves from acting out, against anyone of we held suspect as similar in nature -- we lashed out with few reservations.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

Now I have to admit that the questions of international order are tricky. Who wants to take on enforcing the rule of law against the US when she violates the very rules she helped create and espouses. When the leadership bends, breaks or ignores the rules in the name of country. It's hard to make a case that everyone else abide by the rules if you yourself breaks them. Maybe people pf conscience will hire people who actually abide by what they say they will do when applying for the job of leadership.

But I have to be honest, I am cautious when it comes bodies of international order: UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, NAFTA, and others. I appreciate the value of NATO, but I am a bit dubious about the agitation that the US take the lead in addressing Europe's security, at our expense. And while I would like to avoid what about, most nations treat the international bodies of justice with no small amount of reticence on their own account. I am unclear of China has backed away from provoking the Phillipines after the UNCLOS ruling regarding commercial development zones. They have made a point to say they will abide by UNCLOS except where they disagree. The short answer is that ultimately the developed world has to operate with some integrity. There's a lot of complaining about the Saudis and Israel. But those states can simply point to the US or the Europeans states and make a constituent claim,

"What's good for the gander . . ."

There is a manner of discipline and that is to our failures and the cost. We are at the moment large enough to absorb them (not sure that is not more face saving facade than truth). Iraq is a failure. Libya is a failure. Afganistahn most likely a failure, even we end up with some manner of negotiated settlement, it will still be far short of our objective(s). The Ukraine still threatens to fall into a full blown civil war. After five years plus of bombing Yemen, the end is nowhere in sight. If the Saudis think the Yemenis a threat, then they should deal with it. The Syria gambit was never a smart move and it has cost us. I am a firm believer that part of these issues results in not having a national draft system where our entire population is bought in on the US project and in so doing have an incentive to hold its government accountable. Because there is no body count to shock the public into reality as in previous military engagements.

We simply are not electing enough men such as representative Walter Jones into office, who upon recognizing an error will seek to change course. And I like him, I suspect, get increasingly restless about how our unrequited hypocrisy (if continued) will play out for us in the end. I think there are signs of trouble, just hints, that we need to get our ducks in order.

We honor and protect our sovereignty by respecting that of others (minus some outstanding extreme circumstance).

Note: not all of the US military programs are about the use of force. The US does huge amounts of humanitarian aide, independently and in conjunction with with are numerous aid depts. And as a nation we remain the most effectively generous (giving nations) on the planet to others in need, including private charitable organizations, no small number of them faith and practice based.

How many multitudes of sins that will cover is unknown to me.

Michael Kenny , says: February 15, 2019 at 9:57 am GMT
A typical piece of American racism. Naturally, the peoples of all these countries are far too primitive and far too stupid to see that they are being manipulated!
HiHo , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:29 am GMT
Dear Eric,

To quote your first para: 'In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was developing weapons of mass destruction.'

It should read: 'In 2003, the UK (and its lap dog USA) invaded and destroyed Iraq. I know you Americans like to think that the USA is sovereign in its bullying of the world, but many people apart from myself, see it differently.

Rothschild runs the 'free west' and he is based in The City of London where he operates the world's drug money laundering operation. Yes, even all the drugs moved out of Afghanistan by his private drug army you call the CIA, those profits are laundered in London.

It is Rothschild in London that decides who to invade and why. The USA is Rothschild's private supply of canon fodder, weaponry and congenital idiots who think Jesus of Nazareth, that you erroneously call Jesus Christ, condones the violence, the blood baths and the pure evil that is the USA.

Your nation and its corrupt state is the puppet of Rothschild. I can understand it is especially hard for you to finger one of your own, especially as you consider yourself to be the goyim's friend, but that is not actually true is it?

What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?

Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on Venezula today, only make sense if you are Rothschild.

Yours sincerely,

HiHo Silver Lining.

JackOH , says: February 15, 2019 at 10:35 am GMT
Eric, thanks.

I'm not into America-bashing. Life's too short, and, besides, I did half-seriously think of emigrating from the States, and didn't do it.

But–but–I think there's enough evidence to support the writing of a "black book" of American democracy since 1945, a hit piece modeled on a similarly titled book about Communism's depredations that, I think, was first published in France maybe thirty years ago.

Better observers than I can probably offer a laundry list of American cruelties worth including, and some of those better observers comment here on Unz Review .

American military interventions, a Constitution drained of effectiveness and meaning, the "ethnic cleansing" of American cities, the gratuitous cruelties of American health care, etc .

Keep the book short, about 250-350 pp., and include good front and back matter to focus the reader's attention.

Sean , says: February 15, 2019 at 11:47 am GMT
@niteranger If the author of this piece a child who believes in fairy stories about American exceptionalism . America is more powerful than other countries and if it is "The International Rogue Nation" then it is solely as a result of being more powerful that other countries, for were they as strong as America they all would do the same as America.

This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.

The Democrats want future voters to swamp the votes of native-born Americans. The kids in Yemen are irrelevant. So are the innocent kids in countries like Syria.

America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State

That is just a long winded way of saying it is a state. Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives and live as tree huggers in perpetual peace. Except it would come to an end, just as it did for the Tibetans (and their trees).

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT

The International Rogue Nation: America

The only?

The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and internationally aggressive regime in Israel.

How about, The International Rogue Mafias: America and Israel?

Felix Krull , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:15 pm GMT
These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies.

Back in the late summer of 2003, when Washington finally admitted there were no WMD in Iraq, the Danish Public Broadcaster had invited four of the heaviest hitters in Danish MSM, four foreign policy editors of the largest news outlets in Denmark.

The conversation was supposed to be about something else, but the WMD-news had dropped that same morning, and at one point they discuss the missing WMD. One guy spontaneously says: "I never believed in the WMD-story anyway." The three others quickly agree, because they don't want to be seen as the slow, gullible kid in the class.

So they'd been peddling this WMD-nonsense aggressively since the invasion, but they didn't actually believe that story themselves? The broadcast was taken off the internet 24 hours later, but I have their names in my little book.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT

What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.

Well yes, but they also want not only a monopoly on violence and compliant tax, debt, wage and dollar slaves, but also "legal" support for it all, hence "gubbermint." Keep payin' dem taxes and hoping for da Messiah in the forms of the likes of the Cacklin' Hyena, The Trumpster, and "Bibi."

Felix Krull , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT
And another thing: back in the day, the PM, Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen spoke frequently about Saddam in the Danish parliament. But he never said "weapons of mass destruction", he said "dangerous weapons" – didn't want to be caught lying to the legislature, would you? Nobody ever called him out on it; you'd think journalists were familiar with sleazy rhetoric, but not on this occasion. He went on to become secretary general of NATO.
Charles Homer , says: February 15, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
As shown in this article, Russia has significant concerns about American breaches of the INF treaty that have received almost no coverage in the Western media: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-russian-response-to-washingtons.html

Rather than presenting a balanced viewpoint where we hear both sides of the story regarding nuclear treaty violations by both sides, we are subjected to what can best be termed "fake news".

The Alarmist , says: February 15, 2019 at 2:26 pm GMT

"Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?"

The plutocrat criminal elite are working fast and furiously to import a new electorate and slave labour force: At some point they will no longer be able to finance the machine, because you get what you pay for, and bread and circuses aren't cheap, and at that point the machine will pull back from the world, if not outright devolve into mayhem in its streets.

Asagirian , says: Website February 15, 2019 at 2:47 pm GMT
How Jewish-controlled Media work.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2019/02/14/networks-2202-minutes-russia-scandal-zero-no-collusion-report

Globo-homo logic. Russia didn't do it. Punish Russia.

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:00 pm GMT
Just came across these powerful words from Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother.

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-pats-birthday-2/

peter mcloughlin , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:07 pm GMT
Global empires rise because of the desire for power, which is also their Nemesis. Power gives prestige, status, wealth, security and a sense of invincibility: the opposite of what is feared most. But they cannot hold that power forever, though they try, and eventually they end up getting the war they have always dreaded: utter defeat. But their leaders are deluded, blindly leading their people to annihilation – even nuclear – because power is the one thing they will destroy themselves and everyone else over. The pattern of history is clear.

https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Agent76 , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:23 pm GMT
Feb 11, 2019 Venezuelans' message to the US: Hands off our country

The Grayzone reports from inside Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly rejecting foreign intervention in their country.

15.04.2017 Americans Are No Different Than Germans Were (and Are)

Daniel Goldhagen blamed the Holocaust on "the Germans" (by which he meant the German people), and said that they perpetrated the Holocaust because they positively enjoyed murdering "the Jews".

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/04/15/americans-no-different-than-germans-were-and-are.html

Agent76 , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
Feb 18, 2013 Corporatocracy, Globalization, An Empire Expands

A short video clip from the Documentary Zeitgeist: Addendum, in it a Corporatocracy is explained. "A Incredible cozy relationship between Government and Corporations"

Moi , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT
@niteranger I think this sums up things pretty well:

"All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." D. H. Lawrence.

Miro23 , says: February 15, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike

Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?

Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state. The US regime uses violence and threats (local and international) to get its way. It corrupts and terrorizes politicians and forces through its projects. It's all about money and power and it rubs traditional Anglo society's face in the mud while its getting looted.

Che Guava , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:12 pm GMT
@Justsaying You have a pointy head, but rubbish conclusions I am also tired of hearing 'sodomy' or 'sodomized' re. Ghaddafi, assaulting the anus and rectum with bayonets is not 'sodomy'.

Hillary Clinton enjoyed it, I world prefer not to repeat her moronic statement, but will because of the many morons are on this site now, 'we came, we saw, he died, (cackle, cackle, cackle'). She liked to pretend that this is her classical education. She clearly has none. But she sure has an ugly pair of cankles.

wayfarer , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT

Fifth Column: Is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column

"Censored 'Israel Lobby' Document Leaks"

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:31 pm GMT
Enantiodromia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiodromia

Principle od enantiodromia : one thing pushed to the extreme leads to the opposite .

( Hegel with his thesis-antithesis ideas was just another moronic german philosopher )

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:42 pm GMT
@niteranger

Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square.

He's a lying New York idiot Israel firster who demonstrates a new meaning to the concept of winning fair and square and "won" the position as Cuck-in-Chief of the Corporate Fascio-Commie Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State, that's all. He should have saved us all a lot of trouble and just eloped with the Cackling Hyena instead.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT
Mrs Ilhan Omar Is the voice from the graves of Millions of Muslims murdered by US Military under leadership of US politicians (purchased for pennies), and ordered by Israel.
Cheburashka , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:46 pm GMT
@exiled off mainstreet Interesting for me it's all known for several years, so I was about to say myself "same old, same old". Then I read your comment and think to myself "well, contrary to my belief, obviously publishing this article does make sense"
Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:47 pm GMT
@Asagirian Most of the european business and population do NOT agree with the yankee sanctions to Russia ( or to Venezuela , or to Iran , Cuba .. ) . Nothing ideological , it is just that the EU has no oil , the EU needs russian , iranian , venezuelan oil and gas , and the EU countries NEED to sell products to any country willing to buy them . The abusive yankee pressure on the EU to santion any country that the US wants will backfire .
Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 4:55 pm GMT

"This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't really represent the American public at all. It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all the while."

Words seem insufficient to describe the situation, don't they? What we're witnessing, apparently, is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Satanic cult known from the Book of Revelation as the "beast from the sea" is attempting to rise to the top of the world by "giving worth to evil" (i.e. worshiping Satan). To put it another way, the beast rises to the top by bringing everyone and everything else down.

Being relatively small in number, the Satanic cult operates primarily by deception, corruption and manipulation. If the beast cannot get the people to destroy themselves, it resorts to mass murder, but the end result is always destruction.

"Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague."

Money has nothing to do with it (other than being another tool in the Satanists' tool box). They do what they do because they're evil. Evil is both the means and the end. To put it in Biblical terms, the Satanists seek to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve. Only when whole world is brought down can evil claim victory over good (as per the Satanic agenda set forth in Isaiah 14:13,14).

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:00 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike

How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?

Excellent question, but the two, fascism and the various forms of big "C" Communism, are not necessarily mutually exclusive even though fascism as often used today was intended as a catch-all smear word by the Marxist cornballs a century ago.

In fact, Marxism, Bolshevism and Stalinism are can all be or become forms of fascism. Likewise, as Orwell saw, there is no essential difference between various iterations of capitalism and the various forms of communism that they oftentimes supported and promoted and still do.

Also, I highly doubt whether a meaningful debate regarding politics is possible whether or not definitions are agreed upon.

[During the war]words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.

Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

– Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Chap X, ~400 BC

"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

– John Adams, letter to J. H. Tiffany, Mar. 31, 1819.

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

IOW, it's pretty much all bullsh!t. Reader and listener beware.

anonymous [241] Disclaimer , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMT
The gangster laughs in your face: "Whadda going to do about it, kid?". Answer is nothing can be done.

At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it?

The pattern actually goes back 121 years to the Spanish-American war when the US smelled weakness and pounced. It's been on a roll ever since, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. The barriers to the US having a completely free hand are Russia, China, Iran, countries about which there's much heavy propaganda being thrown about. Their areas are limited though and they can't help the Venezuelans or most of the others. The US has a huge budget for internal spying and security to ensure that the people in charge stay that way so don't get optimistic. This supposed democracy is rigged from start to finish. The US has been very efficient in brainwashing it's residents into thinking it is all legit.

c matt , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMT

Can an international scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court?

Why yes, yes it can. There is no such thing as rule of law. There is only rule by might. Law is mere rationalization.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:05 pm GMT
@Liza

It just doesn't matter anymore how any country is described or classified.

I wish I had thought of that! Excellent. Brilliant.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:11 pm GMT
@HiHo

What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?

Talk about sweet summaries; yours is masterful!

Anyone who doubts it would do well to read Fish's, Tragic Deception,
FDR and America's involvement in World War II

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL21320930M/Tragic_deception

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
@Stephen Paul Foster This thread is uncommonly full of great comments and yours is another. Excellent.

This question [about the UN] is proof that the author needs psychiatric assistance.

And more than a brief stay in a reprogramming (anti-brainwashing) camp.

The UN was formed by the usual One World (globalist) crowd to serve their ends and theirs only. Anyone who fails to see that needs to be questioned deeply, no matter how correct he or she is about other matters.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:20 pm GMT
@Sean

Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives

What moral imperatives are you referring to?

Tsar Bomba for CIA , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:20 pm GMT
This is exactly right. The UN member nations are ready to replace the UN with an organization that can curb criminal regimes like the US. This has been the case since the 80s.

unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000732/073282eo.pdf

Considering the terminal degeneracy of the criminal enterprise that runs the US, it's going to take a war. Classified US policy is to use urban populations as human shields for the CIA COG autocracy. COIN drills like Watertown are dry runs for CIA martial law during war with Russia.

The one hopeful sign is superior SCO missile technology, which allows kinetic warheads to be substituted for nuclear ones. This permits regime decapitation by somewhat less destructive means. Most of you are still going to die, of course. But Russia and China will leave some habitable zones for people they can trust. Make sure you know human rights and humanitarian law,

https://ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/UniversalHumanRightsInstruments.aspx

and you can demonstrate a record of sticking up for them, and the postwar criminal tribunals will let you reconstruct a peaceful and lawful American state.

It's a shame it's going to take a couple hundred million dead, mostly American, to stop the CIA regime, but the world knows it's got to be done. If we're too chicken to storm Langley and hang those criminal scumbags, we're going to have to pay.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Somehow the poor sap is still a sucker. Good grief.

James Wood , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
This continuous harping on international law should be wearing thin even with you, Mr. Zuesse. The US outspends the next 24 nations combined on arms, I understand. For the US might is right. Until you and those who oppose US policy have an army that can break the US military might you have no hope.

You really need to think this through and stop the empty posturing. The bird flipped to the International Court of Justice by John Bolton for the third time apparently should teach you a lesson. Three strikes and you're out. Go home.

Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT
@niteranger

"Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square."

If elections are a fraud (which they obviously are) how can orange clown be said to have won "fair and square"? It's a contradiction. The evil orange clown had to lie to win the election; he had to completely misrepresent himself. What orange clown did was tantamount to stealing ballots/rigging voting machines. Orange clown is nothing but Satanic low-life scum.

Also, how do you know Clinton was "the person they picked [to win]"? That's very speculative, IMO. A solid argument can be made that orange clown was actually the chosen one.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:28 pm GMT
@Miro23

Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state.

Exactly.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMT
@nsa Agree. Only one oblique reference to that other mafia state, Israel, in the whole piece.
Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
@HiHo

"What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917?"

An evil idiot.

"What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?"

An evil buffoon.

"Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on Venezula (sic) today, only make sense if you are Rothschild."

They do what they do because they're evil.

Hank , says: February 15, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In fact they are used as tools.
Benjy , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Harold Smith The Rothschild's are the Kings of the Jews. They have conquered the Bourbon, Habsburgs, the Hohenzollern, the Romanovs. They have merged with the house of Windsor. They have been mercilessly harvesting the entire planet for 200 years. They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest.

They also sent all of these groups to get slaves from each other in raids and wars to provide human material from all the other races, except jewish, to sell on these jewish run slave markets. For centuries.

They extracted blood and organs from the children of the victims for use in the kabalistic rituals.

bookish1 , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against Germany was based on devilish lies. So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world and that he had killed millions of innocent people(which he hadn't) but then turned around and helped the real murderers of millions of people which was the Soviet Union. And it goes on and on and there will be more lies and more wars to follow.
Hank , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:39 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX You can almost tell just how important the issue of private central banking is by the fact that you can't get anyone to really explain it, or even talk about it. Right now I would settle for just knowing exactly who owns it.
jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:43 pm GMT
@Hank

Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In fact they are used as tools.

Left and right are two more extremely ambiguous and often misleading terms.

It seems that most of us think that language is used in precise ways, but that's probably not the case.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:52 pm GMT
@bookish1

America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against Germany was based on devilish lies

All true.

So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world

When in fact it was a handful of mafiosi financial oligarchs, many based in New Yoik, who desired to control the whole world via co-opted Marxist principles. One of their tools was the "holy" UN which the author seems to think is some sort of Messiah. A Rockefeller "donated" the land for the UN Headquarters building, and the UN was formed under the direction of Commies and their sympathizers associated with FDR. I'm convinced that WW2 was instigated partly to begin imposing globalism on the rest of us, just as the constitution of Uncle Shylock was rammed down our throats. All for the benefit of us lowly proles, peasants and peons, of course.

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 15, 2019 at 6:53 pm GMT
I'm giving about 1.8 cheers for this piece. I agree with much of it, but I surely don't share the author's enthusiasm for this International Court of Justice, not for the workings of the United Nations in general. Give one of these international legal outfits any actual power in America, and "hate crime" laws? You ain't seen nothin' yet. In much of the world, "anti-Semitism" (whatever that's construed to mean) is already a criminal offense. Hell, leave it up to these international bodies, and the Unz Review goes dark -- and quickly, too. No, thanks.
DESERT FOX , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:01 pm GMT
@Hank The owners are the Rothschilds, the Rockerfellers. the Warburgs , the Schiffs, etc., all satanic zionists and they control every central bank in the world including the FED and the Bank of England.
Harold Smith , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:04 pm GMT
@Benjy

"They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest."

The Satanists are small in number and generally cowardly so their general modus operandi is to get their victims to destroy themselves. To put it in Biblical terms, their goal is to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve; they deceive, corrupt, manipulate and ultimately stand tall over the destruction they've brought about. They're destroyers.

jacques sheete , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
Speaking of the UN and war, Douglas Reed provides a lot of great info about the two; too much to summarize here, but I offer a sample for the curious.

The Second War produced a third result, additional to the advance of the [Marxist permanent] revolution into Europe and the establishment by force of the Zionist state: namely, the second attempt to set up the structure of a "world government", on the altar of which Western nationhood was to be sacrificed. This is the final consummation to which the parallel processes of Communism and Zionism are evidently intended to lead; the idea first emerged in the Weishaupt papers, began to take vigorous shape in the 19th Century, and was expounded in full detail in the Protocols of 1905. In the First War it was the master-idea of all the ideas which Mr. House and his associates "oozed into the mind" of President Wilson, and sought to make the president think were "his own". It then took shape, first as "The League to Enforce Peace" and at the war's end as "The League of Nations".

-Douglas Reed, The Controversy of Zion, p.470

https://archive.org/stream/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZion_djvu.txt

But of course we can write him off as an early kunspiracy theorist, can't we? And them protykalz is fake. Fake, I tell yi!

WorkingClass , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:37 pm GMT
Well yeah. The Anglo/Zionist Empire is an evil empire indeed. I've known that since serving under President Johnson in the mid sixties.

The geniuses over at ZeroHedge will be surprised to learn about imperial aggression against Venezuela. They believe the explanation for Venexuela's troubles is "Socialism doesn't work".

I'm a Nationalist. So I say screw your International Court of Justice. What the U.S. needs is a New Republic complete with a new constitution. Failing that, secession will be the way forward.

[Feb 15, 2019] Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes

Notable quotes:
"... Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations. ..."
"... The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. ..."
Feb 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous says: February 14, 2019 at 6:21 pm GMT 100 Words

@nietzsche1510

Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the invasion is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then the bluff of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in the role of bait.

The real issue lies in the voting class which cowers in fear all day long and seeks saviors every four years via rigged circus. Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes.

Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations.

The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. Freedom at the point of a gun. Nothing quite says democracy like having the US president tell the Venezuelans how to run their country.

[Feb 13, 2019] Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins

Highly recommended!
Pretty biting satire
Notable quotes:
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and " the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton lost the election.

I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve Congress, and proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two years.

So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under.

I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet. Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.

Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again." Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or Ukrainian democracy.

This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly).

Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela.

The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system (i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.

What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.

Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home," and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.

What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they? Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations. Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron, ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British" company?

And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself, honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing? And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance corporation to not really cover you.

For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them. Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called "new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked up out of the water.

In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in France at the moment, by beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.

Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .

[Feb 12, 2019] We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative' voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is who what entity owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule, dictate.

Feb 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jake , says: February 12, 2019 at 11:32 am GMT

The USSR had elections of various types. They meant nothing because the Party owned everybody.

We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative' voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is who – what entity – owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule, dictate.

Ours is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. This is the end game of the Judaizing heresies that destroyed Christendom. This nightmare is where WASP culture leads and always lead.

[Feb 12, 2019] The problem with the Florida senator is his absolute blind obedience towards the Zionist state, his engagement against the BDS movement and his loyalty to Israel's stalwarts in the US. He is not the only US politician in Congress who is in the pocket of the Zionist lobby. At least the American Middle Eastern policy is run by the Zionist Israel Lobby in the US.

Feb 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ludwig Watzal , says: Website February 12, 2019 at 11:16 am GMT

With friends like Marco Rubio, the United States doesn't need enemies. I still remember very well, when then-candidate Donald Trump ridiculed Rubio as "little Marco" during the 2016 debates. He was perfectly right. Like Phil Giraldi demonstrated Rubio's "intellectual" capability, It seems he has a birdbrain. Joke aside, Rubio's political busyness Israel is concerned raises the question who owns his true loyalty. Instead of working for his constituency, he is on the road primarily for Israel. As it seems he loves Israel more than his birthplace the United States, and he despises Cuba that political system is more social-oriented that the American one.

The problem with the Florida senator is his absolute blind obedience towards the Zionist state, his engagement against the BDS movement and his loyalty to Israel's stalwarts in the US. He is not the only US politician in Congress who is in the pocket of the Zionist lobby. At least the American Middle Eastern policy is run by the Zionist Israel Lobby in the US. But from all walks of life, their influence is also not to be underestimated.

The so-called unbreakable bond between the US and Israel is mere rhetoric, but most members of Congress believe in this nonsense just out of mere political survival. Israel is not an ally but a massive liability to US national interest in the region. The Zionist political class uses the American political system to its advantage and pays nothing in return. The opposite is true. The State of Israel is massively spying on the US and cause the American people a lot of damage.

There are not only the assassinations of JFK and RFK, but also the killing of JFK, Jr. who's private plane crashed into the sea right of the coast of Martha's Vineyard. It was the same cover-up as in the case of his father and his uncle. There are persistent rumors in the wind that the Israeli Mossad was behind it, such as Laurent Guyénot laid out in his two excellent articles on UNZ Review. Among large parts of the truther movement, some segments make a strong argument that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, although with the collaboration of sections of the Bush/Cheney administration.

To refer to Israel as a friend or ally such as Rubio does is just a joke. Israel is nothing more than an albatross like an ally. The whole American-Israeli relationship must be put to the test. There is no room for romance because such romanticism is for the sole detriment of the United States and the American People.

Highly recommended articles by Laurent Guyénot:

http://www.unz.com/article/the-broken-presidential-destiny-of-jfk-jr/
https://www.unz.com/article/did-israel-kill-the-kennedies/

lavoisier , says: Website February 12, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT

How such a lightweight came to be a Senator of the United States of America eludes me.

I know this question is meant to be a bit rhetorical but let me try and answer it.

This senator, and the vast majority of his ilk in the Congress, are venal lying whores in thrall to a foreign party and to money interests. He is not unique in this regard but only one of many lying whores in power.

And the American people–by and large–are so dumbed down by a dumbed down culture and a dumbed down media that they cannot recognize these treacherous weasels for the traitors that they are.

The Republic is in free fall.

NoseytheDuke , says: February 12, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT
@RobinG What a shame that there aren't enough George Galloways to go around.
EliteCommInc. , says: February 12, 2019 at 12:56 pm GMT
I think we have gone over the edge.

The Senator is using contentions meant to protect us citizens from unfair business practices by state and enterprise to launch protections against free speech for a foreign entity.

That is painfully funny. I hope it is only a feeling, a sensation, but our political leadership seems to have abandoned their collective minds. But this is convenient for the Sen. because nullifying the constitution is one way of nullifying borders.

DESERT FOX , says: February 12, 2019 at 1:52 pm GMT
Zionists control our money via the unconstitutional FED and that gives the Zionist banking cabal total control over the U.S. government and we the goyim/proles!

Nathan Rothschild infamously said, I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire and I am that man!

It is the same here in America and every country in the world that has a Zionist central bank and that is almost all of them!

Rubio is just another puppet of the Zionist banking kabal and is just like the rest of congress and in fact congress would be better named as the lower house of the Knesset.

Charles Pewitt , says: February 12, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMT
Marco Rubio Is A Complete And Total Politician Whore For Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson.

Marco Rubio does the bidding of Jew Billionaires by putting the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States.

Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson all push nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.

Marco Rubio pushes nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.

Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman have bought the mass legal immigration policies and the amnesty for illegal alien invaders immigration policy of the Republican Party ruling class and Marco Rubio and Shyster Boy Trump.

Marco Rubio and New York City Shyster Boy Trump have been bought and paid for like common whores by Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman.

Tweet from 2015:

[Feb 12, 2019] Being Marco Rubio: The boyish senator from Florida is owned by the Israel Lobby by Philip Giraldi

Israel is powerful only to extent its goals are well correlated with the goal of the US MIC. So like neocons Israel serves as a collective lobbyist of MIC. If this would not be the case, all power of AIPAC and similar organizations would disappear, and the organization itself would be put under FARA where it belongs.
The same is true for Zionists billionaires. The minute they turn against MIC would the minute some dirty dealing and connections with organized crime would be exposed and some pedophile scandals put on the front pages of MSM.
Notable quotes:
"... There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Thomm , says: February 12, 2019 at 5:16 am GMT

All these anti-Semitic articles fail a basic logical test :

i) If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails.
ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone like China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate Russia or the EU?
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say about whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim is even weaker.

There is a reason that the conspiracy theories regarding Zionists don't get any purchase outside of a small fringe.

Thanks,
-Ira Rabinowitz

Nehlen , says: February 12, 2019 at 6:10 am GMT
@Thomm i) It's not so surprising given the wholesale lies pedaled by the predominantly Zionists media and entertainment sectors of Western civilization, compounded by the outright censorship of opposing views by those same groups with the assistance of the ADL, SPLC, et al. Add to that the altruistic nature and generally independent spirit of Whites as opposed to the *dare I say tribal* nature of Zionists.

ii) China's recent ascent to global dominance was not built on usury and manipulation of foreign nation states through a diaspora of what has been described as "nations within nations." I'd say Zionists in Russia (ever hear of the Holodomor?) manipulated that part of the world for over a century quite completely, and in Eastern Europe for slightly less time, to the tune of 100 million dead White Christians.

iii) Interesting you bring up Blacks but leave out the part about Zionists manipulating Whites with "Birth of a Nation" being the first movie many arriving White immigrants viewed. Shock status: imagined. Clearly, that's but one of a laundry list of things any reasonably educated White person could hold up as an example of manipulation of public opinion.

Calling truisms tropes doesn't absolve ... crimes committed against humanity.

Every single day Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Han Chinese, are criticized and critiqued for all sorts of reasons and all manner of circumstances. Only one category of people is immune from criticism: Zionists. It's a double standard, and it must end.

silviosilver , says: February 12, 2019 at 6:15 am GMT
@Thomm

> If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism fails.

WN's largely agree that Zionists are more intelligent, so they are not surprised that Zionists have been able to achieve outsized influence (to "control everything," in the language of this lame troll).

ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone like China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate Russia or the EU?

If the Chinese attempted the same thing, Americans would be permitted to notice . Noticing Zionists political activity is "anti-semitic", so many Americans don't notice it (or pretend not to).

There are far fewer Zionists in the EU and Russia, but they enjoy outsized influence in those lands too – just not to the same extent as in the U.S.

iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say about whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim is even weaker.

Incorrect. WN's admit that Zionists are more intelligent than white gentiles; blacks who accuse whites of racism seldom admit that whites are more intelligent than blacks. Ultimately, WN's want separation from Zionists. Blacks who accuse whites of racism virtually never desire separation from whites. I'm not even a WN, but it really shouldn't be controversial to admit these obvious facts.

Why does Phil have such a hard time banning moronic trolls like this clown? (Who everybody suspects is just a sad little hindoo, but it's possible is a deranged little zionut.)

Mark James , says: February 12, 2019 at 9:16 am GMT
There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran.

I was disappointed to see that one of my two senators voted for the bill. And I would have to say the biggest surprise was Sen. Gillibrand who probably wanted to say 'aye' but didn't.

The next step is likely to be that any public disagreement with the state of Israel is akin to antisemitism. Which I'm certain that the Republicans will be happy to throw at the Dem. congress.

[Feb 12, 2019] Rethinking America's Military Industrial Complex by Tim Kirby

Notable quotes:
"... The 1940s are the point where the permanent military industrial complex that we know of today starts to take hold. Slightly later it got the name by which we call it today thanks to a speech by President Eisenhower at the very tail end of his presidency in 1961. Sadly Mr. Eisenhower did nothing to stop the growth of the war-machine only choosing to warn us about it with nearly no time left in office. One would have expected bold action from a man known for his bravery and cunning ..."
"... Washington chose to go with "Global Hegemon" America and has not looked back. But at this point massive military spending still required some sort of reason to spend hundreds of billions per year. Iraq and Afghanistan were enough justification to keep millions of men in uniforms on bases all over the world mostly doing pushups and cleaning the toilets in a "global war on terror". ..."
"... Since war is no longer necessary to justify the MIC the US is much more free to not engage in warfare. In fact war is completely unnecessary. At some point advertisements for automobiles had to stop mentioning their superiority to horses. We are at the same point with the MIC. Politicians and the mainstream media do not need to search for/create enemies because they are no longer needed. The US military is to be forever massive and expensive and profitable and it may even become very peaceful because of this. Why work when you can make billions doing virtually nothing? ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The US Military Industrial Complex no longer needs neither actual wars nor the threat of war for its own survival. This factor could actually change dynamic of this institution/bureaucracy in our lifetimes and it may actually be changing as we speak.

Very often something will evolve and become ubiquitous to the degree that we forget its origin. Putting a dead tree in your house on Christmas is a good example, few people think of why this is done, they just do it because it has been done for a long time and thus seems completely natural and important to do so every year. A justification for doing it is no longer needed, it is something done by default. In some ways the necessity to start questionable wars of luxury is much like that Christmas tree – an odd tradition that is not of an importance or value anymore.

In order to break this down we need to go back to the start.

It is hard for people in our times, especially foreign people to understand the fact that the United States was not a massive military power until WWII. Today sole hyperpower was at a time not that long ago a much different nation militarily and foreign policy speaking. In 1914 at the start of the Great War in Europe the territorially massive United States had a total armed forces of around 166,000 men . From 1776 until that point the manpower of US forces was minimal by European standards . That America of those times was an isolated self-focused America that many today long for. When the US entered WWI shedding the binds of its isolationist tendencies it bulked up to nearly 3,000,000 soldiers by the end of 1918. However, directly after the Great War finally ended the military severely deflated itself back down much closer to its original size.

"The Good War" in the 1940's was the final nail in the isolationist coffin as American forces would forever remain in the millions of men after the defeat of Germany and Japan by the Allies.

The 1940s are the point where the permanent military industrial complex that we know of today starts to take hold. Slightly later it got the name by which we call it today thanks to a speech by President Eisenhower at the very tail end of his presidency in 1961. Sadly Mr. Eisenhower did nothing to stop the growth of the war-machine only choosing to warn us about it with nearly no time left in office. One would have expected bold action from a man known for his bravery and cunning.

The ideological justification for retaining a massive US military in peacetime was Communism. A global Communist threat seemed like something grand enough to be worth throwing away a large portion of America's traditional (and very successful) identity.

As time went on wars of questionable origins in Korea and Vietnam continued to provide proof of the need for massive military spending and continued expansion.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90's American forces could have (in theory) reduced in size as there was no longer any real geopolitical competitor to the US. This was a "turning point" moment when America could possibly have gone back to being the America that was and scaled down to a few hundred thousand men under the umbrella of a few thousand nuclear warheads and enough billions of dollars to make sure that the US would never "fall behind" from a weapons standpoint.

But this was not to be. Washington chose to go with "Global Hegemon" America and has not looked back. But at this point massive military spending still required some sort of reason to spend hundreds of billions per year. Iraq and Afghanistan were enough justification to keep millions of men in uniforms on bases all over the world mostly doing pushups and cleaning the toilets in a "global war on terror".

Now there is a new "Russian threat" that is hard for politicians to define or prove exists but is just juicy enough for them it is still call for increasing defense spending or build system X in European country Y that they can't find on a map.

As we can see since WWII, the US military has gone from dealing with direct threats (Germany, Japan) to direct threats via proxy (The Soviet Union in Korea/Vietnam) to overinflated threats (Iraq, Afghanistan) to fake threats (today's Russia). I would argue and even offer that at this point there is no political means nor will to ever go "back" to the isolated America. That America as a concept is dead and both the politicians and the public understand and support the US having a massive military. No threat is needed any more as having a massive military is no longer even a question. It is a default position like seeing the world as round – only a tiny handful of lunatics of zero influence could argue otherwise and debating with them is pointless.

Furthermore as we have seen any politician who goes against the military industrial complex (MIC) is deemed a traitor and "against the troops".

This current state of things is actually very good from the standpoint of peace and America's reputation. Since war is no longer necessary to justify the MIC the US is much more free to not engage in warfare. In fact war is completely unnecessary. At some point advertisements for automobiles had to stop mentioning their superiority to horses. We are at the same point with the MIC. Politicians and the mainstream media do not need to search for/create enemies because they are no longer needed. The US military is to be forever massive and expensive and profitable and it may even become very peaceful because of this. Why work when you can make billions doing virtually nothing?

[Feb 11, 2019] Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, cutting morality, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior.

Notable quotes:
"... The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior. ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jean de Peyrelongue , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 10:42 am GMT

The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior.

This human sickness is now pandemic and to save humanity will require some kind of a tsunami. Nobody today wants to loose anything, and in doing so everybody is just pushing the system down the drain.

Another point: families, clans, nations are structures allowing people to develop roots. They are not the causes of war but it is true that these structures can be manipulated to generate wars in the interest of some "elite" (the poor get killed and the elite, gets richer). Reconciliation between people does not require to erase structures but to eliminate the bad guys manipulating them (the Jihadists, the terrorists and their Bosses which are today mostly in Washington, Wall Street and Riyadh)

Justsaying , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:29 pm GMT
@apollonian

and essence of Christianity and Christian civilization is reason and objective reality, necessary basis of TRUTH (= Christ)

My goodness! The essence of any religion -- - basically a mix of unsubstantiated superstition and blind faith depending on no verifiable evidence -- - to be equated with reason and objective reality, phenomena more aligned with the scientific method and culture is patently absurd. And to quote a book written when the earth was still thought a flat, anthropocentric mass and stars perched in the heavens as glittering divine ornaments? I rest my case.

[Feb 11, 2019] "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon7 , says: February 3, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT

"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."

George Orwell

[Feb 11, 2019] Noticeble decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia creates preconditions for a loot and burn approach to governing the US.

Notable quotes:
"... Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group. ..."
"... Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn. ..."
"... Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change. ..."
"... If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War). ..."
Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

Counterinsurgency , says: February 3, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT

The third trend is the only place where hope can reside. This trend – what I have previously ascribed to a group I call the "dissenters" – understands that radical new thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by the old liberal elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to explore its ideas, to experiment, to collaborate, as it urgently needs to.

Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group.

Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn.

Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change.

Example: Reaction to yellow vests in France, which drew the reactions described in Cook's article (at the root of this comment thread). "Back to your kennels, curs!" isn't effective in situations like this, but it seems to be the only reply the EU has.

New groups take over when the old group has rotted away. At some point, Cook's third alternative will be all that is left. The real question is what will be happening world wide at that point. If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War).

Counterinsurgency

1] To understand contemporary effect of WW I on survivors, think of a the survivors of a group playing paintball who accidentally got hold of grenade launchers but somehow didn't realize that until the game was over. WW II was actually worse -- people worldwide really expected another industrialized war within 20 years (by AD 1965), this one fought with nuclear weapons.

[Feb 11, 2019] Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

M-I. B. , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:15 am GMT

The parading of liberalism's humanitarian credentials has entitled our elites to leave a trail of carnage and wreckage in their wake in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria

" I am a Syrian Living in Syria: "It Was Never a Revolution nor a Civil War. The Terrorists Are Sent by Your Government"

"American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country and everyone .

Every massacre is committed by them. We were all happy in Syria: we had free school and university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF- controlled bank, state owned central bank which gives 11% interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank. "

[ ]

" I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my country which has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda. These animals slit throats and behead for pleasure they behead babies and rape young kids.

" They are satanic. Our military helped by the millions of civilian militias are winning the battle against al Qaeda. But now the USA wants to bomb the shit out of us so that al Qaeda can get the upper hand. "

"Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government. "

{emphasis added}

https://www.globalresearch.ca/i-am-a-syrian-living-in-syria-it-was-never-a-revolution-nor-a-civil-war-the-terrorists-are-sent-by-your-government/5544450

anonymous [204] Disclaimer , says: February 5, 2019 at 10:20 pm GMT
A Serbian activist on Wednesday threw a pie in the face of Jewish French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy at a showing of his film "Peshmerga" in Belgrade. He is promoting 'Kurdistan' which is part of Israel's EXPANSIONIST policy.

He will talk at the Cambridge public library, a propaganda center, on February 20th, 2019 He should be exposed further. Jewish French philosopher gets pied in face in Belgrade

[Feb 11, 2019] 'Populism' is just democracy in action and most people seem to think democracy is a good thing. So what's the problem? Apparently the masses don't want what's being shoved down their throats by undemocratic rulers so now we have this ongoing conflict.

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

anonymous [967] Disclaimer , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:45 pm GMT

'Populism' is just democracy in action and most people seem to think democracy is a good thing. So what's the problem? Apparently the masses don't want what's being shoved down their throats by undemocratic rulers so now we have this ongoing conflict. One can only hope that the populists get the upper hand in all this. We need a new political terminology because it seems strange to use the label "liberal" for a group of people that are such aggressive war-mongers. There doesn't seem to be much that's liberal about them.War lovers and anti-democratic, they have much in common with fascism.

[Feb 11, 2019] I would hardly call Europe's [neoliberal] elite liberals

Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

IstvanIN , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT

anarchyst says:
February 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT • 300 Words
The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction, period they want their "New World Order"

Very true.

The intent of this article is to blame [neo]Liberals. I would hardly call Europe's [neoliberal] elite liberals. A liberal would defend freedom of expression and thought. A liberal would defend the right of an individual or group to express viewpoints that are unpopular.

Western Europe is hardly liberal. It is ... repressive when it comes to dissent, mildly totalitarian. Political leaders who advocate for the rights of indigenous Europeans in Europe are persecuted and imprisoned. Political parties are banned or bankrupted.

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. ..."
"... The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts. ..."
"... Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law ..."
"... A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda. ..."
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American politicians.

In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And -- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which carefully avoided war with America.

It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president, who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.

Donald the Cockatoo

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this. All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit long, but worth reading.

From The Making of Donald Trump , Johnston, David Cay. (p. 23). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.

"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that out," he says.

"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."

All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.

Pussy John Bolton

A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.

Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended, now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological and dangerous.

Here is PJ on Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans, inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.

Bush II

Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively, these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No empathy. What a man.

The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's leadership should do, but ours doesn't..

Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew) holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"

The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avernus.

Gina

A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?

Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging, desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a little more water .

What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .

Michael Pompeo

Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia, which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race; wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.

But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.

Nikki Haley

A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and Pompeo Mattis

"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?

The Upshot

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.


Gene Su , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:07 am GMT

I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of course, decades ago.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).

animalogic , says: February 8, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.

However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial goals that have been in play since at least 1945.

The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors.

China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.

To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?

It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable responses .

MikeatMikedotMike , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?

And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.

Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is ominous).

Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call incremental.

Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"

Truth , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@NoseytheDuke My friend, I understand what you are saying, but at some point the wise man stops playing checkers on the chessboard.

There is, functionally, no difference between The Donna and Cackles.

riversedge , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:43 am GMT
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary? Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects,

Obama came AFTER Bush II and continued his Zionist-supremacist policies.

Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in the Establishment came to his side.

Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in common.

Trump tried but he's seen turned pussy.

ThreeCranes , says: February 9, 2019 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Sean wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress

"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as far as Russia was concerned."

Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.

Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod along, single file, to oblivion.

KenH , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.

Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the Business Roundtable.

He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.

Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.

Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime. Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.

Carroll Price , says: February 10, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep state, with him having no say in the matter.

[Feb 10, 2019] In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex.

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:35 am GMT

@NoseytheDuke Face it -- he neither believed nor understood those Stephen Miller speeches. Coming from the mouth of Donald Trump, they were lies.

Why do so many of you intelligent people still buy into the political puppet show, expecting BigGov to fix itself? Electoral politics, judicial confirmations, etc, are orchestrated conflict to keep dissidence channeled and harmlessly blown off as the Empire lurches along.

There are other columnists here at Unz who have been calling the Beltway BS for years. For example:

"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."

Linh Dinh, June 12, 2016

[Feb 10, 2019] Compared to their options, the military offers fame and fortune, and military recruiters are duplicitous snakes, just out to fill their quotas. Only later do many of them realize they were duped. Hence, their suicide rate of 20 vets per day.

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: February 8, 2019 at 6:57 pm GMT

@anon1 I would not condemn them out of hand. Most enlisted men never went to college. They come from poor rural areas, where they would be lucky to get a part-time job at McDonalds. Their mothers were probably on welfare, drug-addicted with no father in the home.

Compared to their options, the military offers fame and fortune, and military recruiters are duplicitous snakes, just out to fill their quotas.

Only later do many of them realize they were duped. Hence, their suicide rate of 20 vets per day.

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American politicians.

In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And -- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which carefully avoided war with America.

It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president, who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.

Donald the Cockatoo

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this. All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit long, but worth reading.

From The Making of Donald Trump , Johnston, David Cay. (p. 23). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.

"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that out," he says.

"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."

All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.

Pussy John Bolton

A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.

Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended, now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological and dangerous.

Here is PJ on Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans, inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.

Bush II

Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively, these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No empathy. What a man.

The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's leadership should do, but ours doesn't..

Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew) holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"

The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avernus.

Gina

A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?

Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging, desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a little more water .

What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .

Michael Pompeo

Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia, which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race; wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.

But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.

Nikki Haley

A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and Pompeo Mattis

"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?

The Upshot

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.


Gene Su , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:07 am GMT

I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of course, decades ago.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).

animalogic , says: February 8, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.

However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial goals that have been in play since at least 1945.

The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors.

China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.

To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?

It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable responses .

MikeatMikedotMike , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?

And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.

Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is ominous).

Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call incremental.

Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"

Truth , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@NoseytheDuke My friend, I understand what you are saying, but at some point the wise man stops playing checkers on the chessboard.

There is, functionally, no difference between The Donna and Cackles.

riversedge , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:43 am GMT
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary? Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects,

Obama came AFTER Bush II and continued his Zionist-supremacist policies.

Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in the Establishment came to his side.

Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in common.

Trump tried but he's seen turned pussy.

ThreeCranes , says: February 9, 2019 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Sean wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress

"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as far as Russia was concerned."

Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.

Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod along, single file, to oblivion.

KenH , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.

Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the Business Roundtable.

He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.

Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.

Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime. Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.

Carroll Price , says: February 10, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep state, with him having no say in the matter.

[Feb 10, 2019] And does he really think the Brits have "class?"

Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bragadocious , says: February 8, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT

Both Haley and Mattis are no longer serving with the Administration; apparently news of this has not reached Fred's watering hole in Ajijic, where I hear the Internet is slow and dodgy. And does he really think the Brits have "class?"

Harry showed up for a photo op in Helmand province and promptly got two American GIs killed, a result that Reed probably found thrilling.

The classy Brits promptly created tall tales of this dimwitted ginger dodging bullets and blasting insurgents to bits, like a modern day Flashman. All this in the run-up to the big wedding. Classy, and not propaganda at all!

[Feb 09, 2019] The US scraps the INF treaty Another step toward nuclear war by Andre Damon

Notable quotes:
"... New York Times ..."
"... "Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet Union, negotiated the INF agreement." ..."
"... Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military. ..."
"... As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates." ..."
"... The United States hopes that, by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up US preeminence on the world stage. ..."
"... Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal "strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR. ..."
"... But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the genocidal impulses of US imperialism. ..."
"... Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of neocolonial wars. ..."
"... the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001. ..."
"... Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to and including the launching of nuclear war. ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | www.wsws.org

In an article that fully backs the White House's accusations against Russia, the New York Times ' David Sanger, a conduit for the Pentagon, spells out with perfect lucidity the real reasons why the United States is leaving the INF treaty:

"Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet Union, negotiated the INF agreement."

Sanger's own words make perfectly clear why the United States wants to leave the treaty, which has nothing to do with Russia's alleged violations: Washington is seeking to ring the island chain surrounding the Chinese mainland with a hedge of nuclear missiles. But Sanger somehow expects, without so much as a transition paragraph, his readers to believe the hot air spewed by Pompeo about Russia's "bad behavior."

Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military.

Two decades ago, at the height of the dotcom bubble, China was little more than a cheap labor platform, assembling the consumer electronics driving a revolution in communications, while American companies pocketed the vast bulk of the profits. But today, the economic balance of power is shifting.

Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo are capturing an ever-greater portion of the global smartphone market, even as their rivals Samsung and Apple see their market share slip. The Shenzhen-based DJI is the uncontested global leader in the consumer drone market. Huawei, meanwhile, leads its competitors by over a year in the next-generation mobile infrastructure that will power not only driverless cars and "smart" appliances, but the "autonomous" weapons of the future.

As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates."

It is the economic decline of the United States relative to its global rivals that is ultimately driving the intensification of US nuclear war plans. The United States hopes that, by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up US preeminence on the world stage.

But a consensus is emerging within the US military that Washington cannot bring its rivals to heel merely with the threat of totally obliterating them with its massive arsenal of strategic missiles. Given the fleet of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines possessed by both Russia and China, this option, even ignoring the effects of nuclear winter, would result in the destruction of the largest cities in the United States.

Rather, the US is working to construct a "usable," low-yield, "tactical" nuclear arsenal, including the construction of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. This week, a new low-yield US nuclear warhead went into production, with a yield between half and one third of the "little boy" weapon that leveled the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and hundreds of times smaller than the United States' other nuclear weapons systems.

The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released last year, envisions using such weapons to turn the tide in conflicts that begin with conventional weapons, under the pretense (whether the Pentagon believes it or not) that such wars will stop short of full-scale nuclear exchanges.

Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal "strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR.

But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the genocidal impulses of US imperialism.

Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of neocolonial wars.

But the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001.

Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to and including the launching of nuclear war.

... ... ...

[Feb 09, 2019] NYT neoliberal presstitutes ignore Afghan war and concentrate of rumors about Trump

"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit." As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Notable quotes:
"... Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate? ..."
"... Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation? ..."
"... And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization. ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

From: Lost in TrumpWorld by Andrew J. Bacevich

I don't wish to imply that political leaders and media outlets ignore our wars altogether. That would be unfair. Yet in TrumpWorld, while the president's performance in office receives intensive and persistent coverage day in, day out, the attention given to America's wars has been sparse and perfunctory, when not positively bizarre.

As a case in point, consider the op-ed that recently appeared in the New York Times (just as actual peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban seemed to be progressing ), making the case for prolonging the U.S. war in Afghanistan, while chiding President Trump for considering a reduction in the number of U.S. troops currently stationed there. Any such move, warned Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, would be a "mistake" of the first order.

The ongoing Afghan War dates from a time when some of today's recruits were still in diapers. Yet O'Hanlon counsels patience: a bit more time and things just might work out. This is more or less comparable to those who suggested back in the 1950s that African Americans might show a bit more patience in their struggle for equality: Hey, what's the rush?

I don't pretend to know what persuaded the editors of the Times that O'Hanlon's call to make America's longest war even longer qualifies as something readers of the nation's most influential newspaper just now need to ponder. Yet I do know this: the dearth of critical attention to the costs and consequences of our various post-9/11 wars is nothing short of shameful, a charge to which politicians and journalists alike should plead equally guilty.

I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit. Even more striking than Trump's critique is the fact that so few members of the national security establishment are willing to examine it seriously. As a consequence, the wars persist, devoid of purpose.

Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate?

Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation?

And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization.

Yet the fault is not Trump's. The fault belongs to those who have allowed their immersion in the dank precincts of TrumpWorld to preclude serious reexamination of misguided and reckless policies that predate the president by at least 15 years.


fnn , says: February 5, 2019 at 8:05 pm GMT

You have to compare Trump with the alternative. The D's /progs make war on free speech, attack the presumption of innocence, want essentially uncontrolled mass immigration and relentlessly push in the direction of war with Russia. Add their cynical Russiagate hoax-witch hunt for further illustration
of the danger they present. As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Cassander , says: February 7, 2019 at 2:46 am GMT
"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit."

I'm with Bacevich on the insanity of Endless War, but I question why he has to denigrate Trump in his lead in. The cynical side of me believes that Bacevich thinks he has to be a Trump-hater if he is to be listened to.

Hey Andrew sir Democracy is messy. But DJT is on your team and the MSM/Liberal progs/Neocons aren't. Worth reflecting on

Al Moanee , says: February 7, 2019 at 3:31 am GMT
@fnn "As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease"

Actually, Trump is the microbe not the virus. He's the opportunistic microbe that attaches itself to a sick and diseased body-politic. As to symptoms, they are borne by society at-large and now manifest themselves in the majority of Americans who one way or the other are "Lost in TrumpWorld"

[Feb 08, 2019] To see how the US tries to put loopholes in its international legal commitments, you have to look at the reservations

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

hubba hubba Jon-Benet , says: Next New Comment

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions. ..."
"... At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start. ..."
Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

RJJCDA , says: February 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT

Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books. Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.

At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.

Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.

[Feb 08, 2019] For a well-documented, quite different analysis of the Kennedy assassination see "Partners in Crime: The Rockefeller, CFR, CIA and Castro Connection to the Kennedy Assassination."

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pancho Perico , says: February 8, 2019 at 5:31 pm GMT

@Sean According to this comment, "The government does not take orders from the CIA or the FBI. The President controls both." Well, only if the President is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Rockefeller's puppet. For a well-documented, quite different analysis of the Kennedy assassination see "Partners in Crime: The Rockefeller, CFR, CIA and Castro Connection to the Kennedy Assassination."

[Feb 08, 2019] The C.I.A. IS all about Regime Change. I am not convinced that they are all bad just a clique within.

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sowhat , says: Next New Comment February 8, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT

The C.I.A. IS all about Regime Change. I am not convinced that they are all bad just a clique within. They are inexplicably connected with that government behind the Government. They are not connected with the office of the Executive but follow the orders of a few that have no regard for The People, constitutionally. If they were, drugs would have been squashed, decades ago.

... ... ...

[Feb 08, 2019] Amazing that a bunch of academics would "criticize" the CIA and leave out all the real facts about the CIA.

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous , says: Next New Comment February 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT

Edward Curtain writes for the CIA about the CIA. Amazing that a bunch of academics would "criticize" the CIA and leave out all the real facts about the CIA.

ISIS, Al Qaeda, Pornhub, Facebook, Google – or whatever the CIA calls themselves and their weapons isn't in the business of informing you about anything at all.

Read 1984, it will explain it to you, another psychological warfare treatise written by a Government agent.

Agent76 , says: Next New Comment February 8, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT
Documentary: On Company Business [1980] FULL [Remaster]

Rare award winning CIA documentary, On Company Business painfully restored from VHS.

[Feb 08, 2019] NBC = CIA = NBCIA

Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Asagirian , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:24 pm GMT

NBC = CIA = NBCIA
Agent76 , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:39 pm GMT
March 19, 2017 The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News How the Deep State Corrupted Many American Writers

Whitney's new book, "Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers," explores how the CIA influenced acclaimed writers and publications during the Cold War to produce subtly anti-communist material. During the interview, Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the Paris Review).

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46688.htm

JANUARY 18, 2017 CIA Publishes About 13 Million Pages of Declassified Files Online

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published nearly 13 million pages of declassified files on its official website for the first time in its history. The declassified files were previously publicly available only at the National Archives in Maryland.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/cia-publishes-about-13-million-pages-of-declassified-files-online/

[Feb 07, 2019] The USA is extracting its proven reserves at a much faster rate than any other large producer so unless new reserves are discovered US production will likely start to decline again within a few years.

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Matthias Eckert , says: February 7, 2019 at 10:48 am GMT

@Ilyana_Rozumova Despite huge increases in domestic oil production in the last years the USA is still the second largest net oil importer in the word (behind China).
Also the USA is extracting its proven reserves at a much faster rate than any other large producer (a pattern it also had in the past, leading to high fluctuation in its production) so unless new reserves are discovered US production will likely start to decline again within a few years.
Winston2 , says: February 7, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova Condensate, not oil. Only good for gas or lighter fluid. It may be called oil but that's a deliberate misnomer.

Only financial engineering makes it appear profitable. Its a money losing psychopaths power play, not a business. Without a heavy real oil to blend it with its useless, heavy oil is where Venezuela comes in.

Tom Welsh , says: February 7, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova "Main factor here is that US due to fracking become self sufficient, what actually nobody could foresee. Just a bad luck".

Bad luck for the USA. They have fallen into an elephant trap, because fracking has already become unprofitable and is only being financed by ever-increasing debt.

Admittedly this gives them some advantage, but only in the very short term.

Of course, it doesn't really matter – in the short to medium term – whether fracking is profitable or grossly unprofitable. They can still pay for it by printing more dollars, as long as the "greater fools" (or heavily bribed officials) in other countries go on accepting dollars.

Vidi , says: February 7, 2019 at 9:10 pm GMT
@Wally

"America's energy security just got a lot more secure . Located in the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone Spring Formation, the unproven, technically recoverable reserves are officially the largest on the planet."

None of these breathlessly optimistic articles say how expensive it will be to get this oil. If a dollar's worth of oil costs you more than a dollar to recover, you are obviously losing in the deal. If you print the dollars, your entire economy loses.

[Feb 07, 2019] Venezuela's deteriorating oil quality riles major refiners

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

George , says: February 7, 2019 at 10:21 pm GMT

The Paraguaná Refinery Complex is a crude oil refinery complex in Venezuela. It is considered the world's third largest refinery complex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguan%C3%A1_Refinery_Complex

There might be quality problems, or maybe this article is propaganda.

Venezuela's deteriorating oil quality riles major refiners
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-oil-insight/venezuelas-deteriorating-oil-quality-riles-major-refiners-idUSKBN1CN2EO

[Feb 07, 2019] US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years: both has Presidents installed by foreign power

Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: February 7, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT

You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years.

After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power – in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.

It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system – which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.

And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies work.

[Feb 06, 2019] House Democrats Will Expand Russiagate in 2019 to Push Trump Toward War

Feb 06, 2019 | sputniknews.com

Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in 2019, its third year of operation.

"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when there really isn't."

investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.

Indeed, report after report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money associated with "Russians" is always dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the social media game.

Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."

"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom government of the worst kind."

[Feb 06, 2019] Bari Weiss Has the Stupidest Take on Tulsi Gabbard Yet

Notable quotes:
"... "Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so... ..."
Feb 06, 2019 | www.youtube.com

the op kingdom , 1 week ago (edited)

This woman had NO CLUE what she was talking about. She thought she was on a show that would just tow the party line and let her get away with wrong statements. She's just repeating what critics say with no idea of the truth. What a fool. As a woman, THIS IS WHY I WON'T JUST VOTE FOR ANY WOMAN. We are just as capable of being stupid as anyone else.

FrozenWolf150 , 1 week ago

Bari: "I think Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie." Joe: "What do you mean by toadie?" Bari: "Oh, I don't know what that means." Joe: "Okay, I looked it up, and it's like a sycophant." Bari: "Then Tulsi is like an Assad sycophant." Joe: "So what do you mean by that?" Bari: "I'm not sure what sycophant means either." Joe: "I looked up the definition, it's like a suck-up." Bari: "All right, Tulsi is an Assad suck-up." Joe: "Could you explain that further?" Bari: "I don't know what suck means." Joe: "It's what you're doing right now."

Jeff Oloff , 1 week ago

Bari Weiss is a tool of Zionist war mongers that promote perpetual war. She has no thoughts of her own.

Joe Smith , 1 week ago

I hate Bari Weiss....I just don't why.

Nicholas Pniewski , 1 week ago

Tulsi also recently clarified her position of Assad and Syria on CNN, where she said she would have diplomacy rather than war

Captain Obvious , 1 week ago

"Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so...

[Feb 06, 2019] NYT Columnist Calls Tulsi Gabbard 'Assad Toady,' Can't Define or Spell Term

I will be very surprised if neocons would not frame her Putin toady as well. This is how this system works. It eliminates undesirable to the neoliberals candidates with 100% efficiency.
They serve as local STASI and some former STASI official might well envy neocons efficiency of silencing opponents (with much less blood and overt repression, by pure magic of neocon propaganda ).
Notable quotes:
"... She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan. ..."
"... Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her." ..."
"... When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details." ..."
"... Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists." ..."
"... She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country. ..."
Feb 06, 2019 | sputniknews.com
Monday to discuss current events, but things got embarrassing when she went in on Gabbard, a progressive Democrat whose foreign policy positions have turned more than a few heads.

Neocon NY Times columnist Bari Weiss smeared Tulsi Gabbard (who bravely opposed regime change and US support for Salafi-jihadist contras) as an "Assad toady," then couldn't spell/define toady or offer any evidence to prove her smear. Embarrassingly funny pic.twitter.com/m0MLaHFPiX

-- Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 22, 2019

She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan.

US Representative Tulsi Gabbard speaks during Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 26, 2016 © AFP 2018 / Timothy A. CLARY Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Speaks the Truth on Syria, Gets Smeared by the Mainstream Media

When Rogan asks for clarification, she says, "I think that I used that word correctly." She then asks someone off camera to look up what toady means. "Like toeing the line," Rogan says, "is that what it means?" "No, I think it's like, uh " and Weiss drones off without an answer. She then attempts to spell it, and can't even do that. "T-O-A-D-I-E. I think it means what I think it means "

Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her."

When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details."

In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, greets supporters in Honolulu. Gabbard has announced she's running for president in 2020 © AP Photo / Marco Garcia 'Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington': Controversial Dem. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Announces 2020 Run

"We probably should say that before we say that about her -- we should probably read it, rather, right now, just so we know what she said," Rogan notes. "I think she's, like, the motherlode of bad ideas," Weiss then says. "I'm pretty positive about that, especially on Assad. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I'm wrong." It seems to us here at Sputnik that such claims should be made with a bit more confidence than this. So let's set the record straight.

Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists."

She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country.

A general view shows damaged buildings at al-Kalasa district of Aleppo, Syria in Aleppo, Syria, February 2, 2017 © REUTERS / Omar Sanadiki US Lawmakers Call for Syria Strategy Where Assad Leaving Post, Russian Military Pulls Out

"Initially I hadn't planned on meeting him," Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, told CNN's Jake Tapper following the meeting. "When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because I felt it's important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we could achieve peace. And that's exactly what we talked about."

"I have seen this cost of war firsthand, which is why I fight so hard for peace," Gabbard said. "And that's the reality of the situation that we're facing here. It's why I have urged and continue to urge [US President Donald] Trump to meet with people like Kim Jong Un in North Korea, because we understand what's at stake here. The only alternative to having these kinds of conversations is more war."

Moreover, in a March 2016 speech before Congress, Gabbard called Assad "a brutal dictator," noting that her opposition to what she called a "war bill" was over the legal ramifications that she feared would lead to the overthrow of Assad, which she opposes on anti-interventionist grounds.

"[T]oppling ruthless dictators in the Middle East creates even more human suffering and strengthens our enemy, groups like ISIS and other terrorist organizations, in those countries," Gabbard said at the time.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speak to reporters about the Congressional Budget Office projection that 14 million people would lose health coverage under the House Republican bill dismantling former President Barack Obama's health care law, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March, 13, 2017. © AP Photo/ J. Scott Applewhite House Democrats Will Expand Russiagate in 2019 to Push Trump Toward War

Gabbard has been thoroughly demonized for her pro-peace views by global liberal media, as Trump has been for his moves to end the war in Syria and avoid another on the Korean Peninsula. For example, The Daily Beast's article announcing her candidacy called Gabbard "Assad's Favorite Democrat" in its headline; a Haaretz headline from last week say she had "Tea With Assad," and the Washington Post has called her "Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington." The UK Independent called her a "defender of dictators."

It's not clear what Weiss had in mind when she called Gabbard a "sycophant" and a "toady," since the congresswoman's rhetoric about Assad has consisted of skepticism and opposition to intervention, and she hasn't hesitated to call the Syrian president a "brutal dictator." What Gabbard's treatment has demonstrated is that a Democrat who steps out of line from the party's pro-regime change agenda in Syria and who condemns Muslim extremists associated with Daesh and al-Qaeda should be prepared to suffer for it in the mainstream media.

[Feb 06, 2019] Tulsi Gabbard Rips Interventionism In First Campaign Ad

Feb 06, 2019 | www.youtube.com


Tacet the Terror , 1 week ago

Sanders/Gabbard 2020 is the only non-"lesser of two evils" choice.

kamran5461 , 1 week ago

Now you see why the establishment really hates her.

Zero Divisor , 1 week ago

Tulsi Gabbard went to Standing Rock. She has my support.

it's show buiness kiddo , 1 week ago

I wwant tulsi to defeat Kamala in the primaries. Kamala is a fake progressive and the establishment already coronated her. I can't trust her.

Voitan , 1 week ago

I'm voting Tulsi Gabbard. Uncompromising commitment to no more interventions and wars.

malena garcia , 1 week ago

I love Tulsi; her ad was great. She's the only dem I would vote for at this point. Kamala is an evil hypocrite. And Tulsi's right, love is the most powerful force in the planet.

Jurgen K , 1 week ago

Tulsi is hated by the establishment the most not Bernie , this is the reason I say Tulsi2020

Jay Smathers , 1 week ago (edited)

Wake up folks -Tulsi would not have run if Bernie was going run. Bernie will endorse her early on and she will have a much tougher fight than he did, because while Sanders caught the corporate establishment sleeping in 2016, they are now frightened and see Gabbard coming. They will use every dirty trick at their disposal to keep her from catching fire -and that begins with dividing progressives like us. Tulsi is not perfect because no one is perfect. But she is young, bright and fucking fearless compared to other politicians about putting the long term good of the American people above the moneyed interests who think they own our media and our government. This is why the establishment despises her more than even Sanders. 2020 will reveal weather or not we can retake ownership of our media and our government. That fight will require all of us - so Kyle get on the bus!

FujiFire , 1 week ago

Tulsi is an amazing candidate in her own right, but IMO she would be a perfect VP pick for Bernie. She has the amazing foreign policy cred and would really shore up Bernie's weakest areas.

D. Martin , 1 week ago (edited)

I remember Obama ripping interventionism too. And Trump.

rolled oats , 1 week ago

Tulsa Gabbard's ad doesn't mention the people who die in the countries we invade. That's 600k people in Iraq for example. A significant omission me thinks.

Wayne Chapman , 1 week ago

The Aloha Spirit Law is a big deal in Hawaii. Government officials are required to approach dignitaries from other countries or states with the spirit of aloha. "Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. I think that's what we want in a President or a diplomat.

madara uchiha , 1 week ago

She's great and unique as she doesnt fall back to identity politics and sjwism as much as the standard left politicians. I hope she doesnt bend her ethics when the sjws come for her. I'm putting my trust in her. I hope she wins. And if she isn't in the race, i wont be voting.

David , 1 week ago (edited)

The question I would love her to address specifically is will her campaign focus on decreasing military spending like Bernie Sanders? She has a military background and the US loves war. This ad is good but it is tip toing around the MIC ( military industrial complex) She can be non interventionist but not decrease military spending is what worries me

GoLookAtJohn PodestasEmails , 1 week ago

This is why we need Gabbard on the debate stage. She will push the Overton window on revealing to the public what our military is actually doing overseas. She's also a staunch progressive. Bernie/Tulsi 2020. Their weakness match well with each other, and Tulsi was one of the first to jump ship on the sinking DNC ship when Hillary got caught cheating being the DNC. Keep small donations going into your favorite progressive candidates to hear their voice. It doesn't work any other way folks.

Geoff Daly , 1 week ago

Intervention isn't only an issue about morality. As Dwight Eisenhower put it (even though he himself was far from an anti imperialist), you can't have an endless stream of money dedicated to military endeavors AND a sufficient investment in domestic public priorities. This easily explains why we have increasingly decrepit infrastructure, increasingly worse performing education, increasingly worse performing health care, absurdly insufficient regulation between government and business (although the pay to play system certainly is the top reason) and a generally decaying public atmosphere. Beyond the fact that getting involved everywhere creates humanitarian crises, countless dead people, hopelessly destroyed countries, and so much more, even if other countries haven't in return bombed our shores from sea to sea, even if generally speaking those who consider not only the US but Americans the "enemies" haven't overwhelmed with non stop attacks, this non stop and ever growing appetite for more money for more war priorities has created the very decline we see in our country today. Until there is a change in priorities in general, these problems in the US will only continue to get worse.

Tom Pashkov , 1 week ago

Gabbard for Sec. of Defense in the Sanders/Warren administration.

Jacob Serrano , 1 week ago

Man, Tulsi made me tear up. She's my girl. This message reminds me more of the message of Jesus than many of the fundamentalists. She's not even Christian, yet represents Christ very well. I love this woman.

Ny3 43 , 1 week ago

Prepare for BAE, Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other weapons corporations and their bum lickers to launch a viscous smear campaign against her suggesting she's somehow a Neo Nazi communist anti Semitic islamophobic islamist.

Gem Girlla , 1 day ago (edited)

Tulsi 2020 she's saying some of the same things Trump said in his 2016 campaign. Unfortunately, he didn't deliver. Per the corporate Democrates, making America better is a bad thing.

GiantOctopus0101 , 1 day ago

Tulsi can actually beat Trump...if she gets the nomination. The wars are the elephant in the room, and whoever is willing to take that on full force, can win.

[Feb 06, 2019] The modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class. And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.

Feb 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Meanwhile, the modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class. And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.

Hence the failure of our political system to serve socially conservative/racist voters who also want to tax the rich and preserve Social Security. Democrats won't ratify their racism; Republicans, who have no such compunctions, will -- remember, the party establishment solidly backed Roy Moore's Senate bid -- but won't protect the programs they depend on.


Charles Pewitt , says: February 6, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT

Paul Krugman is a baby boomer, pissant globalizer bastard, but he has made reasonable comments about immigration in the past.

Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron who has occasional bouts of clarity on the anti-worker aspects of mass legal immigration and illegal immigration. Krugman had it right in 2006 when he said that mass immigration lowers wages for workers in the USA.

Krugman in NY Times 2006:

First, the benefits of immigration to the population already here are small. The reason is that immigrant workers are, at least roughly speaking, paid their "marginal product": an immigrant worker is paid roughly the value of the additional goods and services he or she enables the U.S. economy to produce. That means that there isn't anything left over to increase the income of the people already here.

My second negative point is that immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That's just supply and demand: we're talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production, so it's inevitable that this means a fall in wages. Mr. Borjas and Mr. Katz have to go through a lot of number-crunching to turn that general proposition into specific estimates of the wage impact, but the general point seems impossible to deny.

Hypnotoad666 , says: February 6, 2019 at 11:05 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt I agree Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron.

However, Krugman is also a relentless partisan hack. So his expert analysis always ends up supporting the current Democrat talking points -- whatever they may be.

Here, Krugman is disparaging any move to the center as the DNC wants to keep the Dems unified on the left and keep Schultz (or anyone like him) out of the race. Of course, the real reason Schultz has massively negative polling is because the Democrat establishment has been savaging him for precisely this reason.

Likewise, to Krugman a "Racist" politician is anyone who holds the same immigration position as Krugman did in 2006, which is now anathema to the Dem's new Open Borders electoral strategy.

It's only a matter of time until Krugman starts talking up Kamala Harris as the best thing that could happen for the economy.

TG , says: February 7, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
Bottom line: Krugman – like any economist who was gifted with a fake Nobel Prize in Economics by his wealthy patrons (the Nobel Prize in Economics does not exist – check out wikipedia!) – is a whore whose only function is to protect the left flank of our corrupt and rapacious elite.

He's not a moron, and he's certainly not a liberal. His job – which pays very well mind you – is to pretend to be a sorta-kinda Keynesian New Dealer, but in reality, anything that the rich wants, he will end up defending. And even if he sorta kinda claims to be opposing something that the rich want which will impoverish the rest of us, when it comes to the bottom line, he will ruthlessly attack any opposition to these policies.

[Feb 05, 2019] Money's true nature is law. When a country collapses, then its money collapses.

Feb 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

MEFOBILLS , says: February 3, 2019 at 8:07 pm GMT

@nsa Sorry, not true.

The original bronze disks of Rome circulated as currency. The metal money of U.S. Confederacy circulated that is until the Confederacy became no more.

The point? Money's true nature is law. When a country collapses, then its money collapses.

Paper money that was good? Lincoln's greenbacks circulated at par. Massachusetts Bills circulated as money and prevented Oligarchs from England and their attempted takeover. The colony used the money to make iron goods (like Cannons) and do commerce.

The real statement is this: Money when it becomes unlawful, always collapses.

Massive money printing can happen when too many loans are made, as in the case today as all private bank credit notes come into being with loan activity -- a little more that 98%.

Driving a currency down with shorts causes new money to be loaned into existence, which in turn is the underlying cause of hyperinflations. The new credit creation covers the short. This mechanism always goes along with exchange rate pressures, where your country has to pay a debt in a foreign currency.

If you had an internal gold currency, which is recognized internationally, then your debts would be paid in gold, which would collapse your country into depression instead of inflation.

Bottom line is that money's true nature is law, and making claims about "paper" or "metal" obscures this fact.

cassandra , says: February 3, 2019 at 8:38 pm GMT
@eah

Since both the Fed and your local bank create money from nothing

They also impose some obligations: repayment of principle and interest. Since we can't create money from nothing, this payback has to come from money somehow created by the banks as well.

I'm less worried about "disappearing" tax money than I am about misallocated spending and its consequences -- eg the 'black budget' of the NSA and 'deep state' generally.

Can't we worry about everything ?

Good point about the 'black budget'. But the last time some sort of DOD audit was attempted the Pentagon accountants' offices got hit by a missile, I mean airliner, on 911.

[Feb 05, 2019] NYTimes Journo Melts Down On Joe Rogan s Show

Feb 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com

nywvblue , 1 day ago

Bari Weiss is the monstrous motherlode of ineptitude, it would appear.

tom burton , 15 hours ago

Bari Weiss's next column: Joe Rogan is a toady of Tulsi Gabbard.

Robert Harper , 17 hours ago

Now it is easy to understand why I stopped my nyt subscription.

Mike Honcho , 17 hours ago

Unbelievable! It's like Joe is interviewing an airhead middle school mean girl.

[Feb 05, 2019] SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

Feb 05, 2019 | www.kansascity.com

On Twitter and from the Senate floor, Paul made clear his distaste for McConnell's amendment that warns that "the precipitous withdrawal of United States' forces from either country could put at risk hard-won gains and United States national security."

Paul, a non-interventionist, instead hailed Trump for being "bold enough and strong enough" to end the war in Afghanistan that began after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The senator argued there was no longer a military mission for U.S. troops to remain. He called McConnell's amendment an "insult" to Trump.

"How do you leave precipitously after 17 years?" Paul asked. "We are no longer fighting anyone who attacked us on 9-11."

Paul called the amendment -- which McConnell authored and is widely viewed as a rebuke to Trump's plans to withdraw troops from the two countries -- a product of a "war caucus" that Paul said includes Republicans and Democrats.


Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article225518415.html#storylink=cpy

javascript:false

McConnell has been careful not to criticize Trump, instead focusing on some Democratic opposition. But the amendment cleared the Senate 90 minutes after Paul spoke with a 70 to 26 vote and support from senators from both parties.

McConnell labeled the provision as an "opportunity for senators to go on the record about what the United States should be doing in Syria and Afghanistan."

He'd made his views clear: "I believe the threats remain. ISIS and al Qaeda have yet to be defeated. And American national security interests require continued commitment to our missions there."

Trump came under sharp criticism from his own party after claiming in a tweet in December that the U.S. had defeated ISIS in Syria and that he was ordering a "full" and "rapid" withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended the amendment and criticized the press for casting it as a rebuke to Trump.

"This is the process working the way it was intended to, for the (president) to raise these issues and then discussions take place," Risch said.

Paul has been a longtime critic of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and last year dispatched his Senate committee staff to the country to document what he says is "wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars" and "rampant corruption."


Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article225518415.html#storylink=cpy

[Feb 04, 2019] The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets. ..."
"... After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well: ..."
"... After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense. ..."
"... I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted. ..."
"... I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag. ..."
"... In my opinion Kushner is Mossad. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 3, 2019 at 6:55 am GMT

@Anon

The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.

Pence has no need to undermine Trump. He can just wait. All the militant Zionist Trump brought into the WH have already done that ..and Trump let them. Who do you suppose Kushner has shared US secret intelligence with Israel for sure, probably Saudi in exchange for their allying with Israel. We use to worry about spies and moles in government but now they are the government.

Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets.

by Tina Nguyen
January 25, 2019 11:44 am
AFP

The CIA took one look at Kushner's SCI application and freaked out, calling over to the White House to find out how he even got the lower level clearance.

[MORE]

In May, after months working under an interim clearance, Jared Kushner's request for a permanent security clearance, which would allow him to see top-secret material, was finally granted. At the time, observers took this as an indication that Donald Trump's son-in-law, who'd reportedly attracted Robert Mueller's attention for his ties to various foreign entities, was in the clear.

On Thursday, however, an NBC News report threw that conclusion into doubt. In fact, two sources familiar with the matter told the outlet, Kushner's clearance was only approved because Trump's handpicked director of security personnel overruled two career White House security specialists, who had recommended against Kushner receiving top-secret clearance after seeing the results of his F.B.I. background check.

Kushner's case represents a worrisome pattern for the White House. Per NBC, Trump's director of security, Carl Kline, overruled security experts in at least 30 cases, recommending that Trump officials be granted clearances despite troubling information uncovered in their background checks. That number is indeed extraordinary.

Prior to the Trump administration, White House security experts had only been overruled once in the past three years. (The White House told NBC, "We don't comment on security clearances." A CIA. spokesman said the same, and Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had "no comment." Kline, a former Pentagon employee, could not be reached for comment.)

Denying a security clearance to a White House official, noted Daniel Jacobson, a former lawyer in Barack Obama's administration, is not something that's done lightly. "It is not normal for the head of the Personal Security Office to ever overrule the career employees who adjudicate clearances," he wrote on Twitter. "It takes some pretty bad stuff to be denied a clearance. The fact that there have been thirty denial recommendations of WH staff in the last 1.5 years is itself crazy, before you even get to the overruling part."

After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well:

After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT
@renfro I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted.

I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag.

DESERT FOX , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer In my opinion Kushner is Mossad.

[Feb 04, 2019] Amorality as the key feature of psychopaths

It is very difficult for normal people to understand that one of distinguishing feature of psychopaths is that they simply do not care about the laws and about moral principles. The only thing they care about is being caught, but even this is often not the case for some of them. There is a category of psychopaths who display wanton disregard for laws ignoring possible consequences, despite the fact that they are not completely stupid. For them they not only doe not exist, or they are just for "deplorables" to borrow Hillary epithet for common people.
If this is the case for a female psychopath this is vey dangerous and not that easy to detect as we intuitively prescribe to female less aggressiveness and better law obedience. Huge disappointments may follow.
Notable quotes:
"... I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys. Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless, it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil. ..."
"... That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly regulated it can produce some good. ..."
"... Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
AnonFromTN , says: February 4, 2019 at 8:12 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys. Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless, it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil.

That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly regulated it can produce some good.

You also ignore the fact that all those MIC profiteers don't really want WWIII. They want to keep stealing huge amounts of taxpayers' money on military contracts. For that they scare the common folk with dangers that do not exist and regale them with "patriotic" BS they don't believe in. Deep down they know that to enjoy their loot they must stay alive: unlike pathetic politicians, the gods do not take bribes.

As to those people throwing rocks from the overpass of I-75, I think "Beavis and Butt-Head" answers your question. Hopeless stupidity of people totally lacking imagination, when it becomes active, is evil. But the people themselves are just unimaginative morons.

So, my point is there is no such thing as evil per se, there is greed and stupidity (often the combination of the two) that leads to evil actions.

AnonFromTN , says: February 4, 2019 at 11:32 pm GMT

@Harold Smith

Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either.

You can call them evil, if you wish, but that worldview is the dead end: if there are inherently good and inherently evil people, you simply cannot do anything about that. You can promise rewards or punishments in the afterlife, but that would not prevent any crimes or get murdered people back to life here on Earth.

If you look for causes of evil behavior instead, you have a chance to minimize or eliminate those causes, thereby minimizing evil behavior. That does not negate the spiritual nature of humans, unless by "spiritual" you mean supernatural.

So, from my perspective, the views you propound are essentially defeatist. Personally, I do not think anyone is inherently predisposed to good or evil, you have to look for motives. Then you have a chance to motivate good behavior and demotivate evil one.

However, let me tell you what I tell my students: if you are conventionally religious, you don't want to discuss religion with me.

[Feb 04, 2019] Externally, a nation's currency usually has value to the extent that a nation has something to offer others, which makes the currency useful for making a desired purchase. Today, the "desired purchase" is oil.

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

cassandra , says: February 4, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT

@MEFOBILLS +++++

I'd extend your comment a bit.

Internally, a national currency has a value corresponding to demand placed by the government, such as money for the taxes the state requires of its people. The ups and downs of Lincoln's Greenback fiat currency, especially its interaction with the value of gold, demonstrates how currency is tied to confidence in the government, as you suggest.

Externally, a nation's currency usually has value to the extent that a nation has something to offer others, which makes the currency useful for making a desired purchase. Today, the "desired purchase" is oil. The dollar is valued because you need dollars to buy oil, as formerly enforced by diplomatic pressure. Because of US sanctions, trade in oil is now beginning using rubles, yuan, and most unforgivably, Venezuelan currency! (Like Iraq, Libya and Syria). If this keeps up, countries will no longer need dollars for their oil, and $ will have to compete internationally based on other considerations. That won't be pretty. IMHO, US leaders have dangerously eroding the dollar's pre-eminence by profligate use of sanctions.

I need to remedy my own deficiencies in this area, but advocates of Modern Monetary Theory, like Michael Hudson, Steve Keene, and like-minded economists who often post at nakedcapitalism, make a strong case for a fiat money system, issued and controlled by state banks, in contrast to the private banks as now.

But objecting to the fact that private bankers charge us interest, and act above the law and democratic accountability, is such a quaint complaint.

[Feb 04, 2019] The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela.

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: February 3, 2019 at 7:29 pm GMT

Feb 2, 2019 The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela. The U.S. and its allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt in Venezuela. As usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Feb 3, 2019 Venezuela's Oil Enough for World's 30 Year Energy Needs

The long bankrupt fiat financial system is pushing the Deep State to target Venezuela for the latter's natural resources that dwarfs that of its satellite province Saudi Arabia.

https://geopolitics.co/2019/02/03/venezuelas-oil-enough-for-worlds-30-year-energy-needs/

[Feb 04, 2019] Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel) to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rubicon 727 , says: February 4, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT

@Bill Instead of looking at this issue using a microscope, reading history about how Empires fall lends wisdom and insight. Arrighi's book, (I believe) is called "The Long Twentieth Century." He details how empires and huge trading giants rise and fall.

He details the rise of Italy's banking system during the Middle Ages as well as Spain's Empire, the Dutch trading hegemonies and most enlightening how the British Empire rose and fell.

We are seeing tell-tale symptoms of a US that's in trouble with a slow erosion of the US $$ hegemony. The financial growth of China has begun degrading the US market with hi-tech and other products. Thusly, you see Tim Cook of Apple apoplectic over China's Huwaii (sp?) flooding the European market with less expensive computers, cellulars, notebooks, etc.

We see the practical nature of Exxon Mobile that views the short geographic distance between the US (its military) to Venezuela's oil and mineral-rich soil. An easy pick, rather than becoming further embroiled in the Middle East.

Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel) to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony.

[Feb 04, 2019] The US aggression against Venezuela as a diagnostic tool by The Saker

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others

But in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).

And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law.

This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.

[Feb 04, 2019] Something about neoliberal propaganda

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

NoseytheDuke , says: February 5, 2019 at 1:35 am GMT

@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.

Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one economy.

Carry on

[Feb 04, 2019] CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV

Notable quotes:
"... That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:15 pm GMT

@Sergey Krieger

CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.

That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.

[Feb 04, 2019] It case of Venzuella coup it looks like we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam) by The Saker

Notable quotes:
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).

And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.

...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions.

The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.

[Feb 04, 2019] There are various elite groups jockeying for power, but Intelligence community remains tha core of the Deep State

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer

is the main weapon used by the Deep State

LOL Deep State is a term used by the simple minded. There is no 'deep state' there is however a shadow government and it is made up of various groups all jockeying for their own interest.

We have the 'Establishment..i.e. the two parties who want to maintain their political power. We have the Corporate Elites and Globalist ' who want to control the world's commerce and economies. We have Wall Street who doesnt want any restrictions on their financial crimes. We have Domestic Business Interest who want laws and policies favorable to them. We have Foreign Interest who want to use the US for their country.

Sometimes they join forces when their interest coincide, sometimes they don't.

Outside of this shadow government we have Ideological Activist of various kinds that can be useful or not to the Establishment, the Globalist, Wall Street, Domestic Business Interest and Foreign Interest.

All of the above are why we cant and don't have coherent policies on anything foreign or domestic.

People like you who want to ascribe everything to some giant conspiracy in the CIA help to dumb people down , its easier for the lazy to have one or two big scary entities to blame. You cant even explain what the CIA conspiracy is can you? Tell us how the CIA maintains their conspiracy against the US and what their goal is. How does the CIA maintain their secret agenda when the CIA is subject to new CIA directors with every change of presidents and parties?

Come on tell us all how it is done.

[Feb 04, 2019] Orwell, in his book, 1984 wrote that the government had two terms: Oldspeak and Newspeak. One was not permitted to use old speak

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sowhat , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:47 am GMT

Orwell, in his book, 1984 wrote that the government had two terms: Oldspeak and Newspeak. One was not permitted to use old speak.

" This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.

To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeds."

It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless."

Were sliding down a slippery, ever-darkening slope. When I step back and try to examine the whole picture, it's very concerning. Take, for instance, [MORE]

I just read an article elsewhere discussing Roger Stone's arrest at his Florida home, before dawn
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51017-c.htm .

The article had a link to a WordPress article, penned by John Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute about what has crept into America, via the Militarization of the Police Force.

I subscribed to his newsletter, years ago when Bush and, then, Obama gave Military Armament to Civilian Police forces. When the "FBI raids Stone's Home" story hit, complete with CNN presence, I realized that we do, in fact have policing by fear in the U.S., advertised by Cable News. I'm not an alarmist but, I am taking this all in and it doesn't look good for us. I've also read that millions of Americans are leaving this country, yes, in droves. I've thought about it, before but, don't know if I can convince Wifey this is what we need to do since were in our 70s.

Whiteheads sight has an ongoing ledger of Police incompetence, armed to the teeth just to deliver a warrant, often going to the wrong house, creating chaos, shooting people and their animals and then finding out that they raided the wrong house and killed the wrong person. A flash-band grenade was launched into the wrong residence, landed on a toddler in a crib and burned a hole in its stomach. The scales are tipped in the favor of cops and, if a homeowner attempts to defend himself, he's prosecuted to the full extent of the "law."

Our 4th amendment is gone. Our First and Second Amendment Rights are under heavy attack. There's a call for a Constitutional Convention with almost all of the States sign on for an Article Five Convention.

Were all in deep shit. It doesn't matter if you are guilty of a crime or not. If they'll go after an unarmed Roger Stone, guns pointed, in front of his family, terrorizing them for National TV, what do YOU think is their intent? With 10 Zillion Super-Cop shows on TV for the last forty years, where they always get their man, never make errors and show how violent they are, legally, what do you think is the intent?

Nothing happens on the government level by accident NOTHING

First, Myspace sucked in all of the youngsters and they learned how easy it was to communicate, online. Then, Twitter and Facebook arrived as beacons of free speech. Then, other commentary friendly web site pop up everywhere, allowing you to spew your agitated heart out and argue with each other and call each other names and then opposite ideologies manifested in separate sites on the net with "moderators" that throw registrants off (banning/banishing) them for defending their positions echo chambers for the "alt" Right or the politically correct Left Trump bashers. Sometime, I suggest you go to these and read the commenters' remarks. They're literally insane. I was even banned from a DISCUSS site for suggesting some civil discourse, identifying myself as a Trump Voter.

Do you really believe that all of these issues simply morphed to lock out Conservatives? No way. This was all planned, possibly to I.D. individuals who are "potential" adversaries of a different ideology or possible "problem people" that get put on a watch list. If the DNA Ancestry sights are GIVING your DNA results to the Government, what good can come of it?

[Feb 04, 2019] Our overlords grew increasingly alarmed. They started telling us about Fake News, and the harmful effects of hearing Non-Approved opinions and "conspiracy theorists" who used dangerous facts and science to debunk Official Stories.

Notable quotes:
"... More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder. Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

wagelaborer , says: Website February 1, 2019 at 8:37 pm GMT

It is true that censoring social media platforms will be very harmful to actual democracy. There can be no real democracy without an informed public, and the marketplace of ideas must be open to all IF you want an informed, thinking public who are capable of shifting through differing views and logically deciding which position to support.
But the catch, of course, is that our ruling overlords actually hate an informed and logical public. They prefer gullible cretins who swallow whatever ruling class propaganda is beamed to them through radio or TV, into each individual house or car.
For decades, people have been subject to one-way, top-down propaganda beamed to each individual, with no way for each person to know how other people were reacting to said propaganda, no way of checking the "facts" given to them, and no way of hearing skeptics debunk the fallacies.
That changed with social media. It is my opinion that social media was launched as a way for our rulers to monitor our opionions and reactions to their propaganda. It was to be a billion person focus group, with instaneous results to each new ploy.
But millions of people seized upon this new communication device to start communicating with each other! People around the country and around the world started talking to each other, laughing at the most outlandish ruling class claims, spread clever memes to ridicule the nonsense, and sharing opinions and facts between each other.

For the first time, we could communicate horizontally and we did.

Our overlords grew increasingly alarmed. They started telling us about Fake News, and the harmful effects of hearing Non-Approved opinions and "conspiracy theorists" who used dangerous facts and science to debunk Official Stories.

The Empire is Striking Back. For the last 2 years, the repression has gotten more and more intense, with multiple people losing access to social media, and the rest of us being told it is our "moral duty" to leave Facebook, so as not to contaminate the mass mind with unapproved messages.
Personally, I think that we have lost. I see even people who are alarmed at the repression personalizing it, such as blaming Mark Zuckerberg, personally, for bowing to the ruling class pressure we ALL watched him undergo!

wagelaborer , says: Website February 1, 2019 at 8:54 pm GMT
It is true that restricting information and debate is bad public policy, but only if you want a vibrant and informed democracy.

It is clear to me that our ruling overlords want to such thing, and the last two years of increasingly shrill denunciations of a free and open internet are proof of that.

For decades our owners were able to transmit their propaganda vertically, top down, into each individual's house or car. No person receiving the propaganda was able to know how other people were reacting, or to judge the veracity of the facts or to share their skepticism at outright lies and obvious falsehoods.

It is my opinion that social media was created by our rulers to monitor our opinions and reactions to their propaganda, as sort of a billion-person, real time focus group.

But millions of us started using it as a horizontal communication tool, a way to share our information, opinions and skepticism with each other, with people all over the world, with no interference from the moderators.

This is why we have been subjected to a couple of years of increasing denunciations of "fake news" and warnings of Wrong Opinions and admonitions that it is our moral duty to stay away from Facebook, so as not to contaminate our minds with unapproved ideas.

More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder. Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face.

Kirt , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:05 am GMT
Politics is the very art of conspiracy although conspiracy is not confined to politics. Official conspiracy theories (Russiagate, to give a current example) should inspire much more skepticism than dissident conspiracy theories. But any theory should be subject to analysis and challenge. If a theory is impossibly convoluted or unfalsifiable, ignore it. Also, the vague generalization "it's all part of the conspiracy" is not helpful at all. It suggests that there is only one conspiracy and that conspiracy explains everything – sort of like Divine Providence, but malevolent.
Umberto , says: February 2, 2019 at 7:17 am GMT
I recall seeing a video c. 2010, wherein following a boring speech by Cass Sunstein, Luke Rudkowski (of We Are Change), who was in the audience, asked Mr. Sunstein about some of the views he had expressed in his original article. I believe the original article was published c. 2007. Sunstein claimed that he did not remember having written such an article ("I write a lot of articles, how can I remember, yadda, yadda ") and slunk off as quickly as possible to his coward's hidey hole. I guess he remembered later, and padded it out to a book length piece of excrement, which gets a 61% 1-star ratings by Amazon reviewers.
Brabantian , says: February 2, 2019 at 12:10 pm GMT
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, former 'information czar' of the White House staff in the Barack Obama administration, is discussed in the Dept of Justice Inspector General file on crimes involving Robert Mueller , in quite appalling terms, Sunstein described as supporting a campaign of lying against his own undergraduate Harvard classmate, an ex-DOJ employee described in the DOJ file as a victim of threats of murder indulged by former FBI Director Mueller. From page 24 of that DOJ report:

Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, Hillary propagandist, supporting threats to kill his own Harvard classmate. One of the corrupt Obama administration officials, was 'information czar' Cass Sunstein A man with apparently no ethics except his wishing to serve the Hillary Clinton wing of the powerful, Cass Sunstein was able to receive a portion of bribes, for indulging the campaign of terrorism, extortion, and defamation against his classmate.

Sunstein is a leading propagandist for the network planting lies on the internet to attack common people. Along with Sunstein refusing to write or sign even a one-sentence note asking for prosecution of those menacing to murder his classmate, Sunstein has declined to modify or amend his oily propaganda for 'wiki world' and 'nudging', as euphemisms for what Sunstein knows are criminals spreading lies to destroy and kill people, including the attack on someone Sunstein knew as a boy.

The Alarmist , says: February 2, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT

"Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains."

Given that Sunstein is a noted expert on disinformation, the obvious answer is that conspiracy theories tend more often than not to hit too close to the truth for the comfort of TPTB.

anon [239] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 5:32 pm GMT
@Brabantian Its not a Dep of Justice report . No idea what this website is about . Another fake news ? Int doesn't mean Muller or Sunstein are not bunch of liars. They are.
Bruce Maclean , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:44 pm GMT
Excellent, thought-provoking article. I especially like how the author points to the Official Conspiracy Theories that been tearing humanity apart. i.e. Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Kudos to the author.

[Feb 04, 2019] A great example of waste and corruption in the US military is the plan to rebuild and reopen Tyndall Air Force base

Notable quotes:
"... Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US financial economy. ..."
"... It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave a major road just outside of Washington DC. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 6:13 am GMT

@bluedog There are thousands of examples, but here is a recent one from my blog:

Feb 2, 2019 -- USAF to Reopen Unneeded Airbase

A great example of waste and corruption in the US military is the plan to rebuild and reopen Tyndall Air Force base. The number of aircraft in the USAF has fallen nearly in half over the past 20 years, so it has far too many airbases that are expensive to operate. For example, after F-22 bases were selected only half as many F-22s were procured as planned, so all F-22 bases have ample room for more aircraft.

Last year, Tyndall Air Force F-22 base in Florida was destroyed by a hurricane. Tyndall's F-22s were quickly relocated to other bases. Some questioned why such expensive aircraft were based in an area with hurricanes since several F-22s undergoing maintenance were destroyed. Nevertheless, the Air Force just announced at least $3 billion will be spent over five years to rebuild and reopen unneeded and poorly located Tyndall!

Politics are important and the base is a mess, but the Air Force should have proposed spending a couple billion to clean up Tyndall and prepare it for industrial or other productive private sector uses. But our Congress and Pentagon are so selfish and corrupt they don't give a damn about wasting money. Just bill the taxpayers and always blame poor readiness and accidents on a lack of funding!

Another Anon , says: February 3, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
@bluedog As much as I support the notion that the Pentagon is awash in corruption, the media reports about missing trillions are incorrect and the result of either deliberate misrepresentation or (more likely) the lack of competence on the part of those reporting to comprehend complicated material.

The reports originated from the recent audit work done on the Pentagon. I'm not sure exactly how long a period this covered (and to be honest, can't be bothered to look it up right now) but it was a 10-20 year period.

Included in the preliminary reports was the unaccounted for adjustments totaling up to several trillions of dollars. Here's the thing most people reporting on this fail to grasp, adjustments are not expenditures. There a bookkeeping gimmick to balance the books.

The debit and credit side need to be balanced out. This is what adjustments do. They balance the books. But as they can appear on either the credit or the debit side and on both sides at the same time, they can be used to artificially inflate the books (to make a company look more valuable than it is) or to hide real expenses. More likely in the case of the Pentagon, due to systemic failures of accurately forecasting (real) expenditures, inability to stick to budgets and ignoring (at least some) of the financial paperwork needed to satisfy the accountant, they had to make numerous adjustments all over the place to balance their books.

In addition, it is highly likely that these trillions include the same adjustment multiple times, not because 'it' (what ever it is) happened multiple times, but because it is included in the books of each level in the Pentagon hierarchy that reports its finances independently.
For example, a specific ship in the Navy spends more on their operational cruise than it should have. This means adjustments on its financial report. The fleet it belongs to also has to adjust its books. The US Navy also has to include the adjustment and ultimately the overall Pentagon books will include it too. The same adjustment reported multiple times.
It also works if the ship spends LESS than was budgeted for. A surplus also requires an adjustment in the books with the same result as above.

Last (purely theoretical) example; let's say you have 3 companies. You put $ 1 million in company A.

You transfer this in batches to company B. You put in the books (of company A) as 'reservations', ie money to be spend later. When this comes into company B, you put it in the books as 'investments' ie implying the money is to used by company B for expenditures. Again you transfer this in batches, this time to company C, again as 'reservations'. You book them as 'investments' in company C and guess what, you then transfer these into company A as 'reservations'.

Company A now has an additional $ 1M coming into it which you label 'investments'. The value of company A now appears to be $ 2M ($ 1M investments from company C and $ 1M in reservations) as it it not evident from the books of ONLY company A that it is the same $ 1M. You need to see all of the books to make sense of what is happening, in this case to distinguish between what are real revenue and expenses and what is just pumping around of the same money.

Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US financial economy.

Note for the accountants out there, I know, the last example is extremely simplified. It merely serves to illustrate the subject in an easily understood manner.

Amon , says: February 3, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT
@Johnny Rico I believe they are referring to the practice of diverting funds that would otherwise go to maintain vital infrastructure, health care services and sanitation to over purchase military equipment by the billions in order to maintain a high level of income for the armaments industry.

It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave a major road just outside of Washington DC.

They could also be talking about the weird practice of US tax money getting flushed down the toilet by funding one army project after another that always, always goes over budget, under delivers on promises, breaks down too easy and can't fight off decade old tech if they don't cancel it after a billion or so is lost.

As for me, when I look at the US, I shake my head when I notice that the military industrial complex and the Government have become one and the same thanks to the revolving door between private companies and US Gov offices.

MEFOBILLS , says: February 3, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN Just imagine for a second that everything "Made in China" disappears from the US stores. Then ask: why is the superior indispensable democratic country cannot supply its citizens with all this crap? Why does it have to rely on communist dictatorship to produce so much, from nails, electric bulbs, and appliances to clothes?

I can answer this, and it wasn't always that way. Listen to Linda Ronstadt's lyrics.

The superior indispensable country became a liberal democracy in 1912 with the advent of Wilson's progressive era reforms. The 16'th amendment is used to back up the instability of banks -- remember TARP? 17'th is used to make Senators into populists and hence break state power. Senators then become easy to bribe and maneuver as they cannot be recalled by their state Legislature, and no longer do the bidding of their voters. Federal Reserve Act, IRS, March to War, and so on. Women's suffrage made easy to maneuver and emotionally driven women prey for the tribe.

It takes awhile for some things to manifest. The U.S. export of Jobs and American Patrimony began under Clinton. The idea was for Wall Street to make some wage arbitrage. The Wall Street China/China gambit then began, and transplanted companies exported from China at just under the American price. The Patrimony of America was gifted to China, all of the knowledge from the past was monetized for today, so the future was screwed.

This is yet another reason (how many do you need) for our hand rubbing friends to be disallowed from ever being near money or finance.

Justinian of Byzantium prevented Jews from being in government, teaching in schools, or in counting houses -- what goes for banking today.

This still didn't work for us, because their descendants from Pale of Settlement, immigrated to U.S. to become today's Neo-Cons.

[Feb 04, 2019] Why the War on Conspiracy Theories is Bad Public Policy by Kevin Barrett

Notable quotes:
"... Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make "conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression. ..."
"... The epithet 'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. ..."
"... The Unz Review. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them , edited by Joseph E. Uscinski

On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying "we'll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways -- such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11."

At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.

But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word "recommend" is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn't really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying.

When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute "recommendations" by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted by users. (Or at least it didn't until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.)

The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which health approaches constitute "phony miracle cures" and which do not. Far less is there any agreement on "claims about 9/11 and other historical events." (Thus far the only real attempt to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is the 9/11 Consensus Panel's study -- but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the Consensus Panel to determine which videos to "recommend"!)

ORDER IT NOW

YouTube's policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to -- as Obama's Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it -- " disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories ." Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule's 2008 paper " Conspiracy Theories ," critiqued by David Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a 2016 book , represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By 2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.)

Sunstein and Vermuele begin their abstract:

Many millions of people hold (sic) conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law.

Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in preparation for it, the government should "disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories" through various techniques including "cognitive infiltration" of 9/11 truth groups. Such "cognitive infiltration," Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of "beneficial cognitive diversity" within the truth movement.

9/11 Contradictions An Open Letter to Congress and the Press David Ray Griffin • 2008 • 110,000 Words

What sort of "cognitive diversity" would Cass Sunstein consider "beneficial"? Perhaps 9/11 truth groups that had been "cognitively infiltrated" by spooks posing as flat-earthers would harbor that sort of "beneficial" diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive, high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community since 2008.

Why does Sunstein think "conspiracy theories" are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed -- which would necessitate revoking the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly nebulous terms, about "serious risks including the risk of violence." But he presents no serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other "serious risks" could possibly be.

Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the non-problem?

The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various "national security" objectives. Ergo, 9/11 "conspiracy theories" are a threat to national security, and extreme measures are required to combat them. But since we can't just burn the First Amendment overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert "boil the frog" approach, featuring plenty of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. "Cognitive infiltration" of internet platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill.

Cognitive Infiltration An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory David Ray Griffin • 2011 • 66,000 Words

It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it comes to 9/11 and "conspiracy theories," as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America's disastrous post-9/11 policies.)

The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong.

ORDER IT NOW

Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth's In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books, 2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not -- even when the dissenter is wrong.

Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached "E." Had the crew included even one natural "troublemaker" -- the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth -- there almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted.

Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really happened on 9/11, and whether a "war on terror" makes sense, is permitted. The predictable result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of 9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11 truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about "crippled epistemology"!

Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing "conspiracy theories" will be beneficial? Do YouTube's decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly wrong. First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and "conspiracy theories" in general are "blatantly false." No honest person with critical thinking skills who weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the realization that the 9/11 truth movement is right . The same is true regarding the serial assassinations of America's best leaders during the 1960s . Many other "conspiracy theories," perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as readers of Ron Unz's American Pravda series are discovering.

Final Judgment The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Michael Collins Piper • 2005 • 310,000 Words

Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong -- even wildly wrong.

The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate dissenter.

We could at least partially solve the real problem -- bad groupthink -- through promoting genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments on the other side of the issue -- not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered after spending 15 years searching for them!

9/11 Ten Years Later When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed David Ray Griffin • 2011 • 116,000 Words

But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the "war on terror") should get YouTube "suggestions" for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor , 9/11 Mysteries , and the work of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth . Exposure to even those "truthers" who are more passionate than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according to Nemeth's research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question facile assumptions.

The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get "suggestions" for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum. MSNBC viewers should get "suggestions" for good material from the right. Both groups should get "suggestions" to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate dissidents -- outlets like the Unz Review!

Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make "conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression.

ORDER IT NOW

Nemeth and colleagues' findings that "conspiracy theories" and other forms of passionate dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Editor Joseph Uscinski's introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism: "In democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form the basis for some people's medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use violence."

Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite "horrible decisions" to use "legitimate force" and "violence." Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs) -- including the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in 1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn't like conspired to attack the US in 2001 -- were false or deceptive.

Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood, none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened.

Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In "What We Mean When We Say 'Conspiracy Theory' Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine , exposes the bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents.

In "Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: 'Conspiracy Theorists' in U.S. Ghettos and on the 'Arab Street'" Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further: " The epithet 'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. Often, it is tinged with racial undertones: it is used to demean whole groups of people in the news and to silence, stigmatize, or belittle foreign and minority voices." (p.82) Unfortunately, though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to "Conspiracy Theories in the Muslim World" and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is because the preponderance of evidence supports that interpretation .

Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith's "Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy," which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory research: the a priori assumption that a "conspiracy theory" must be false or at least dubious: "If certain scholars ( i.e. the majority represented in this book! –KB ) want to make a special case for conspiracy theories, then it is reasonable for the rest of us to ask whether we are playing fair with our terminology, or whether we have baked into our definitions the answers to our research programs." (p.104). Unfortunately, a few pages later editor Joseph Uscinski sticks his fingers in his ears and plays deaf and dumb, claiming that "the establishment is right far more often than conspiracy theories, largely because their methods are reliable. When conspiracy theorists are right, it is by chance." He adds that conspiracy theories will inevitably "occasionally lead to disaster" (whatever that means). (p.110). We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo! Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11 Kevin Barrett • 2015 • 90,000 Words

I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth's In Defense of Troublemakers and consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series.

Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and publishing in The Unz Review.

[Feb 04, 2019] A banal case of highway robbery triggered by two very crude considerations

Notable quotes:
"... pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two very crude considerations:

First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural resources. Second, to prove to the world that Uncle Shmuel can still, quote , " pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ", unquote.

President Macrobama ?

The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or "Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere. You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience with their Venezuelan colleagues.

[Feb 04, 2019] Did Trump administration sold part of the US stratagic reserve to bring oil prices down?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: January 30, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT

Well people you need to explore this move to take over Venezuela in the context of what having that oil control will mean for the US and Israel in the increasingly likely event we blow up Iran and up end the ME for Israel.

Despite Trump selling off half of our US oil reserves last year .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-reserve/u-s-sells-11-million-barrels-of-oil-from-reserve-to-exxon-five-other-firms-idUSKCN1LG2WT ..the US doesn't currently, at present anyway, need to control Venezuela's oil .

So what could happen that might make control of oil rich Venezuela necessary? Why has Venezuela become a Bolton and Abrams project? Why is Netanyahu putting himself into the Venezuela crisis ?

We, otoh, would need all the oil we could get if we blew up the ME, specifically Iran, figuratively or literally. The US signed a MOU with Israel in 1973 obligating us to supply Israel with oil ( and ship it to them) if they couldn't secure any for themselves.

[Feb 04, 2019] Trump logic of betrayal of his voters

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: January 30, 2019 at 11:12 pm GMT

@RVBlake

A guy on ZH explained it well, I guess:

The opposition hates me. I can do no right. The Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong. There are not enough independent thinkers to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every minute, meaningless issue. I can pretty much do as I please without consequence ..like pay off all my buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
I'd add: and by doing the last, I could cut a deal with the real TPTBs as to for what happens after I leave White House.

[Feb 04, 2019] So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine?

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website January 30, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT

"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :

https://www.corbettreport.com/election-interference-is-ok-when-uncle-sam-does-it-propagandawatch/

Regards, onebornfree

[Feb 04, 2019] Real America doesn't give a f*ck

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

El Dato , says: January 30, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT

@Sean

NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.

Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a real danger for the USA.

[Feb 03, 2019] Trump Should Call Congress's Bluff on Our Endless Wars by W. James Antle III

Notable quotes:
"... Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote. ..."
"... taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace. ..."
"... When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude ..."
"... The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. ..."
"... Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat. ..."
"... Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks. ..."
"... Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different. ..."
"... I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. ..."
Feb 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Senate has toothlessly disapproved of his troop withdrawals. At the State of the Union, he should respond.

Will Trump Hold Firm on His Syria Pullout? Hawkish Democrats, Antiwar Republicans?

Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria.

Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote.

The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats' toothless measures to stop George W. Bush's Iraq "surge" over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.

When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude d. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward's book repeats the president's probing questions about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to "fake news" shared on Facebook. Trump's call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James Mattis.

To make matters worse, only three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah -- voted to stand with their president against these endless nation-building exercises. Kentucky's Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.

During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff. He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties.

Trump may find that he has unlikely allies in his would-be 2020 Democratic presidential foes. The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. How many ambitious Democrats will vote to give a Republican president a blank check for war as an election year approaches?

GOP lawmakers will have to decide whether they stand with their president -- who wants to cut America's multi-trillion dollar losses in the Middle East -- and rank-and-file Republican voters in ending these wars. Those who want to stay in Syria and Afghanistan quite likely cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.

Will Trump Hold Firm on His Syria Pullout? Hawkish Democrats, Antiwar Republicans?

Up until now, Trump's big fight with the establishment has been over immigration and the border wall. Amid his belated turn towards the more populist parts of his program, he should not forget to spend political capital on America's wars as well. Trump now says Republican congressional leaders misled him on the wall. It has been even worse on foreign policy.

Partisans are dug in on the border. But on war, Trump has some opportunities to win over converts. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit stone-faced behind him as he agrees with the Progressive Caucus on foreign policy?

Much is riding on whether a course correction is possible in Afghanistan and Syria. Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat.

Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks.

W. James Antle III is editor of .



PAX February 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

Mearsheimer has some main tenets of realist foreign policy include:

The lobby and its fellow travelers are not used to being told no. Time for them to create and fund volunteer corps and do their own dirty work on their dime and at their own risk.

MikeCLT , , February 1, 2019 at 1:14 pm
Trump should demand Congress debate and authorize the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It would be good policy and good politics. And good for the Constitution.

Fred Bowman , , February 1, 2019 at 1:20 pm

Wouldn't hold my breath on Trump doing any such thing on ending of the Middle Eastern Wars. Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different.

Stephen J. , , February 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm

Very concise article.

The article states: "Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria."

-- -- -- -

I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. More info at link below.

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html

Mark Thomason , , February 1, 2019 at 1:27 pm

I am extremely disappointed that both of my State's Democratic Senators voted to keep the wars going.

However, I'm sure they did so only to spite Trump.

They don't either of them support more Long War. Of course, they don't want to be blamed either in the case of another terrorist attack for not being tough enough. But this vote was not one of principle.

That means they would not fight for it. They just did it. I suspect much of the vote in the Senate was like that, and that the rather large number of non-votes is because of that.

One Guy , , February 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I agree that we should end the Middle East wars, but the idea of Trump pissing off his sycophants in the GOP Senate, amuses me.

George Crosley , , February 1, 2019 at 3:01 pm

During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff. He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties.

Would that he would but he won't.

Mr. Trump shan't read this good advice because it seems he only reads what the Kushners put in front of him and (for the most part) hires only people who despise him–people who are married to the pro-war Blob in DC.

What a way to operate!

[Feb 03, 2019] Looks to me like the neocon/neolibs are not going to let Trump do what he was elected to do: end foreign wars. Most Americans of both parties would welcome less war but that appears to be irrelevant to the neoliberal elite

While the Senate's Thursday vote against withdraval from Syria does not prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO
Notable quotes:
"... When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled and yuuuuge! ..."
"... The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence - pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated (without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support this garbage. ..."
Feb 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Valissa Rauhallinen 3 days ago

Senate rebukes Trump's plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, Afghanistan https://www.washingtonpost....

The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday in a rebuke of President Trump's rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, voting to declare that the Islamic State's continued operations in both countries poses a serious threat to the United States. Democrats who voted against the measure characterized it as a commitment to endless war.

While the Senate's Thursday vote does not carry the weight of law or prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO.

-----------------------------

When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled and yuuuuge!

Looks to me like the neocon/neolibs imperialists are not going to let Trump do what he was elected to do. Most Americans of both parties would welcome less war but that appears to be irrelevant to the political class.

Barbara Ann -> Valissa Rauhallinen , 2 days ago

Couldn't agree more Valissa. The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence - pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated (without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support this garbage.

Trump's only chance seems to be to ensure the withdrawal(s) are completed before this amendment is added to the bill and it becomes law. WaPo don't even include a link, so here it is for anyone with the stomach to read it:

https://www.congress.gov/co...

blue peacock -> Valissa Rauhallinen , 15 hours ago
Here's Trump's response to the Senate vote:

View Hide

[Feb 03, 2019] Trump ramps up attacks on journalists 'They can also cause War!'

Notable quotes:
"... President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division & distrust" in the country. ..."
"... "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People." ..."
"... "They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!" ..."
"... I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN, MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT, WAPO ..."
"... There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies! ..."
Aug 09, 2018 | thehill.com

President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division & distrust" in the country.

"The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People."

"They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!"

Donald J. Trump on Twitter The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TR

The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!

4:38 AM - 5 Aug 2018

Patricia La Fleur ‏ @ lafleurjmmyp Aug 7 Replying to @ ScopingItOut @ realDonaldTrump

I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN, MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT, WAPO

Irma Bell @ IrmaBel53130008 15h 15 hours ago Replying to @ KathyInTheNorth @ realDonaldTrump

There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies!

[Feb 02, 2019] In Tit-For-Tat, Russia Suspends INF Treaty; Putin Slams US Demolishing Global Security

Notable quotes:
"... This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification." ..."
"... Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan." ..."
"... Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021. ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned under its terms .

Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement. "Our US partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the same," the Russian president said . "They say that they are doing research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing."

Crucially, however, he noted that there were no plans to deploy short and mid-range missiles to Europe unless the US does it first -- a worst nightmare scenario that has rattled European leaders ever since talk began from Trump that the 1987 treaty could be scrapped.

Putin still seemed to allow some degree space for last minute concessions as "still on the table" possibly in line with the Trump administration's desire to modernize and update a new treaty taking into account new technological and geopolitical realities, such as China's ballistic missile capabilities.

"Let's wait until our partners mature sufficiently to hold a level, meaningful conversation on this topic, which is extremely important for us, them, and the entire world," Putin said. But also lashing out during the press conference that followed the meeting with top officials Putin described :

Over many years, we have repeatedly suggested staging new disarmament talks, on all types of weapons. Over the last few years, we have seen our initiatives not supported. On the contrary, pretexts are constantly sought to demolish the existing system of international security .

Specifically he and FM Sergei Lavrov referenced not only Trump's threats to quit the agreement, which heightened in December, but accusations leveled from Washington that the Kremlin was in violation. The White House has now affirmed the bilateral historic agreement signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan will be suspended for 180 days. Lavrov insisted that Moscow "attempted to do everything we could to rescue the treaty."

This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."

Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan."

Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021.


brane pilot , 17 minutes ago link

Putin is an island of calm in a sea of political insanity.

He knows Trump is being gamed into absurd positions by mad dog Democrat politicians seeking a geopolitical scapegoat.

I would call him a Statesman.

SpanishGoop , 40 minutes ago link

" as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."

US trying to get from Russia top position first-response list and get Europe on that position.

Putin is much to smart to fall for that.

needtoshit , 44 minutes ago link

Neocons should be remembered as oldcons because their bag of tricks is so well known that they don't fool anyone. Think about this Reagan era fossil who tries to arrange his little coup in Venezuela and will fall flat on his face. Think also about these Pompeo and Bolton who are so desperate that they didn't even spend the necessary time to learn the checkers rules before trying to take on Putin in his favorite chess play. No really, the level of mediocrity and the lack of strategy or even sheer preparedness of these dudes is so low that they may even be hung by their own subordinates who can't even stand that stench of fool play. Trump should be ashamed he hired these clowns to ride their one trick ponies while the titanic goes down. History will not be kind with him.

Totally_Disillusioned , 49 minutes ago link

Putin reads our CIA better than we do!

Totally_Disillusioned , 49 minutes ago link

Putin reads our CIA better than we do!

Son of Captain Nemo , 1 hour ago link

Everything you wanted to know about scuttling an INF Treaty but were afraid to ask ( https://www.rt.com/business/450123-nord-stream-2-ready/ )

Cause when it gets completed without sabotage along the way... Those LNG delivery projects will see lots and lots of $USD heading home "FOR GOOD"!...

Which means "other arrangements" will be necessary in order to make certain that another "hostage" crisis ( https://southfront.org/u-s-opted-to-leave-inf-few-years-ago-spent-this-time-developing-forbidden-missiles/ ) "doesn't go to waste"!!!

Savvy , 1 hour ago link

Yup.

Shemp 4 Victory , 29 minutes ago link

Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.

Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older 9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyH-I3rukPU (3 min. 12 sec. - English subtitles)

Savvy , 14 minutes ago link

This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .

About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.

Son of Captain Nemo , 1 hour ago link

Everything you wanted to know about scuttling an INF Treaty but were afraid to ask ( https://www.rt.com/business/450123-nord-stream-2-ready/ )

Cause when it gets completed without sabotage along the way... Those LNG delivery projects will see lots and lots of $USD heading home "FOR GOOD"!...

Which means "other arrangements" will be necessary in order to make certain that another "hostage" crisis ( https://southfront.org/u-s-opted-to-leave-inf-few-years-ago-spent-this-time-developing-forbidden-missiles/ ) "doesn't go to waste"!!!

Savvy , 1 hour ago link

Yup.

Shemp 4 Victory , 29 minutes ago link

Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.

Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older 9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyH-I3rukPU (3 min. 12 sec. - English subtitles)

Savvy , 14 minutes ago link

This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .

About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.

yerfej , 1 hour ago link

Instead of useless diatribe explain why you're all bent today about the INF?

Gen. Ripper , 28 minutes ago link

The INF Treaty allowed the inferior Soviet weapons to remain par to the USA, like how we've been giving the chinks $1T a year.

Now no treaty allows the USA to naturally dominate CCCP and their chinky ching Chong CCP.

[Feb 02, 2019] On importance of Christian Populisn as a countervailing force to both neoliberal globalization and neofascism

Notable quotes:
"... The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that. ..."
"... And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Selected comments from The iGilets-Jaunes,-i or the Contradictions of Consumer Democracy by Guillaume Durocher

A123 , says: January 29, 2019 at 6:51 pm GMT

The key missing word is "Christian".

Populism by itself cannot hold together for a lack of common values. However, Christian Populism can hold the long road by emphasising the common values of French Christians and European Christians.

Globalist mass-migration theology was an obvious attempt to suppress or replace common European Christian values. In direct opposition to the Globalist screed -- Christian Populists are rising up in France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, and elsewhere. All with a common, unifying Christian cause and true European Values.

This movement is different from those that have come before. In the past, Anti-Christian, Leftist, Socialism has managed to hijack Populist efforts. Here the Christian backbone of the movement prevents that fate.

Brabantian , says: January 30, 2019 at 10:38 am GMT
It's not true that people as a whole are driven by endless greed and 'bottomless human desire'.

In general, people understand the limits of the world, and the mass of commoners merely want something small and safe a nice little home, the ability to raise a family, a safe neighbourhood and decent schools, no worries about medical care – and stability in all of this, knowing that their little petit bourgeois lives will not be undermined or destroyed. That is it.

There may be a little 'dreaming' about wealth and expensive toys, cars, homes, apparel, but that is not very 'driven'. People are overall content with something humble, a safe, stable little corner, having 'enough' and no worries.

The problem is that people are not given this, they don't have their stable little corner in security, they see and watch what little they have being undermined. Oligarchs demand 'more', sponsoring progressive impoverishment as they extract more profit; as well as seeking control by sponsoring social turmoil, in part via waves of invited arrivals who create great difficulties for humble working class lives and stability.

The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that.

And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle

Hard times make strong people
Strong people make good times
Good times make weak people
Weak people make hard times

anon [393] Disclaimer , says:
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
Everybody is talking about weather

Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:08 am GMT
Everybody is talking about weather

Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.

Digital Samizdat , says: February 2, 2019 at 8:59 am GMT
@anon A lot of truth in what you say. Personally, I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into the 'Red peril' nonsense when I was young. When leftists–yeah, back then it was the leftists–tried to warn us that the elites were going to bust the unions, export jobs and roll-out 'free trade', I didn't believe them. I actually couldn't then imagine that any non-communist would be so diabolical! I was a pretty naïve kid, all in all. But then, I guess most kids by nature are.
Digital Samizdat , says: February 2, 2019 at 9:20 am GMT
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article. How come whenever Joe Blow (or Jacques Bonhomme) wants something essential like healthcare, transportation or an affordable dwelling, he is denounced as 'greedy' for demanding a bunch of 'gibmedats', but when the big multi-national corporations want another free-trade treaty or another tax cut, this is labelled 'progress'?

I guess that's why I just can't get into conservatism.

Michael Kenny , says: February 2, 2019 at 10:43 am GMT
All of this actually helps the EU, which is not a globalist project but a regionalist alternative to globalism. Globalism was imposed on a very reluctant EU in the 1980s by a then hyperdominant US (I'm old enough to remember!) with Margaret Thatcher acting as an American Trojan horse within the EU. It has never worked precisely because it contradicts the inherent regionalist logic that underlies the whole idea of European integration.

Thus, the more the US globalist project goes under, the more the EU and similar regionalist projects in other parts of the world come to the fore.

Just as Trumpmania spawned the pro-US and pro-globalist Brexiteers in the summer of 2016, Trump's bull in a china shop blundering and the self-destruction of American power that has entailed has empowered the various protest movements we've seen in Europe, none of which are calling for the withdrawal of their countries from the EU.

People instinctively sense that Trump has defeated the notorious "TINA" argument, which in Europe meant "the US won't let us do anything else". The ongoing collapse of American power makes for a very turbulent and unstable situation in the world but fundamentally, we're all on the right track. For European integration, that doesn't mean collapse but a return to the original post-WWII project, designed to allow us to have our respective nationalisms without killing each other at regular intervals.

That concept is so alien to the American experience that it is unsurprising that Americans have difficulty in understanding it. Americans need to stop lumping themselves together with Europeans and calling us all "Westerners".

Stogumber , says: February 2, 2019 at 11:19 am GMT
@obwandiyag Contrary to obwandiyag, Durocher came over to me as the sort of sour conservative who can't deliver goods for the people and therefore reflects that, well, people oughtn't to demand so much goods.
Well, both kinds, the libertarian and the sour conservative, have a certain disregard for the average guy.
The average guy is by no means crying "me,me,me" all the time and he doesn't demand the best and the most of everything. Also, he is quite prepared too work for life, if his work is within his range of capabilities and if it doesn't develop into a kind of modern slave labour.

But he sees, and reads, that technology improves which means that life should become easier not more difficult.
And he too often sees that in fact he has to live worse than his father – or, if he is the father, he sees that his sons will live worse than he. And he asks why. And the media can give no honest explanation. (Nor can Durocher.)

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT
In the " west " , the working people are extracted to the last cent with the all the locals IRS and varied taxes . This surplus goes to pay faraonic governement bureaucracies which live on the taxpayers and humiliate them , goes to subvention tax free oligarchs , and goes to subvention all kind of stupid utopias and a wide array of social bums national and foreign . They have killed the hen of the golden eggs . The CCCP fell in the 1990`s , our EUUSACCCP will fall in the 2020`s ?

By the way will the Cesar of the western Roman Empire Trumpo Maximo order you Microncito Napoleonis to go away like he is doing with his rebelius consul Maduro Petrolero ? After all Microncito is very mean with his subdits , and after all he is not supported by the Cesar of the eastern Roman Empire Putinos Bizantinii like Maduro Petrolero is , it would be an easy coup , and very popular .

Mike P , says: February 2, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
@Jewish minds Trump Zionism. Completely agree on "representative" democracy being a sham, and on the feasibility and great importance of direct democracy. Realistically, though, one still needs legal specialists who can draft workable laws and ensure their compatibility with existing laws and constitutions. Some sort of hybrid system – a lawmaking institution, be it elected or appointed – with oversight and ultimate arbitration by the citizens will probably work better in practice.

Probably just as important is the media – the kind of oligarchic concentration we have right now in the mass media is going to interfere with any kind of democracy, however much improved over the current dysfunctional and discredited system.

Johnny Walker Read , says: February 2, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT
I'll tell you what the average Joe Blow(Yellow Vest)wants, and it is not just more "Shiny stuff".

1) He/She wants to be left alone. H/S is sick of breaking some law every time H/S merely sets foot out of their house. Police forces have become nothing more than revenue sources for the ever growing police state and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the common man. Pulling a cell phone out of your pocket at the wrong time is enough to get you killed by tyrant with a badge.

2) H/S wants to be able to make enough money to raise a family and live comfortably. H/S is sick of watching the top 1% steal everything that is not nailed down through such scams as fractional reserve banking and stock market swindles. As the old saying goes: Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.

3)H/S wants a REAL form "affirmative action", where every man/woman is chosen for their ability not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. A world where an an individual is judged on their ability and nothing more.

4) H/S wants to be safe in their neighborhoods as they watch them being flooded by uncivilized and criminal immigrants. All the while his and hers own government is confiscating their means of self protection through such things as gun control.

5) H/S is sick of watching programs such as Social Security and Medicare being bled dry by people who have never contributed a dime to such programs, while H/S has contributed to these programs their entire working lives.

6)H/S is sick of these never ending wars, which are started but never fought by the men in suits. They are tired of watching the blood suckers of war stealing not only the treasure of their country, but the very lives of their sons and daughters. All they are saying is give peace a chance.

So you see, it is much more than a bunch of whiny socialist wanting more free stuff.

Intelligent Dasein , says: Website February 2, 2019 at 2:40 pm GMT
@Digital Samizdat

I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article.

Yeah. You could have replaced the byline with any one of Conservative, Inc.'s generic hack writers and other than Durocher's improved erudition, nobody would have known the difference.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
@Michael Kenny I agree . We europeans are not " westeners " ( " occidentales " , " occidentaux " ) ,we are just europeans , greco-roman europeans .

To call western europeans " westeners " is an English fraud , followed by the US , made to isolate Russia from the rest of Europe and preventing the formation of a strong continental Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok .

We europeans , produced the greco-roman culture , the Christian culture , we consider ourselves the land of Christian and greco-roman civilization . We consider ourselves the fathers of most of the Americas .

For us ,europeans , at least for old ones , the " westeners " were the half mexican people from Texas to California , the cowboys , the vaqueros . And the US easteners were the yankees .

We always liked the cowboys , the soul of north America , the roots of north America , and we always felt some uneasiness and distrust of the yankees , those excentric , warmonger , greedy , rootless ex-europeans .

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: February 2, 2019 at 3:40 pm GMT
Durocher ,

The EU died in Pristina , in Yugoslavia , as says a french general

https://russia-insider.com/en/europe-died-when-nato-illegally-ripped-out-serbias-heart-1999-top-french-military-commander/ri25656

and was buried in Ukraina in 2014

The axe Hitler-Petain , pardon Merkel-Macron , ne tiens plus , doesn`t have any credibility

Sean , says: February 2, 2019 at 4:02 pm GMT

All this shows the limits both of official Europeanism and short-sighted demotic populism. The goal of both is to distract the French from their real problems, namely their spiritual and demographic collapse. The EU as such is not the source, or even a significant cause, of France's problems.

It seems to me French problems started in earnest with the unification of Germany, and if that is any guide the greater unity of the EU under German economic power is unlikely to improve France's relative position. :- 28/11/2018 German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Wednesday proposed that France give up its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and turn it into an EU seat . France was the first country in the world to deliberately increase immigration, and did so out of fear of Germany, but I think French business are the main force behind immigration now.

Germany passes immigration law to lure non-EU skilled workers . It is silly to call for cohesion unless you halt immigration and have the strength to sacrifice for that end. France is much further down the road to dissolution than they are over the Rhine. Germany has not suffered much so mar, they can take far more immigration than France. Germany' business class has reasons for increasing immigration into Germany, which is becoming ever more powerful though building up its economic strength by abandoning ll nuclear capacity and defence against other countries, and keeping labour costs low–by any means necessary. The USA is turning away from defending Germany (which tried to claim the costs of it taking million refugees should be counted as a defence contribution). For now, Germany thinks it has enough cohesion in reserve to sacrifice some to building up its economic strength and productive capacity in particular. In the EU, France will be subjected to German priorities.

The troubles that our society is experiencing are also sometimes due and related to the fact that too many of our fellow citizens believe that they can earn without effort . . .

It is comparative. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants and refugees, come from countries where if you don't work you starve. But those countries lack the flexibility conferred by the gentrified, relaxed and complex societies of Europe.

Going all out rather than tepidly for native demographic strength is probably a bad idea, because we don't know what national or personal qualities are going to be needed to cope with the unexpected type of challenges that will certainly be posed in our future.

Mike P , says: February 2, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read You are essentially right, but some of your points speak more to America than France. In particular, police tends to be a lot less trigger-happy and generally more lenient in France. Considering the scale of the French protests, I would say overall the number of people who got hurt by police is very low. I even suspect that the few really bad cases were committed not by regular police but by special agents provocateurs, trying to incite violence in order to create a pretext for cracking down.

Amusing anecdote – I spent a couple of months in Paris a goodish number of years ago. One French guy told me that he was stopped while driving drunk by police. He explained to them, "it is the last night before I will be thirty years old." Police told him, "o.k., you be careful now while driving home" and let him go.

wayfarer , says: February 2, 2019 at 4:23 pm GMT

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

RT Rider , says: February 2, 2019 at 6:26 pm GMT
With a monetary system based on debt, and the counterfeiting and issuance of money privately controlled, it was inevitable that globalization and the elimination of state sovereignty would result. Global financial capitalism is the maximizing of profit for private gain and the socialization of losses by the state. Although, nation-states are now nothing more than subsidiaries of the global banking cartel. As debt levels grow well beyond the ability of states to service, let alone repay, the banking cartel need seamless access to other nation's resources to keep the ponzi going – hence the unified global banking cartel, always acting in concert.

The counterfeiting racket is quite ingenious. The public demanding more and more state subsidies to ensure their standards of living, as high paying jobs disappear, never to return, give the political class free rein to borrow well beyond tax levels, or their ability to ever repay. Of course, there isn't sufficient savings to fund this level of borrowing on a global scale (public and private) so it must be manufactured, or more bluntly, counterfeited. The banking cartel then takes it's skim off the top in fees, seniorage, and interest. Over time, this enormous skim has allowed them to buy whatever, and whomever, they want.

We live in an age of money illusion, where the enormous amount of phony money has corrupted every aspect of society, and disguises late-stage, economic collapse. It's just as likely the the global economy has been going nowhere in the last ten years but we can't tell because GDP, being a measure of money transactions, presents a false picture of growth, disguised by the enormous quantities of money counterfeited over the decade, and indeed since Mr. Greenspan took the helm at the Fed.

It has been very successful, however, in inflating all asset classes, other than commodities (controlled by futures derivatives trading), to increase collateral for even more debt issuance. Of course, all these assets are tightly controlled by the counterfeiters. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where even interest can't be paid, let alone principle. And the underlying asset values look to be poised for collapse. Counterfeiting more money, ie. QE, will most certainly be redeployed, but should result in collapsing currencies around the globe, as all are in the same boat.

In effect, the western world has created a neo-feudal order, with money counterfeiters being the overlords, rather than the land-holding thugs of the past.

HiHo , says: February 2, 2019 at 7:27 pm GMT
A rather sad piece from someone not quite au fait with current thinking though understandable under the circumstances.
Politics today is no longer of the 'left' or the 'right', but of globalism or nationalism. Yes, groups like Antifa cling to the old while supporting the fascist Establishment with fascist action. Odd lot those people.
Essentially you can't have a just society where usuary, share dealing and currency speculation take place. The termites that practice this sort of lifestyle need to be given a spade to dig the earth and grow their own veggies!
And democracy is just a smoke screen permitting special interest groups to over ride the popular consensus. To have it clarified by a popular vote one way or the other is a good idea, but can only work where the local culture supports the concept as in Switzerland, as opposed to California where it doesn't really work properly, since the culture is alien to that sort of concept.
Old man Le Pen's daughter is a wiley old solicitor that speaks like a fisherman's wife. The old man won't be bothered about what has happened to his party, though it is surprising things have stagnated a bit for National Rally.
The EU should not have expanded in to Eastern Europe and it should never have permitted the sort of third rate politicians such as Junkers, Moderini, the Kinnocks to have the power and the gravy they have got. The ultimate weakness is having Rothschild control all the banks and operate his money laundering business in the City of London. The EU is just another scam and the 520 million people in the EU are sick of it.
If you think the US is a poisoned chalice, the EU by comparison drank the Coudenhove-Calergi poison fifty years ago and is just about to go tits up and expire. Immigrants or no immigrants, the Austro-Japanese Richard Coudenhove-Calergi brand of pure poison has destroyed everything of worth in Europe.
This writer touches on the edges of the truth without actually pointing a finger at the cause: greed through usuary, share dealing and currency speculation. Until you deal with this cancer and the termites that promote it you will never find an answer.

HiHo

[Feb 02, 2019] European Companies Won t Dare Use SWIFT Alternative To Send Money To Iran

Notable quotes:
"... My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought. ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

European Companies "Won't Dare" Use SWIFT Alternative To Send Money To Iran

by Tyler Durden Sat, 02/02/2019 - 09:55 32 SHARES

The launch of INSTEX -- "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" -- by France, Germany, and the UK this week to allow "legitimate trade" with Iran, or rather effectively sidestep US sanctions and bypass SWIFT after Washington was able to pressure the Belgium-based financial messaging service to cut off the access of Iranian banks last year, may be too little too late to salvage the Iran nuclear deal .

Tehran will only immediately press that more than just the current "limited humanitarian" and medical goods can be purchased on the system, in accordance with fulfilling the EU's end of the 2015 JCPOA -- something which EU officials have promised while saying INSTEX will be "expansive" -- while European companies will likely continue to stay away for fear of retribution from Washington, which has stated it's "closely following" reports of the payment vehicle while reiterating attempts to sidestep sanctions will "risk severe consequences" .

As a couple of prominent Iranian academics told Al Jazeera this week: "If [the mechanism] will permanently be restricted to solely humanitarian trade, it will be apparent that Europe will have failed to live up to its end of the bargain for Iran ," said political analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani. And another, Foad Izadi, professor at the University of Tehran, echoed what is a common sentiment among Iran's leaders: "I don't think the EU is either willing or able to stand up to Trump's threat," and continued, "The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."

But Iranian leadership welcomed the new mechanism as merely a small first step: "It is a first step taken by the European side... We hope it will cover all goods and items," Iranian Deputy FM Abbas Araqchi told state TV, referencing EU promises to stick to its end of the nuclear deal.

The European side also acknowledged it as a precondition to keeping the nuclear deal alive, which EU leaders sea as vital to their security and strategic interests : "We're making clear that we didn't just talk about keeping the nuclear deal with Iran alive, but now we're creating a possibility to conduct business transactions," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters on Thursday . "This is a precondition for us to meet the obligations we entered into in order to demand from Iran that it doesn't begin military uranium enrichment," Maas said.

What is INSTEX?

Technically US sanctions allow some limited humanitarian trade and limited goods; however the White House's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran has still scared away European giants like Seimens, Maersk, Total, Daimler, Peugeot, Renault, and others.

This brings up the central question of whether skittish European countries will actually return to doing business with Iran, the entire purpose on which the new mechanism rests. The dilemma was summarized at the start of this week by outspoken Iran hawk Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who told the AP "The choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States." He warned, "I hope our European allies choose wisely."

Thus far a number of analysts and observers have remained far less optimistic than the European sponsors of INSTEX. One particular interview with geopolitical analyst and journalist Luc Rivet, cited in Russian media, outlines the likelihood for failure of the new payment vehicle : "I don't know what companies will make use of that mechanism to sell to Iran," Rivet said, noting that countries still consider it "dangerous" to be caught working with Iran.

Addressing the current restriction of INSTEX facilitating medical and pharmaceutical goods transactions, he continued:

Who produces this equipment? You think that Siemens will sell to Iran? Never, because they sell to America many other things as well And Siemens is afraid of losing the American market.

No matter if a handful of companies resume or continue business with Iran he explained that an "incredible number of companies" won't. He added: "It's much easier for Chinese and Russian companies to make deals with Iran. The Europeans are scared in an incredible way. The companies are afraid by ricochet of being in the eye of the storm with the Americans."

He concluded, "That's very dangerous for European companies," and repeated, "I don't know anybody who will dare to go with this Instex system."

And the New York Times in asking the same question -- But Will Anyone Use It? -- concludes similarly that "given that most large companies have significant business in the United States, very few -- if any -- are likely to use the trading mechanism for fear of incurring Washington's wrath."

However, the test will be whether or not a steady trickle of small companies gives way to bigger companies. The NYT report continues :

But the financial mechanism could make it easier for smaller companies with no exposure in the United States to trade with Iran and could promote trade in medicine and food, which are not subject to sanctions. European diplomats say that, in the beginning, the concentration will be on goods that are permitted by Washington, to avoid an early confrontation .

But much could also depend on just how fierce the White House reaction will be. If the past months' Trump administration rhetoric is any indicator, it will keep large companies scared and on the sidelines.


CarmenSandiego , 8 minutes ago link

This is the first step? then a independent military? Without asking money bosses in the USA?

alter , 34 minutes ago link

Europe has had double the tariffs on American cars than we had for theirs. It's time for us to quadruple the tariff on European cars, to make up for the tariff imbalance that Europe has taken advantage of for decades.

schroedingersrat , 1 hour ago link

Multinationals surely wont use it. But its great for small businesses.

Wantoknow , 1 hour ago link

Before World War II the question was, "Who will stand up to the demands of Germany?" Now the question is, "Who will stand up to the demands of the United States?" It is clear that as far as means and methods are concerned Washington flies the swastika. History has come full circle.

The following quote from J. R. R. Tolkien makes the point, "Always after a defeat and a respite," says Gandalf, "the shadow takes another shape and grows again." The irony of our times is that the shadow has moved from Germany to the US.

Consternation and craven refusal to confront the reality of our times is again in vogue. We are walking towards madness crying, "Let the other fellow fix this!"

Good Luck

ExpatNL , 1 hour ago link

My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought.

Einstein101 , 1 hour ago link

"The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."

So Iran is "running out of patience"? So what, what Iran will do? ...

[Jan 29, 2019] For all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one form or another in few dozen countries. Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists. Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves Socialists .

Notable quotes:
"... Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy. ..."
Dec 17, 2018 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , December 17, 2018 at 9:27 pm GMT

Marks **** s Hitler, but Hitler was pretty good at *** ing Marks too. Listen to this logic: The party that Hitler belonged to, was called National-Socialist, yet he hated communist and attacked Russia.

Communism and socialism are the same. There never was communism – that's what they were "aspiring" to become in some distant utopian future. So Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists. Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves "Socialists".

The whole last century has been spent on one major task by the west: Combat socialism. Mainly by wars, but propaganda also. And yet, socialism refuses to die. And the idea will never die. I know, someone will say, where have you been in the last almost 30 years? Capitalism defeated socialism in the cold war. Not so fast. Capitalism may have scored a major victory but it may have sustained a mortal self-inflicted wound of propaganda nature. In the last 100 years 3 major ways to fight socialism domestically were discovered:

FDR approach – include little bit of socialism into capitalism, to prevent a lot of socialism (total takeover). Nazi Germany approach – include none of socialism, but only use its name for propaganda and pretend that all is hunky-dory, and that "socialism" is already here. US approach – include a little bit of fake socialism in order to prevent a lot of real socialism from taking over. That's how multiculturalism came into being.

Again, I must say that the best approach was FDR's. If capitalism wants to survive – that's the way to go. Despite all the numerous wars against socialist countries, US haven't been able to erase the idea of socialism like they were hoping for.

If you want proof of this, just look at the last US election. Along comes Bernie Sanders, just mentions the name socialism few times – claiming himself to be one – socialist, and wins the primaries, only to be robbed by the Democratic mafia bosses who couldn't stand the idea of "socialist" running for president – after all the US has done to destroy socialism.

By the way, I think that Bernie is a good guy, but he is probably as much socialist as Adolf used to be. It still demonstrates the power of the socialist idea to attract people. Pretty clever propaganda ploy on Bernie's part, but there was no chance in hell the "democrats" would let him run for president on that platform.

And he would have defeated Trump. Talking about exercise in futility – US trying to erase the idea of socialism. That's what made them inflict the mortal wound of fake socialism on themselves and might in the end destroy them. FDR approach was the best – little bit of socialism to prevent a lot of it.

The other 2 ideas are self-destructive.

Kratoklastes , says: December 18, 2018 at 12:07 am GMT

@Cyrano

Communism and socialism are the same.

How about " Nope ". Communism is an end ; Socialism is a means that Marx considered the most likely to enable the end-point to be achieved. It's akin to saying that a mall (the end) and a car (the means) are "the same thing", on the basis that a car is an efficient way to get to the mall.

To flesh it out: Communism is explicitly anarchic, and is mainly characterised by

This all seems slightly silly when you write it down, so Marx recognised that there had to be a ' radical transformation of consciousness ' whereby people didn't want what they couldn't have.

He reckoned that the best way was to entrust an enlightened clique (the ' vanguard of the proletariat ') to take control, and to force society towards the 'end' by coercion – until such time as the end was in sight, whereupon the enlightened vanguard would relinquish control and society would be on a glide path to utopia.

And doing that specifically requires that the 'vanguard' controls production and allocation decisions during the transition – which he thought (wrongly) means that the means of production must be owned by the State.

Hence Socialism.

His end is correct so long as you add one adjective. A society free of artificial stratification is a desirable end. His means were totally wrong because he was a fucking idiot (as well as being a parasitic charlatan). The State would not relinquish control under any circumstances, and will actively undermine any mechanism that raises everyone (because that would narrow the gap between the political class and the demos can't have that).

A society free of artificial stratification is where we will end up once technological progress gets past its next 'knee' (' The Singularity ') it would be hastened if the parasites in the global political class are put to the sword.

Cyrano , says: December 18, 2018 at 12:47 am GMT
@Kratoklastes

I don't think you understood my argument here. You are correct. Socialism and Communism are not the same in philosophical sense. My argument was that for all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one form or another in few dozen countries.

Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy.

[Jan 29, 2019] Guardian became Deep State Guardian

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby. ..."
"... I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. ..."
"... George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one). ..."
"... That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. ..."
"... Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's. ..."
"... The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it. ..."
"... They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment ..."
"... well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/ ..."
Dec 22, 2018 | off-guardian.org

Oslo - Norway, Dec 4, 2018

Let's never forget George H W Bush's love for incubator babies. He loved fake incubator babies.

The incubator baby actress wasn't just any 15 year old, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Canada –

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cqiq8P8dRtY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Philpot, Dec 4, 2018
British and most western media are either in the direct or indirect pay of their governments. What journalist can expose this for us? Any of you willing to make the biggest scoop of the 21st century? Tom Bradbury at ITN must be on the spook payroll, for starters? MI6 had foreign correspondents for years, but domestic mouthpieces must now be on the take too? All paid to demonise Russia and Putin.
harry stotle, Dec 4, 2018

The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby.

Simon 'white helmets' Tisdall is especially egregious – one can imagine him throwing darts at a picture of Putin while producing his latest homily to the murderous actions of gangsters like Bush and his crime family.

Its hard not to despair now this has become the official face of Britains so-called liberal media.

Yarkob, Dec 4, 2018
I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. As with Michael White, with whom I had a very illuminating argument via email a few years back. He *is* an asset, not a journalist (and a massive dick, to boot)
George cornell, Dec 4, 2018
I thought the attitude of the Bush family to their fellow Americans was best illustrated by Barbara's response to the plight of the homeless victims of Katrina who had been transported to the Houston domed stadium. They spent their nights there sleeping on hard benches and when good ole Babs heard of it, she opined that they probably had never had it so good so why were they complaining. Could Mother Theresa have had greater generosity of spirit?
Gekaufte Journalisten (bought journalism), Dec 4, 2018
Not just one article, the awful Guardian is full of contents eulogising [yet another] mongrel of a president.

But look at conservative media. The crazy Infowars.com described this Bush as an Anti-American Globalist and Traitor!! .. and zerohedge.com is celebrating: "The Evil Has Died" and "In 2016 he voted for Hillary Clinton, because the Deep State Swamp sticks together". https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-02/exploring-dark-side-bush-41

Just tell me, who is the rabid neo-con right-wing rag that is glorifying wars and mass murderers?

Norcal, Dec 4, 2018
Speaking of neighbors you might appreciate this excellent Journalism by Robert Parry: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/03/bush-41s-october-surprise-denials-2/
DunGroanin, Dec 4, 2018
The late Robert Parry, sad to say. Maybe that now both the 'MacBeths' are stains on the tarmac – Parry's notes of the bloodstained legacy of that dynasty can finally be displayed? That Barbara was one cold blooded mother! Would have happily pulled a trigger on JFK, MLK herself (some think).

Just about the whole century from the setup of the Fed, the two world wars, the depression, Hitler, Korea, Cuba all of it, had a a Bush hand in it. He was the self crowned Caesar having publicly executed the whole of Camelot and left us with a poison toad, reminds us how low the Bush's took the USA.

David Eire, Dec 3, 2018
George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one).
Loverat, Dec 4, 2018
That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. If you surround yourself with people of similar mindset and in a climate where war is considered obligatory for US Presidents, you go into self denial. Wars are probably like an addiction for these people and once you get to that stage you no longer have a conscience.

During John McCain's funeral where all living ex-presidents were in attendance, someone remarked on Twitter, 'Quick, lock the church doors and hold the war crimes trial in the church!'. This was a far more realistic observation than the sickening McCain apologist BBC coverage we were subjected to.

At the weekend I went to the place where Oliver Cromwell lived. There was an American tourist who told us she was shocked about Oliver Cromwell being dug up from his grave and his head stuck on a pike. She said it was gruesome. I was tempted to say that at least that was 350 years ago, and similar things are happening today in Iraq, Syria and Libya – all places where the US has instigated the chaos and supports the perpretators. I resisted the temptation.

I note that Cromwell thought he was chosen by God to do what he did. But again that was in different times and there were some redeeming factors in what he did, Probably on par with Obama – who wreaked havoc on the Middle East but reached agreements on Iran and Cuba. Plus Obama looked cool while killing and droning.

But what goes around comes around. I sense the pure evil involved in the current regime change wars, government, media etc will pay a heavy price – whether in this life or the next.

mark, Dec 4, 2018
The state controlled BBC has just done another puff piece on McCain saying what a splendid chap and great statesman and all round good egg he was.

The MSM likes to slag off Vlad The Bad by droning on about how he was in the KGB. But Bush wasn't just IN the CIA, he was the BOSS of the CIA, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Central American peasant farmers and Indians were being killed by CIA trained and orchestrated death squads.

Gezzah Potts, Dec 4, 2018
Mark: jayzus Mark, don't you just want to projectile vomit when you see all this absolute bullshit, just straight out revising of history, just the lies, on and on . I was involved in a Central American solidarity group in the 1980s – early 90s here in Aussie, found out then all about U.S style 'democracatic values' and 'human rights concerns' and death squads and various fascists fully supported by the United States, and places like Guatemala and Nicaragua. Its all an illusion for 'polite society' and the gullible to believe in. Sigh
mark, Dec 5, 2018
I can't remember the exact figures but I think it was over 200,000 murdered in Guatemala out of a population of 4 million. It was the same story in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. And of course the CIA satrap Noriega was hauled off in chains when that country was invaded. But Uncle Sam is finally paying a price for his antics south of the border. Those societies were wrecked and brutalised beyond repair. There is now an unbelievably high murder rate of women in Guatemala. Millions of those people have sought some kind of refuge in the belly of the beast, causing an immigration crisis, with an illegal immigrant population that may be as high as 30 million. Hence all the uproar over Trump's wall. The immigration crisis was a factor in Trump's election, just as the tidal wave of migrants from the destroyed countries of the Middle East was a factor in Brexit. Cameron, Sarko and Clinton thought it was a spiffing idea and quite a wizard wheeze to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. So we now have a Mad Max failed state complete with warlords and slave markets just across the Med. What goes around, comes around. You can't expect to export violence and mayhem abroad and remain immune to it at home.
Gezzah Potts, Dec 5, 2018
Mark: after Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a coup in Guatemala in 1982, US Ambassador Frederick Chapin declared that thanks to the coup of Rios Montt "the Guatemalan Govt has come out of the darkness into the light". That sums it up in one sentence, and you're probably aware of the mass killing and disappearances under his genocidal tyranny. Reagan kindly submitted that Rios Montt was 'getting a bum rap on human rights, the same Reagan who declared the Contra's were 'The moral equal of our founding fathers'. In El Salvador, the same mass slaughter, the same mass upheaval, and even murdering Archbishop Romero. You only need to look at what happened in Central & South America to understand what the United States really represents.
Jen, Dec 4, 2018
I would have bypassed the war crimes trial, locked the church and then built a moat stocked with crocodiles and piranhas around it.
mark, Dec 4, 2018
That's entirely right. People understandably despise and revile people like Brady and Hindley, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Bundy and the like. But they killed a handful of people and were often very damaged individuals to begin with. And at least they did their own dirty work. Subhuman scum sucking filth like Bush, Bush 2, Obama, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Blair, Straw and Campbell are a thousand times worse. They kill millions without getting their hands dirty, and preen and posture as great statesmen and public servants, expecting deference and state funerals and puff piece obituaries from nauseating, loathsome, lickspittle media hacks like Tisdall.
Caitlin Ni Chonaill, Dec 6, 2018
You left out Kissinger and Albright.
Gezzah Potts, Dec 3, 2018
Nailed it Kit. The attempt at revionism and rewriting history by these craven creatures, these sycophantic slimebag shills for Imperialism and War and the Anglo Zionist Empire. They don't speak truth to power, they protect and grovel to the powerful. The eulogising and fawning of Bush was stomach churning, as it was for the arch Imperialist McCain when he croaked. Thank God for alternative news sites, and yeah Caitlin Johnston @ medium nailed it as well, as Fair Dinkum mentioned. Where's John Pilger when you need him?
Badger Down, Dec 3, 2018
GBH Bush's Highway of Death deserves mention. I'll spare you the pictures.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=highway+of+death+desert+storm&t=h_&atb=v92-2_f&ia=web
systemicfraud, Dec 3, 2018
What no one seems to realize is that the VP often takes charge of the US National Security Council when POTUS is not able to attend meetings, which are held weekly. Under Eisenhower it was Richard Nixon who often took charge of the meetings -- Tim Weiner's book "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" gives some details on this. Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's.
Fair dinkum, Dec 3, 2018
Caitlin sums it up: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/12/01/if-you-murdered-a-bunch-of-people-mass-murder-is-your-single-defining-legacy/
Simon Hodges, Dec 3, 2018
The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it.
Frankly Speaking, Dec 4, 2018
They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment
kevin morris, Dec 3, 2018
'Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years' by Russ Baker -- a fascinating account of the Bush family's involvement in a great deal of nefarious activity. Bush senior is one of the few people who didn't remember where he was when Kennedy was shot. Baker puts him in Dallas.
lysias, Dec 4, 2018
Now that G.H.W. Bush hss died, is there anybody suspected of involvement in the JFK assassination still alive?
kevin morris, Dec 4, 2018
I don't know but as a fairly apolitical individual, I never much bothered with the Kennedy Assasination. All that changed when during the fiftieth anniversary, BBC Radio Four ran a program which included an interview with the Dallas police officer who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. The consensus of that program was that the case was open shut and Oswald did it. Around that time, several newspapers in the UK featured articles claiming that Oswald acted alone.

Whether or not anyone actively involved still lives, their descendants still do and the probable organising body too. There still appears to be determination in some quarters to spread disinformation about the case. Given that as long ago as the late seventies the House of Representatives Assassination Committee concluded that JFK's death was probably the consequence of a conspiracy, determination amongst the mainstream media to lay Kennedy's death at the hands of Oswald alone suggests that there is still determination that the truth never becomes public.

Frankly Speaking, Dec 3, 2018
Exactly what i was thinking!

I'm sickened by the Guardian's and BBC's obedience to the US neocon project to seek, or create, and destroy "enemies" and whilst ignoring all the disgusting atrocities that arise as a consequence.

The Guardian is not even worth the paper it's printed on. It's become The Guardian Of The Establishment rather than of the Truth which it used to proclaim.

George cornell, Dec 4, 2018
It is in danger of losing its budgie-cage-liner status. If budgies can talk they may refuse to evacuate on it. What kind of person maintains ties to such a a poor excuse for cage toiletry. The moral crunch time for their journalists (actually their opinionists) came and went a long time ago.
Brutally Remastered, Dec 3, 2018
What a great piece. My parents knew them in New York and they came over once and left behind an embossed packet of White House cigs. I asked my father (before he died) what he thought of them and all he ever said was he thought that Barbara was the intellect in the family.
Bloody annoying, thanks Pater.
Marianne Birkby, Dec 3, 2018
From 2004

"The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq broke a 46-year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war continues to be used more and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years). The long-term effects from over a decade of DU exposures are devastating. The increased quantities of radioactive material used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater than Iraq, 1991. In Iraq, 2003, they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991, and will travel through a larger area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000-mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by radiation poisoning

Badger Down, Dec 3, 2018
"DU remains radioactive longer than [ ] 4.5 billion years." It's worse than that. It loses half of its radioactivity in that time. The good news is that that slow release means "D"U doesn't zap you much. The bad news is it's chemically toxic, like a heavy metal (which it is).
nwwoods, Dec 3, 2018
Also no mention of the body of circumstantial evidence linking Bush to JFK's murder, though Bush repeatedly insisted that he couldn't recall his whereabouts that day (I can precisely recall where I was, and I was 9 years old in 1963), in spite of the fact that solid documentary evidence exists that puts him in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963.
Norcal, Dec 4, 2018
The very first Google Search I did was this, (George H.W. Bush+November 22, 1963) and it yielded a page like the following link, which began my research into the JFK Assassination.

http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=5420

nomad, Dec 3, 2018

well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/

Bush Sr. : Crypto-Nazi patriarch and his disciples
https://eclinik.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/barbara-bush-funeral-four-presidents-four-first-ladies.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1

[Jan 29, 2019] Protection rackets reach new heights. US debt is growing exponentially, until it doesn't. What then? The Yugoslavia solution, 50 odd countries from the no longer united states?

Notable quotes:
"... Do the warmongers think that nuclear winter is bogus? ..."
"... Looks like Russia and China's plan to do a reverse USSR bankruptcy on the US is bearing fruit. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Harry Law , Jan 18, 2019 1:50:16 PM | link

Why not spread a huge trampoline over the US and bounce those missiles back to their origin. That is probably more feasible than the theory that because the US has a 10 to 4 preponderance of nuclear weapons over [say Russia] then the US can destroy Russia 10 times over, whereas the Russians can only destroy the US 4 times over. Some crazies think those odds are good.

Russ , Jan 18, 2019 2:00:51 PM | link
This kind of thing must give the Demtards some major cognitive dissonance (insofar as they have any cognition). They're the worst jingoes in wanting to push the confrontation with Russia to the very brink and beyond, so they would be the normal target audience for this kind of sham "missile defense" propaganda, certainly if a Democrat or less hated Republican president proposed it. But they have such Trump Derangement Psychosis, they'll have to denounce this even though it's for their yearned-for nuclear war.

As for the SDI technology, they'd be better off with Opus's proposal to put a thick ring of $1000 bills in space to block the missiles. Might work for asteroids and flying saucers too.

Jackrabbit , Jan 18, 2019 2:19:28 PM | link
Protection rackets reach new heights.
Zachary Smith , Jan 18, 2019 2:22:21 PM | link
Trump used the occasion of the MDR launch to exaggerate the possibilities of new missile defense systems...

Trump was again making a public demonstration that he is an ignorant loudmouth. I skimmed that Missile Defense Review and saw the equivalent of a research paper written by a lazy college student. Huge margins, many space-eating illustrations, and much repetition helped to "catapult the propaganda". It was 108 pages of nonsense designed to give the impression we need to throw more taxpayer money to Big Weapons Companies.

The cost to put 1 kilogram into low-earth orbit are some $5,000-$20,000.
I'm afraid these numbers are seriously outdated.

This graph shows the declining costs of launching people and cargo into space.

Unfortunately those "rods from god" don't have to be the size of telephone poles. A 2 inch thick and 72 inch long bar of tungsten moving along at 2 miles/second would destroy any armored vehicle it hit, and also a great many other things. If one of them struck the generator at the electrical power plant, there isn't going to be any electricity from that plant for a long while.

I don't know why these things haven't been deployed, but it might come down to common sense and low profit. The US has opened a can of worms with weapon-carrying drones, and doing this with a simple and inexpensive orbital weapon might have been recognized as 'undesirable'. Big Weapons Companies don't stand to roll in the big bucks like they do with the USS Ford or the F-35. And possibly nobody could make them work. I just don't know.

Once again, that new Missile Defense Review was a combination of really stupid and amazingly dishonest. It could also get us all killed well before the worst effects of climate change arrive.

chet380 , Jan 18, 2019 2:26:25 PM | link
Will the captive Corporate Media ever free itself to the extent that the American voting public will be thoroughly educated as to the costs to the social fabric that these monstrous military projects entail? -- to healthcare, to the infrastructure, to education, to Social Security, and the list goes on and on.
lysias , Jan 18, 2019 2:36:38 PM | link
Do the warmongers think that nuclear winter is bogus?
JohninMK , Jan 18, 2019 3:44:04 PM | link
Looks like Russia and China's plan to do a reverse USSR bankruptcy on the US is bearing fruit.

Putin's announcement of all those advanced weapons, few of which are actually being rolled out, was just what the US MIC was looking to push for the next round of juicy R&D contracts. It could almost have been made to measure for hungry DC lobbyists. Maybe it was.

US debt is growing exponentially, until it doesn't. What then? The Yugoslavia solution, 50 odd countries from the no longer united states?

james , Jan 18, 2019 4:02:32 PM | link Harry Law , Jan 18, 2019 4:03:04 PM | link
What's wrong with you snowflakes, we have to worry more about a 'mine shaft gap' Russia probably has far more mine shafts than the US, but don't worry in the event of a nuclear war all is not lost, with more mine shafts "and with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say ten females to each male they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within 20 years". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y
karlof1 , Jan 18, 2019 4:16:32 PM | link
JohninMK @16--

Yes, it's possible Putin's 1 March announcement was a counterattack in the Hybrid Third World War aimed at the fiscal ruination of the Outlaw US Empire.

Some may recall Putin asking Slick Willie to join NATO in 2000. Well, it turns out that request was made once before in 1954 , a fact I was unaware of until today. One must ponder the reasons why Molotov's request was nixed in 1954 despite willingness to negotiate regarding the stated objections. I wonder if Ike was even informed of this development given the extremely evil Dulles brothers were in charge of State and CIA at the time. I'm sure I'm not the only one who missed the revelation of that fact. It appears the elimination of Russia as a nation-state has always been the goal, just as it was for the British.

Steven Starr , Jan 18, 2019 4:42:39 PM | link
Re: Lysias @11 Do the warmongers think that nuclear winter is bogus?
and Anne Jaclard @ 15.

Yes, Anne Jaclard is correct.US political and military leaders have either ignored or rejected the peer-reviewed studies on the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war. They don't fit the agenda.
For more details, please see the article that I wrote for the Federation of American Scientists, Turning A Blind Eye Toward Armageddon -- US Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies

karlof1 , Jan 18, 2019 5:15:21 PM | link
Steven Starr @21--

Thanks for providing the link to your article. In it I note the same tactics utilized by tobacco causes cancer and climate change deniers to smear the studies and deny any potential Nuclear Winter. Clearly, the people involved in such denialism are the most immoral people one might imagine. Unfortunately, I see no evidence to soften your assessment:

"My own personal assessment of the state of the nuclear danger today is that it is profound. The United States is sleepwalking towards nuclear war. Our leaders have turned a blind eye to the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war, and our military appears to be intent on making "Russia back down." This is a recipe for unlimited human disaster."

As you probably know, Putin has said Russia is ready and will not back down, that it is up to the Outlaw US Empire to alter its aggressive, provocative behaviors and policies. Brinksmanship is clearly occurring, but as you observe, there's no discussion of that fact happening within the Outlaw US Empire; although now with the INF Treaty pullout, a few voices in Europe are finally being raised.

vk , Jan 18, 2019 5:50:55 PM | link
China's note about it:

US missile defense plan reveals illusion disguised as safety net

Don , Jan 18, 2019 5:53:33 PM | link
@25

Of course we still have a shuttle program. It's an unmanned shuttle program that does not depend on Russian engines: wiki/Boeing_X-37

mauisurfer , Jan 18, 2019 6:10:58 PM | link
thank you very much Steven Starr @21
worth remembering the studies done by JFK govt after the Cuban Missile Crisis
William R Polk writes that they war gamed nuclear conflict, and the conclusion reached was that once USA (or Russia, or now China) used a nuke, then the result would be escalation until all nukes had been used.
Leaders disbelieved this result, and redid the war games over and over again, but the result was the same. It does not matter if one nation only intended a "limited" or strategic attack, escalation is inevitable, and it would be the end of human civilization as we know it.

Take a look at Polk's article here:
www.williampolk.com/assets/the-cuban-missile-crisis-in-reverse.pdf

quote
1)
it
is
almost
certain
that
neither
the
American
nor
the
Russian
government
could
accept
even
a
limited
attack
without
responding;
2)
there
is
no
reason
to
believe
that
a
Russian
government,
faced
with
defeat
in
conventional
weapons,
would
be
able
to
avoid
using
nuclear
weapons;
3)
whatever
attempts
are
made
to
limit
escalation
are
likely
to
fail
and
in
failing
lead
to
all
out
war;
and
4)
the
predictable
consequences
of
a
nuclear
war
are
indeed
an
unimaginable
catastrophe.

fast freddy , Jan 18, 2019 6:47:04 PM | link
What prevents the space gun from shooting itself backward into deeper space from the recoil of firing the projectile?
karlof1 , Jan 18, 2019 6:48:08 PM | link
Pft @26--

The 2018 National Defense Strategy produced by Mattis was published on 19 January 2018, far in advance of Putin's 1 March 2018 address, and advocated for additional expenditures beyond what was legislated. IOW, Putin's speech had no bearing on the increase in weapons procurement as such was already planned. Furthermore, it's little secret that a technological breakthrough is being counted on to recharge the Outlaw US Empire's languishing tech sector whose only viable R&D arm for decades is DARPA; thus, the call for revamping Star Wars ought to be seen as part of that effort.

dh , Jan 18, 2019 7:24:31 PM | link
@31 I think it is more likely the recoil will cause it to spin around like a Catherine wheel firing off Rods from God in all directions. It will be like the Fourth of July.
SteveK9 , Jan 18, 2019 7:44:28 PM | link
You can get into all kinds of detail, but the bottom line is that offense is much cheaper than defense. This was true before and probably even more true now. Unlimited range nuclear cruise missiles and underwater drones, relatively tiny hypersonic glide vehicles changing course erratically while falling out of the sky at Mach 27 (latest test) are going to be very expensive to stop if at all. If it costs you 100 million to defend yourself from a 1 million dollar missile ... well the other guy just builds more missiles.
Zachary Smith , Jan 18, 2019 8:54:58 PM | link
@ SteveK9 #34
You can get into all kinds of detail, but the bottom line is that offense is much cheaper than defense.

In my opinion you've nailed it. All the defensive systems I know of are constructed like a house of cards. They're vulnerable to every kind of disruption, and against a competent opponent none of them are going to work. But never fear - there is big money in pretending to try.

Intercepting a ballistic missile with an anti-missile has been likened to "hitting a bullet with a bullet." Imagine if the bullet were taking evasive action.

I used an extract from the link rather than the article title because that title is quite deceptive.

Only two methods of pure defense come to mind. First would be a Science Fiction "blaster" like in Asimov's Foundation series. The closest we have to them are lasers, and present day models don't have enough power or the ability to blast through nasty weather. I suspect that tipping the interceptor rockets with small nukes would stop the hypersonic devices in their tracks. The downside of these is something called EMP, or ElectroMagnetic Pulse. High altitude bursts will probably do at least as much damage to the US as would the bombs aboard the hypersonic gliders, and quite possibly more.

Because of the demands of the US Empire, the US can't play nice with the rest of the world. But some of us can most definitely make immense profits from the situation. The ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile) industry may get to join the makers of the F-35 and the barely floating new Navy ships in the drive for massive profits.

ben , Jan 18, 2019 9:11:43 PM | link
the pair @4 said in part;""war is a racket" as the saying goes. it's usually less about actual capability than it is keeping all the usual suspects latched firmly on the "military industrial" teat. it's basically the world's largest welfare program disguised as "national defense" and - coupled with financial fraud/smoke and mirrors -"

Agreed..

slit , Jan 18, 2019 9:16:19 PM | link
Gates to hell are open, Satan's elves know only death economy stock but backs, not the laws of physics!

"One figure who has benefited financially from the crisis, according to Evans, is Prime Minister Theresa May's husband, whose employer Capital Group owns a large amount of shares in a weapons manufacturer that supplies the Saudi military. The company's shares in Lockheed Martin, an arms-dealer who produces laser-guided missiles such as the one that blew up a bus full of school children in Yemen last year, was worth about $6.5 billion as of last March."

https://on.rt.com/9mjv

Zachary Smith , Jan 18, 2019 9:18:23 PM | link
Just read a headline suggesting the apartheid Jewish state is wanting to join up with the ABM grifting.

US army eyes $373 million purchase of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system

My calculator says that this amount of money divided by the 240 little missiles which will come as part of the deal is $1.5 million bucks. That's a lot of taxpayer dollars for something which basically doesn't work. The next link is from 2013, but I doubt if much has changed, for this Iron Dome business was always more about soothing Apartheid State civilians than actually working.

Iron Dome System Failed Miserably

Yeah, even if they've doubled the "success" rate of that Iron Dome to 10%, it's still almost as useless as teats on a rooster.

pretzelattack , Jan 18, 2019 10:18:47 PM | link
@ 34 right, and the defense didn't even work; they rigged the tests.
flayer , Jan 19, 2019 8:41:16 AM | link
feel fairly certain that the US will create their own illusion of security and then, from within that bubble, they will become even more aggressive in pursuing "regime change" and other globalist matters as countries will continue to refuse to bend to their will. We've seen how the Republicans reacted to an "apologetic" Obama when he traveled abroad: labeling him a foreigner. We've seen how the Democrats reacted to the simple act of hacking an e-mail server and publicizing the data: it's 9/11! And we've seen them respond to Trump: labeling him beholden to foreign interests. I can only see this type of thing escalating in the future. It's depressing to think about it.

If the US feels like they've secured themselves against any potential missiles, there's nothing stopping them from trying to break up Russia or vaporizing the coastline of China aside from their own sensibilities. Which seem to have gone out the window entirely, based on the latest Buzzfeed coverage.

jadan , Jan 19, 2019 9:24:01 AM | link
I quit! We know that a "limited nuclear war" is an illusion. The effects of a nuclear accident at Fukushima have been ignored, denied, covered up or rationalized as the collateral damage of global warming/climate change. The use of "tactical" nukes will create similar effects that are also ignored. Nuclear restraint will be an invitation to a lack of restraint as this military "necessity" transforms into full blown insanity. The terminal irony is that we're already at the point of full blown insanity for failing to impose any limits on the proliferation of nuclear war fantaseis. Therefore, I quit! I refuse to participate in the generation of more verbiage on this subject. We must demand the strict control of all nuclear weapons and research through an international program of demilitarization. The first step is to take the political promoters of this madness away from the microphones. We need a full frontal assault on militarism as the true enemy of the people. To participate in discussions of the feasibility of further nuclear elaboration is to become part of the insanity. I quit!
john , Jan 19, 2019 9:57:25 AM | link
not that many years ago, no matter who you asked or where you sourced it, the consensus was pretty much that surface-to-air missile defense systems were not particularly effective. then came the war in Syria and suddenly incoming missiles were being shot out of the air with remarkable rates of success. 50%, 60%, 70%, sometimes even 100%! and this was presumably without engaging the vaunted s-300, s-400 systems. then, of course, Putin declared his new array of super-duper hypersonic missiles...against which there is presently, apparently, no defense. but then i read that Lockheed Martin was awarded a 2.9 billion dollar contract to develop Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Satellites, designed to fill the gap that exists for early hypersonic detection, and i gotta wonder. and then i think of an anomaly like the 21 trillion unaccounted for down at DOD and i try to extrapolate the limitations on R & D.

ka-ching, ka-ching.

donkeytale , Jan 19, 2019 10:17:11 AM | link
John @ 59

ka-ching, ka-ching.

That is sound of the "new cold war," don't you know?

Lol

Zachary Smith , Jan 19, 2019 1:17:21 PM | link
At the Counterpunch site is a takedown of Donald Trump and his "war cabinet" .
The Pentagon has been playing games over the years with its testing program for missile defense. Targets typically follow a preprogrammed flight path to a designated position; interceptor missiles also fly to a preprogrammed position. Global positioning satellite receivers are placed on the target to send its position to ground control, and the necessary target location is downloaded to a computer in the kill vehicle. Finally, decoys are given a significantly different thermal signature than the target, making it easier for sensors on the kill vehicle to distinguish between objects.

I knew there had been cheating going on, but not that it had been quite this bad.

Star Wars Revisited: One More Nightmare From Trump

Russ , Jan 19, 2019 2:19:22 PM | link
Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jan 19, 2019 1:17:21 PM | 66

"I knew there had been cheating going on, but not that it had been quite this bad."

In this kind of corporate-controlled hierarchy (which is more or less every hierarchy), how could there not be cheating, whatever level of cheating is necessary to give the desired result. In this case there's tremendous pressure on those conducting the war game to set it up so it produces the result wanted by the weapons contractors: The government should buy these systems.

Personnel are selected according to their sincere belief in this framework. They don't even consider it cheating, but the rightful way of the world. And if someone is enough of a rogue (they'll consider HIM the rogue) to want a "real" answer, he'll just be replaced by someone who believes in the corporate imperative.

It's the same as how most STEM types sincerely believe science exists to serve corporate imperatives. Thus for example every system-conducted food safety test is designed to give the result desired by agribusiness. And if against the odds the test gives adverse data, researchers have multiple rationales for excluding it as "irrelevant".

And of course that kind of manipulation is so rife in drug trials that even the mainstream media couldn't keep it from becoming a public scandal. They're still keeping the lid on the systematic fraud of food testing though.

So it's no wonder that capitalism reaches exactly the end point its critics always forecast - extremely expensive weapons that don't work, extremely expensive drugs that don't work and are often harmful, extremely expensive food (artificially kept cheap at the retail checkout via massive government subsidies) that doesn't work (poor nutritional value, empty calories) and is loaded with poison.

So the ticking clocks are in a race. What'll it be, nuclear war, mass death from poisoned food, mass death from the generally toxified environment. And a big part of it is that under late capitalism, professional cadres not only have no integrity but are devout believers in the religion of corporate rule and how from these benevolent despots manna will trickle down to all.

But the only real trickling down is the acid rain, the volatile pesticide and radiation fallout, and the missiles.

Piotr Berman , Jan 19, 2019 2:51:21 PM | link
Liberal part of American elite never formulated a coherent rebuke to the insanity of Star Wars. The assumptions of Star Wars are too close to their common wisdom, namely that USA should pursue what it richly deserves, the position of an unquestioned sole superpower on the globe that sets the rules for the rest, at collects some tribute from the lesser in the form of fines for violation of the rules that are imposed on the rest. MAD does not have place is such a world so should be eliminated.

The concept that pursuit of this ideal is futile, expensive and diverts energies and minds in USA from solving actual life problems of Americans, not to mention those in other nations is alien to our elite thinking. We are the force for good, so the stronger our force the better.

In the meantime we have problems like this one. Moscow subway is very proud that its system expands by 5-10% every year and the percentage of delayed trains is 5 times smaller than in Paris. They do not compare themselves to NYC where the subway system hardly expands and the percentage of delayed trains is about 30% rather than 1% in Paris and 0.2% in Moscow. NYC system also consumes an amazing amount of money. The arts of corruption, mismanagement and achieving very little for a lot are more widely spread than MIC.

Zachary Smith , Jan 19, 2019 3:01:55 PM | link
Don't know why there is a sudden rash of ABM stores, but they are surely a lot of them out there. The Defense One site has two!

The New Missile-Defense Policy Won't Maker Us Safer

This first one is more of an editorial telling why the whole idea is generally a bad one.

Trump's New Missile Policy Relies Heavily on Largely Unproven Technologies

The second one is more specific. Example:

But the new missile-defense strategy rests most of its hopes on other technologies that essentially do not exist, and may never do so. The review says, for example, that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could be networked with new sensors and outfitted with new missiles to take out adversary missiles on the launch pad. Tests have shown that the F-35 can do this. But the distance is the larger problem: the jet basically has to be in the enemy's airspace already.

The notion of multiple F-35s loitering over China and Russia waiting to kneecap rockets during liftoff is a fantasy.

When I read that new " Missile Defense Review" report this is one of the absurd claims which had me shaking my head. The F-35 isn't invisible. In the unlikely event it could even reach enemy launch sites, a good radar would know it was there. A keen set of eyes or ears could possibly hear the howl of the engine or just spot it. And a VERY average infra-red detector could detect that super-hot engine. One of the many problems with the airplane is its short range. Even if it could somehow get there, it can't stay. The plane will need fuel. The pilot will need to eat, potty, and eventually sleep. Build a special hyper-expensive robot model and it still won't work. But the neocons seem to have sold it to President Gullible, and that's all that matters.

c1ue , Jan 19, 2019 3:15:01 PM | link
The kinetic weapons aren't a cost issue. A single Tomahawk is $1M - nor do you need a telephone pole sized projectile to do a lot of damage.

The real issue is targeting and survivability. Hitting something from even low earth orbit is non-trivial, particularly if it is a purely ballistic system unless the target is both stationary and very large. And, as the author mentions, these systems are notably easy to hit if they are on low earth orbit.

telescope , Jan 19, 2019 5:35:01 PM | link
I wouldn't worry about the US military capabilities anymore. There is steady erosion across the board, from quality of personnel to the capabilities of weaponry. While still formidable, America's forces are becoming less so with each passing year. In all face-to-face mock-up competitions, American soldiers, sailors and airmen always finish next to last. Every invitation by Russia to participate in such exercises (from Aviadarts to Tank Biathlon to Army Games) is invariably declined by the Pentagon, lest it leads to an embarassing display of borderline incompetence.

Russia, on the other hand, is improving rapidly in all areas.

Add to it the yawning gap in fiscal health (Russia is as sound as the US is sick), and it's getting clear that all of Trump's posturing is nothing but a desperate bluff. It worked once by inducing outright panic into the decrepit Soviet leadership in the late 1980s, so why not try it again...?

Putin is no Brezhnev, however. And America is a very different country also (not in a good way). Nothing of substance will come of it this time around. Russians are already preparing for the inevitable collapse of the START treaty. They will be going back to tens of thousands of strategic nukes and beyond, until the West either collapses or sues for peace.

foolisholdman , Jan 19, 2019 6:42:16 PM | link
Fallout from Chernobyl rendered Welsh sheep too radioactive to eat for a good many years. Recently, (last couple of years) I was told by a Bavarian that they still could not eat wild boar in Bavaria for the same reason.
Zachary Smith , Jan 19, 2019 11:22:13 PM | link
@ c1ue #72

As you suggest, a purely ballistic system is nearly worthless. The flying crowbar (or telephone pole) would have turned into a guided munition. Getting a signal through the plasma sheath surrounding weapon has been a big problem. Lots of people have been working on solutions, and the Russians claim to have found one. From a Popular Science story:

To get the signal to make the short leap to the spacecraft, the Russian researchers propose blasting the resonating plasma layer with radio waves generated from the spacecraft. Like the signal from earth, some will be absorbed and some reflected back to the spacecraft. But the reflected waves should be modulated by changes in the electric field caused by the signal sent from earth. Meaning the signals returning to the spacecraft should carry a ghost of the signal sent form earth and absorbed by the plasma.

A search turned up several different proposals, so person has to assume one or more of them is going to work. One reason to worry about this is the possibility of attacking missile silo ICBMs. Until very recently it was thought only a nuclear weapon would destroy one of these, but a properly sized kinetic impactor would surely do just as well. Worst of all, the warning time from when the impactors were detected on radar until they hit would be really short.

There are other possibilities which had best be left untouched in deference to the sensitivities of The Surveillance State.

[Jan 26, 2019] Can the current US neoliberal/neoconservative elite be considered suicidal?

Highly recommended!
Can the elite be afflicted by some mass disease. Is Neoconservatism a deadly infection ?
Theoretically Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility. In other words they spearheaded a dangerous disease to stay in power. And eventually got infected themselves.
Notable quotes:
"... "But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?" ..."
"... That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge. ..."
"... The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that. ..."
"... An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated. ..."
"... As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Kent January 18, 2019 at 11:30 am

"But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?"

What if, on election day, you only have a choice between 2 candidates. Both favoring all the wrong choices, but one tends to talk up Christianity and family and the other talks up diversity.

And both get their funding from the very wealthy and corporations. And any 3rd choices would be "throwing your vote away". How would you ever get to vote for someone who might change course?

Democracy has little to actually do with choice or power.

mlopez, January 18, 2019 at 6:22 pm

GB may not have been any utopia in 1914, but it was certainly geo-politically dominant. It's common people's social, economic and cultural living standards most assuredly was vastly improved over Russian, or European peasants. There can be no serious comparison with third world countries and regions.

As for the US, there can be absolutely no debate about its own dominance, or material standard of living after 1945 as compared to any where else in the world. More importantly, even uneducated and very contemporary observers were capable of recognizing how our elites had sold out their interests in favor of the furtherance of their own.

If we are on about democratic government, then it's been generations since either country and their peoples have had any real democracy. Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility.

That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge.

Hello / Goodbye, January 19, 2019 at 11:40 am

The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that.

Patzinak, January 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm

What ineffable flummadiddle!

Prominent Brexiteers include Boris Johnson (dual UK/US citizenship, educated in Brussels and at Eton and Oxford, of mixed ancestry, including a link - by illegitimate descent - to the royal houses of Prussia and the UK); Jacob Rees-Mogg (son of a baron, educated at Eton and Oxford, amassed a solid fortune via hedge fund management); Arron Banks (millionaire, bankroller of UKIP, made to the Brexit campaign the largest ever political donation in UK politics).

So much for "the elite" being against Brexit!

But the main problem with Brexit is this. Having voted by a slim margin in favour of Brexit, the Great British Public then, in the general election, denied a majority to the government that had undertaken to implement it, and elected a Parliament of whom, by a rough estimate, two thirds oppose Brexit.

It ain't that "the elite" got "things wrong". It's that bloody Joe Public can't make his mind what to do - and go through with it.

Rossbach, January 20, 2019 at 2:14 pm

"Whether the imagined utopia of a dominant Great Britain prior to 1914 or a dominant America after 1945 ever actually existed is beside the point."

It wasn't to restore any defunct utopia that led people to vote for Brexit or Donald Trump; it was to check the descent of the Anglosphere into the totalitarian dystopia of forced multi-cultural globalism that caused voters to reject the EU in Britain and Hillary Clinton in the US. It is because they believed that only with the preservation of their national independence was there any chance or hope for a restoration of individual liberty that our people voted as they did.

Ratings System, January 17, 2019 at 1:27 pm

It's why they won't enjoy their privileges much longer. That stale charade can't and won't last.

We don't have a meritocracy. We have a pseudo-meritocracy with an unduly large contingent of aliens, liars, cheats, frauds, and incompetents. They give each other top marks, speak each other's PC language, and hire each other's kids. And they don't understand why things are falling apart, and why they are increasingly hated by real Americans.

A very nasty decade or two is coming our way, but after we've swept out the filth there will be a good chance that Americans will be Americans again.

Paul Reidinger, January 17, 2019 at 2:03 pm

An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated.

As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. The new dark age is no longer imminent. It is here, and it is them. I see no way to rectify the damage. When minds are ruined young, they remain ruined.

[Jan 24, 2019] Trump Derangement Syndrome and the NATO Fetish of the Progressive Left by David Stockman

Notable quotes:
"... As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal Doomsday machine. ..."
"... That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State. ..."
"... In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914. ..."
"... Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991. ..."
"... So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s. ..."
"... Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business. ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

We've got NATO on our mind today because we learned this morning that the mere suggestion this obsolete relic of the Cold War should be abandoned tends to trigger an absolutely virulent outburst of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the mainstream media.

As it happened we were appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to promote our new book called, PEAK TRUMP: The Undrainable Swamp and the Fantasy of MAGA .

So long as we were talking about the folly of Trump-O-Nomics and the Donald's rookie mistake in embracing an egregious stock market bubble that is destined to crash and a failing, geriatric business cycle that at age 115 months has "recession ahead" written all over its forehead, our host, Mika Brzezinski, was happy to nod approvingly.

But when we veered off into approval of the Donald's efforts to rein in the Empire and make peace with the Russkies, it was an altogether different matter. We no more than launched the thought of it than Mika was sputtering in disbelief – as if we had committed a grotesque sacrilege in public:

STOCKMAN: Beyond that – beyond that, trump tried to do the right thick with America first. He's been stymied at every turn of the road. He was right. They wouldn't let him do it. He was right. NATO is obsolete. We should get rid of it. Everybody went after him for he's trying to do the right thing in Korea and yet they keep coming after him on the basis of the status quo, which has been wrong for last 60 years. So on the one hand, his economic policy is a failure. On the other hand, his effort to rein in the empires I call it and get to something we can afford is being stymied. And then he's filled the swamp with $100 billion more for the Pentagon that is doesn't need. That's the deep end of the swamp."

BRZEZINSKI: "David, David, hold on a second, hold on, hold on. You did a lot."

STOCKMAN: "Yes."

BRZEZINSKI: "I just want to like hone in on one – are you saying we should pull out of NATO?" [crosstalk]

STOCKMAN: "Sure. NATO is obsolete."

BRZEZINSKI: "What?"

STOCKMAN: "NATO is obsolete. It was only set up to stop the Soviet Union and 50,000 tanks on the Warsaw front. That ended 25 years ago. We don't need NATO. Europe can take care of itself. Russia's a pint-sized economy, 7 percent of size of U.S. economy. NATO, US GDP combined is $36 trillion, Russia's $1.5 trillion. You think the Europeans can't handle it? Germany spends 1 percent only of GDP on defense. If they really thought that the Russians were heading through the Brandenburg Gate, they would be providing for their own defense. They're not pacifists.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KZU_dz_emOg

So if you wonder why we insist that a fiscal calamity is barreling down the pike – just consider the implications of this exchange. MSNBC is ground zero for the so-called progressive Left. Yet it has become so deranged by the Donald and convinced that he was elected not because the electorate rejected its threadbare agenda, but because Putin and the Russkies threw the election to him, that it has become a full-fledged champion of the War Party.

As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal Doomsday machine.

That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State.

Yet with respect to the latter, the last time we checked the old Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history 28 years ago. Shortly thereafter the 50,000 Red Army tanks, which had been arrayed menacingly (and unbeknownst to the CIA, largely without spare fuel) behind the Iron Curtain, were mostly melted down for scrap by the destitute statelets of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania etc.) and 14 ex-Soviet Republics (like Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, etc.)

What was left of the Soviet Empire was the rump state of Russia – shorn of much of its industrial base and with an aging population of just 140 million compared to the 425 million souls who had been incarcerated in Stalin's dystopia.

So, yes, there was every reason to declare "mission accomplished" and disband NATO because the much exaggerated conventional military threat of the Soviet Union had literally vanished from the face of the earth. At that point, NATO was, in fact, pointless.

So when President George Bush the Elder, who was no wimpy Yale pacifist, promised Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for his acquiescence to the reunification of Germany that NATO would no move " a single inch to the east", he wasn't exactly selling the "free world" (as they called it) down the drain.

In fact, as the above map unfolded, the 77-Years War that had incepted in August 1914 was finally over. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the depredations which germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the march of history into the second world war and cold war which followed inexorably thereupon.

To wit, upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped-out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and Vietnam.

So finally the time had come for Washington to lead the world into a golden age of peace, disarmament and prosperous commerce among the nations.

Yet there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77 Years War ended. The great general and president, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell address.

But that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word "congressional" in a gesture of comity to the legislative branch. So restore Ike's deleted reference to the legislative pork barrels and Sunday afternoon warriors of Capitol Hill and toss in the legions of beltway busybodies that constituted the civilian branches of the cold war armada (CIA, State, AID, NED etc.) and the circle would have been complete.

It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized world.

In a word, the real threat to world peace circa 1991 was that Pax Americana would not go away quietly into the good night.

In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.

Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991.

What needed to happen back in 1991 was for Bush the Elder to declare "mission accomplished" and slash the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion.

So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s.

Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business.

By contrast, even though liberal historians have reviled Warren G. Harding as some kind of dumbkopf politician, he well understood that the Great War had been for naught, and that to insure it never happened again the nations of the world needed to rid themselves of their huge navies and standing armies.

To that end, he achieved the largest global disarmament agreement ever made during the Washington Naval conference of 1921, which halted the construction of new battleships for more than a decade.

And while he was at it, President Harding also pardoned Eugene Debs. He thereby gave witness to the truth that the intrepid socialist candidate for president and vehement antiwar protester, who Wilson had thrown in prison for exercising his first amendment right to speak against US entry into a pointless European war, had been right all along.

In short, Warren G. Harding knew the war was over, and the folly of Wilson's 1917 plunge into Europe's bloodbath should not be repeated at all hazards.

The Unforgiveable Sins 0f George H.W. Bush

Not George H.W. Bush. The man should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power – even if he did denounce them in his bumbling old age.

Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991 he opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam. In turn, that nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today – save for forces unleashed by George H.W. Bush's petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.

We will address more fully on another occasion the 45-year-old error that holds the Persian Gulf is an American Lake and that energy security requires it be patrolled by the Fifth Fleet. As history proves, the real answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is high oil prices and the wonders they work to rebalance the global energy market.

But first it is well to remember that there was no plausible threat anywhere on the planet to the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield MA, Lincoln NE or Spokane WA when the cold war ended.

But rather than dismantling the NATO machinery, virtually the opposite happened. NATO has been expanded to 29 countries including such powers as Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and now the statelet of Montenegro that has a military half the size of the police force of Philadelphia.

In the context of this relentless and pointless NATO expansion to the very borders of the shrunken Russian state, Washington not only sponsored and funded the overthrow of Ukraine's constitutionally elected government in February 2014. But once it had unleashed a devastating civil war, it relentlessly blocked the obvious alternative to the bloodshed that has claimed 10,000 civilian and military casualties.

That is, it's partition of its population among the Russian speaking provinces in the Donbas and Crimea and Ukrainians in the west. After all, partition was accomplished peacefully in the artificial state of Czechoslovakia and at the insistence of NATO bombers in the short-lived nation of Yugoslavia.

Had not the Donald been stopped cold by the hail of hysteria which emanated from the War Party and their dutiful stenographers in the main stream media, the next step after his historic meeting with Putin in Helsinki would have been to take up where George H.W. Bush faltered in 1991.

That is, on the dismantlement and interment of NATO and the reopening of Europe to peaceful commerce among all the nation's that had been artificially separated by the now long departed Iron Curtain.

The fact is, Washington doesn't need its budget-busting $720 billion defense budget to defend Europe from Russia, nor should it be endlessly haranguing those nations to waste more of their own money on defense than they already are.

That's because there is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia wants to attack Germany or any other country in Europe. Indeed, the very idea is just plain madness.

As shown by the table below, the NATO-28 (excluding the US) are now actually spending $250 billion per year on defense (2017). That's 4X Russia's entire military budget of $61 billion .

Likewise, the GDP of Russia is but $1.5 trillion compared to $18 trillion for the NATO-28. So is Cool Hand Vlad so completely foolish and reckless as to think that he could invade and occupy territories that have an economy 13X bigger than that of Russia?

Actually, it's far more ludicrous than that. The rump of Russia today is a giant hydrocarbon province attached to some wheat fields, timber lands and mineral deposits – all dependent upon an aging work force afflicted with an undue fondness for Vodka etc.

What that means is that Russia must export its commodities big time or die. In fact, during 2017 Russian exports totaled $357 billion or 26% of its GDP. And 55% of that went to Europe!

Moreover, when you breakdown Russian exports it is plain to see that the industrial maw of Europe is the port of first call for its vast tonnages of exported commodities. These included $173 billion of oil and gas and $60 billion of iron, steel, aluminum, precious metals, forest products, fertilizers, grains and copper, among others.

Finally, the table on defense spending by country below speaks for itself as to the purported Russian threat. If the German government really feared that Russian tanks would be soon rolling through the Brandenburg Gates, it would have more than 20 operational tanks, and it would spend far more than $40.6 billion or 1.2% of GDP to defend itself.

And the same is even more true of the former Warsaw pact countries that are located cheek-by-jowl on Russia's border. Yet Romania spends the tiny sum of $2.8 billion or 1.2% of GDP on its military.

Likewise, the figure for Hungary, which learned all about Soviet-style invasions in 1956, spends only $1.2 billion or barely 1.0% of GDP. And besides that, its intrepid leader, Viktor Orban, doesn't even support NATO's ridiculous sanctions on Putin's cronies and allies.

And as for the allegedly threatened Baltic states, their combined defense budgets are less than $1.5 billion, representing a minuscule 1.7% of combined GDP; and Bulgaria, fast upon the Russian Lake called the Black Sea, spends only $660 million or 1.4% of its GDP.

In short, European policy action on the defense spending front trumps all the hot air that wafts from NATO's spanking new Brussels headquarters. Their governments and parliaments positively do not think they are threatened by the Russian Bear because they aren't.

What would help a lot, therefore, is for the Great Disrupter to forget about his unfortunate infatuation with the idea that bigger is always better, and do what no other American politician in thrall to the Warfare State has been unable to do since 1991 when the Soviet Union vanished.

That is, declare "mission accomplished" with respect to NATO and disband it forthwith.

You could call it a Mercy Killing. Indeed, a couple more NATO summits at which they are browbeat to waste ever more money on defense, and the Europeans themselves may well start begging for exactly that.

Then again, could you imagine how loudly the progressive left would be screaming if the Donald even entertained the thought deep beneath his bedraggled Orange Comb-Over?

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

Read more by David Stockman

[Jan 22, 2019] Neoliberal Dems circled wagons and used Russiagate to avoid the necessary changes: they are now doomed

Dems now is a party of war...
Jan 22, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

ravioliollie -> lullu616 , 15 Jan 2019 08:55

As usual, the pledge ultimately never changes, New jobs and No increase in taxes. Americans love tag lines even though our infrastructure, poor education et al is the result of fear of taxation. Both parties use the same tag line, we certainly get what we pay for.
TempsdesRoses , 15 Jan 2019 08:47
Yep,
The party has circled its wagons.
They insist that the Evil Vlad stole the last election.
Therefore, no need to examine Obama's centrist/neoliberal policies and the socio-economic conditions that fueled the rejection of Hillary.
We're doomed to repeat our errors.
The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo.

[Jan 22, 2019] Banned by Facebook for Telling the Truth by Israel Shamir

Jan 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pinche Perro , says: January 19, 2019 at 6:06 am GMT

Mr. Shamir, Facebook is a complete and total cesspool. You are too good for it! Why bother with it? I deleted my account and I haven't looked back.
israel shamir , says: January 20, 2019 at 8:01 am GMT
@Dacian Julien Soros Facebook has no (or little) original content. It does not compete with Unz.com or with CNN. It leads users to the sites where original content is published. It is meta-site.
So much is being published on so many sites that we need a community to cross-post. This is done by Facebook.
I hope now you understand that you do not waste your time here instead of Facebook. Facebook can lead you here, that's all. Or to Moon of Alabama, or to LRB or to wherever something interesting had been published. Facebook is like a map of Treasure Island, not the treasure itself.
Che Guava , says: January 20, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT
You have a good point, but why not always avoid Facebook? I have read about it since it was Harvard-only, then student-only.

That it had so much press coverage at those times, while it never had the accounts, clearly a conspiracy.

I have somewhat friends, they say 'You must go on Facebook', I say 'No, you have my telephone number and e-mail address, why are you trying to force me onto Facebook?' They are generally stupid, but then, one must tolerate the stupid to have any social life.

Back to the progation of FB. Google was quite similar, there were many search engines that were as good or better at the time, the NYT ran many articles to promote them, I was working at a U.S.-owned company at the time, it was neo-religious, 'oh, you have to use Google', it was the same kind of propaganda, earlier of course, as compulsory FB.

I never used google (the mis-spelling of googol shows what morons they are), OK, I don't want to lie, did a little early last decade (very few), other search engines are usually better.

onebornfree , says: Website January 20, 2019 at 12:47 pm GMT
This "just" in:

Facebook = CIA/NSA etc.

Alphabet/Google/YouTube = CIA/NSA etc.

Wikipedia= CIA/NSA etc.

Always were, always will be. And thats just "the tip of the iceberg".

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: January 20, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT

The mainstream media from Tokyo to Paris [yap, yap, yap ]

Stopped reading right there.

Look, the word is mass media because that's what it's for, i.e., the unthinking masses. Even an ignorant moron such as myself can understand that the media use the term to help make mindless, mass-produced, garbage appear acceptable. It's obvious that the term is supposed to suggest that "everyone" goes along with the message when it's their own compostable ideas that they're trying to introduce and promote. The interests of the "mainstream" or majority are in no way promoted, nor are they intended to be.

Anyone who's so mentally lazy as to use mass media's own legitimizing term for themselves in the way they intend has nothing to say to me. Furthermore, I don't come to UR to be exposed to the usual drivel mouthed incessantly by narcissistic, sociopathic, simple-minded, goons.

Other acceptable terms are corporate media, propaganda media, or sewage media. No one with a lick of sense views it as "mainstream" in any way. Get a clue already!

Anonymous [367] Disclaimer , says: January 20, 2019 at 1:32 pm GMT
@gmachine1729 ... ... ...

WeChat? Bad advice. End-to-server encryption means the Chinese government inspects all messages. Right now, they're crouching tiger but who knows when they're going to go all hidden dragon on us?

Use WhatsApp. It's got full end to end encryption and built in ways to verify no MITM attacks. Safe choice.

For search engines, use startpage or duckduckgo.com. If you're performing really sensitive searches, use tor browser. Only need to use yandex or baidu if the search terms themselves are sensitive (very rare).

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: January 20, 2019 at 1:48 pm GMT
I do not use Facebook . It is evident that they spy everything , you just look for a hotel in your computer and they send you hotel propaganda for weeks or months .

But , commercial purposes apart , don`t you think that a system that spies so much ends up losing the sense of reality and thus dementing itself ?

wayfarer , says: January 20, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT

There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontent. And there is no greater disaster than greed.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi

Manufactured Consent and the Homogeneity of Public Discourse

AnonFromTN , says: January 20, 2019 at 4:33 pm GMT
@jacques sheete

Other acceptable terms are corporate media, propaganda media, or sewage media

Germans have a more descriptive term: Lugenpresse (lying press).

AnonFromTN , says: January 20, 2019 at 5:03 pm GMT
@gmachine1729 Yes, as a stopgap measure one can boycott FB, Twitter, Google, and other services that practice disgusting PC. I don't use FB or Twitter, use Google only occasionally. Need to stop using it altogether and switch to Yandex and/or Baidu.

However, in the long run what needs to be built is a PC-free Internet. This would require huge investment that only governments of serious countries (like China or Russia) that are not subservient to the Empire can afford. These governments do have their own axes to grind, but at the moment they are not as disgusting as the Empire and its vassals, or Israel, for that matter.

[Jan 22, 2019] The National Security Agency Is A Criminal Organization by Paul Craig Roberts

Notable quotes:
"... As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations. ..."
"... Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him. ..."
"... Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government. ..."
Jan 17, 2019 | www.unz.com
Paul Craig Roberts

Years before Edward Snowden provided documented proof that the National Security Agency was really a national insecurity agency as it was violating law and the US Constitution and spying indiscriminately on American citizens, William Binney, who designed and developed the NSA spy program revealed the illegal and unconstitutional spying.

Binney turned whistleblower, because NSA was using the program to spy on Americans. As Binney was well known to the US Congress, he did not think he needed any NSA document to make his case. But what he found out was

"Congress would never hear me because then they'd lose plausible deniability. That was really their key. They needed to have plausible deniability so they can continue this massive spying program because it gave them power over everybody in the world.

Even the members of Congress had power against others [in Congress]; they had power on judges on the Supreme Court, the federal judges, all of them. That's why they're so afraid. Everybody's afraid because all this data that's about them, the central agencies  --  the intelligence agencies  --  they have it. And that's why Senator Schumer warned President Trump earlier, a few months ago, that he shouldn't attack the intelligence community because they've got six ways to Sunday to come at you. That's because it's like J. Edgar Hoover on super steroids. . . . it's leverage against every member of parliament and every government in the world."

To prevent whistle-blowing, NSA has "a program now called 'see something, say something' about your fellow workers. That's what the Stasi did. That's why I call [NSA] the new New Stasi Agency. They're picking up all the techniques from the Stasi and the KGB and the Gestapo and the SS. They just aren't getting violent yet that we know of  --  internally in the US, outside is another story."

As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations.

Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him.

Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government.

Binney describes the spy network, explains that it was supposed to operate only against foreign enemies, and that using it for universal spying so overloads the system with data that the system fails to discover many terrorist activities. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50932.htm

Apparently, the National Security Agency values being able to blackmail citizens and members of government at home and abroad more than preventing terrorist attacks.

Unfortunately for Americans, there are many Americans who blindly trust the government and provide the means, the misuse of which is used to enslave us. A large percentage of the work in science and technology serves not to free people but to enslave them. By now there is no excuse for scientists and engineers not to know this. Yet they persist in their construction of the means to destroy liberty.

[Jan 21, 2019] If you believe (like Arthur Berman, James Howard Kunstler, Steve Angelo and Gail Tverberg) that cheap energy is a thing of the past

Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Master Gator , says: January 19, 2019 at 12:09 am GMT

If you believe (like Arthur Berman, James Howard Kunstler, Steve Angelo and Gail Tverberg) that cheap energy is a thing of the past, Russia has much more leverage than the West. It has the oil and natural gas and we don't. The U.S. imports about 40% of its energy needs. Europe needs Russian natural gas to stay warm. Who is going to be better positioned in an energy starved future? John Michael Greer believes that the two centers of civilization hundreds of years from now will be centered in Western Russia and the Ohio River Valley.

[Jan 21, 2019] The Money Mafia,

Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Robert Snefjella says: January 20, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT 200 Words @Erebus Going from memory, in Hellyer's book The Money Mafia, his impression was that Bouey's decision was taken without real political understanding or guidance. Noteworthy was an attempt in recent years to restore that Bank of Canada fund-emission function via the court system. The attempt failed. The lawyer representing the group making the effort, Rocco Galati, indicated that the media in Canada had received pressure not to cover the story. The government of Canada at the time the court case was initiated was under Harper Conservative rule.

As to how astute Trudeau was, or how much practical influence he had when it came to national financial matters, I don't know. There was a lot of economic flux at the time involving the US dollar, oil, high inflation and gold. There was a big jump in Canadian interest rates around 1974. In any case, the emission of funds directly for productive purpose, without taxation and borrowing, is a beneficent unacknowledged elephant in the economic policy-options room.

[Jan 21, 2019] The Russian pension chickens are coming home to roost... by The Saker

Notable quotes:
"... apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society ..."
"... In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears ..."
"... After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Think about it in this way: we know from ALL the past elections that the pro-Western segment of the Russian population is somewhere around 1-3% (that is why they cannot make it into the Duma). But let's generously give that hardcore, liberal, opposition 5%, for argument's sake. So if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if 5% of Russians are hardcore pro-Western liberals, then who are the remaining 48%?

Or in this way: if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if Putin's approval rating is still somewhere in the 65% range, who are those Russians who like Putin but dislike the Medvedev government?

There is an easy cop-out argument which I´ve often offered to explain away this fact:

Levada Center is officially classified as a "foreign agent" under Russian law. This makes sense: for one thing, Levada Center receives most of its financing from abroad, including the US and even the Pentagon ! Furthermore, Levada is staffed by liberals (in the Russian meaning of the word which really means "pro-US") whose biases are also reflected in their work. However, while this is all true, Levada is still credible enough to be cited even by Russian officials. Finally, the kind of results Levada publishes are often generally similar to the finding of the official VTsIOM polling institution, not down to the percentage point, but often reflecting similar trends (check out the VTsIOM English language page here: https://wciom.com/ ). So the fact that Putin is much more popular than Medvedev or that the majority of Russian people are unhappy with the government really is not in doubt.

So regardless of the actual numbers, it is clear that the Russian government is only popular with those whom it allows to make a lot of money (corporations and various millionaires and billionaires) and that everybody else strongly dislikes it.

And yet, recently Putin was asked if he was happy with the government and his reply was " on the whole, yes ".

This type of political yoga is hard to sustain in the long term: if Putin is the champion of the interests of the common people, and if most common people feel that the government cares more for millionaires and billionaires, then how can the President say that he is "on the whole happy" with the government?

It is truly a crying shame that the basics of Marxism-Leninism is not taught in schools and colleges any more (even some self-described "Communists" are clearly clueless about what Marx, Lenin or even Hegel taught!). Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the solutions offered by Marxism. For example, in the West at least, very few people are aware of this very simple Marxist-Leninist definition of what a state, any state, really is. According to Lenin, the state is simply an " apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society ". Specifically Lenin wrote:

In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears (Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69).

From a Marxist point of view, any state is always and by definition the dictatorship of the ruling class, which is a good thing, at least according to the Marxists, when this ruling class is the workers and people, and a very bad thing when the ruling class is the plutocracy.

ORDER IT NOW

In the post-modern West, where political discourse has been reduced to a particularly nauseating form of intellectual flatulence, the very notion of "class" and "class warfare" has been fully replaced with vapid (pseudo-) identity politics which completely obfuscate all the real issues and problems our world is dealing with. Thus, by removing the concepts and categories needed to understand the nature of the struggle which is taking place internationally, but also inside each of the countries currently living under the AngloZionist yoke, the leaders of the Empire have deprived the people they rule over from the means to understand why and how they are oppressed. All that nonsense about "gay" rights, gun control, #meetoo, the many sex scandals, the struggle for racial identity (White or Black or any other), abortion, drugs and all the rest of the crap we are fed on a daily basis by the AngloZionist propaganda machine are primarily a distraction to keep the eyes of the general population from the real issues. In a way, this zombification and re-direction to fake topics serves exactly the same function as the red cape of the bullfighter: to keep the bull busy with trying to gore a harmless red piece of cloth while completely missing the real cause of his suffering and eventual death.

From that point of view, the Russian people are much better informed and have a much better understanding of what is going on. For example, while in the West the people define "democracy" as "people power" (or something similar), in Russia the joke is that "democracy is the power of the democrats" which, in Russia, is a general codeword/euphemism for "pro-US wealthy liberal" who want to turn Russia into some kind of "bigger Poland" or something equally uninspiring.

Various pro-Western "intellectuals" like to say that this is an old Russian pathology: to say that the Czar (President) is very good, but his court (the Ministers) are bad and that this makes absolutely no sense. These are the folks who go as far as denying the existence of a struggle between what I call Eurasian Sovereignists (roughly Putin supporters) and Atlantic Integrationists (roughly Medvedev and the "economic block" of this government).

The folks who deny this remind me of something Berthold Brecht once wrote after the 1953 uprising in Berlin in a short poem entitled "The Solution": (emphasis added)

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

This deep alienation from the Russian masses, this notion that the Russian people have, yet again, failed to heed the "wise words" of the "progressive intelligentsia" and other (mainly financial) "elites" has plagued the Russian ruling classes since Peter I and is still at the very core of their worldview. Believe you me, the Russian "liberals" and the folks in the West who deny that there is any 5th column in Russia are psychologically and politically joined at the hip: neither one of them can accept this. Furthermore, both the Russian "liberals" and the western believers in the values of "democracy" and "free market capitalism" share exactly the same worldview: they want the Russian people to become "Europeans" not in a geographical sense, of course (geographically speaking most Russian live in the European part of Russia), but culturally! This is what the Popes wanted, this is what the French Freemasons wanted, this is what the Nazis wanted, and this is what the AngloZionists want. That dream to turn Russians into Europeans while totally cleansing them from any "Russian-ness" is what united *all* the invaders of Russia over the centuries.

But the "stubborn" Russian people just don't seem to "get it" and, for some totally mysterious reason, they always resist all these "benevolent" western attempts at "civilizing" them.

This is exactly what we see today: Putin and his Eurasian Sovereignists try as hard as they can to *sovereignize* Russia; in other words, they want to make Russia *truly* Russian again. Sounds basic, but that is categorically unacceptable to the Russian plutocrats and to their supporters in the West. Thus any kind of defense of the Russian-ness of Russia is immediately and contemptuously dismissed as "national leftism", "nationalism" or, God forbid!, "monarchism". And when the person trying to make the argument that Russia ought to be Russian uses Marxist concepts or categories, these arguments are also dismissed out of hand as an "outdated rhetoric of a system which has failed and discredited itself". What they fail to realize is to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due primarily/solely to the Marxist or Communist ideology is just as stupid as blaming the current collapse of democracy in the US on the writings of the Founding Fathers rather than on the SOB politicians who are destroying this country day after day after day. Tell me: when the US finally bites the dust, will you simply declare that "democracy is dead" and that the "collapse of the US proved that democracy is not a viable regime"? So yes, the Soviet Union did indeed collapse, broken into 15 pieces by its own ruling elite (the Nomenklatura ), but the ideas contained in the Marxist-Leninist ideology have not only not been "defeated" – they have not even been challenged (more on this issue here ).

But, thank God! most Russians are still not willing to be incorporated into the "European cultural Borg collective ", at least not in the cultural sense. And in spite of 300 years of oppression by various pro-western regimes (with various degrees of russophobia, not all were equally bad), the Russian people still want to remain Russian, not just by speaking a language, but by having a ruler and a regime in power which they feel defends their interests and not the interests of the ruling class. They want to live in their own civilizational realm, and not the kind of post-Christian intellectual desert the West has become.

Many decades of rabid russophobia by the rulers of the AngloZionist Empire have convinced the Russian people that they have no friends in the European or North American ruling elites and that true freedom comes through liberation, not submission. That, and the appalling example of the consequences of the "Euromaidan" in the Ukraine.

At the end of the day, it is not about GDP or the availability of cheap consumer goods. At the end of the day, it all depends on real, moral, ethical, spiritual and civilizational values . This was true 1000 years ago and this is still true today. At least in Russia.

It is very important to keep a close eye on this trend: the appearance of slowly but surely growing (truly) patriotic opposition (as opposed to the CIA-paid clowns in the Russian liberal camp). As for the "official" opposition (LDPR, KPRF and the Just Russia), they might decide to grow a few teeth, initially small, baby teeth only, but if this trend accelerates, they might decide to look a tad more credible. Until now the rather lame and ridiculous LDPR & KPRF parties are just a collective form of court jesters with no real opposition potential. Just look at how the KPRF, thoroughly discredited by their crazy choice of the millionaire Grudinin for candidate, jumped onto the pension reform PR-disaster to suddenly try to launch a referendum. This would never have happened in the past.

The political landscape in Russia is becoming more complicated, which is both good and bad. It is bad because Putin's personal political credit suffers, however modestly for now, from his continuous inability to purge the Kremlin from the 5th columnists , but it is also good because if things get bad enough Putin will have no choice but to (finally!) get rid of at least the most notorious 5th columnists. But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the Russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a "social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.

You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics.

The future of Russia, and much of the world, will depend on the outcome of this battle.

UPDATE : well, just as I was mentioning that the fact that Levada Center and VTsIOM mostly agree, at least on trends, the Russian media is now reporting that the latter now also is reporting a drop in the popularity of Putin. And just to make things worse, the Russian authorities have deported an (in-)famous anti-Nazi Ukrainian journalist, Elena Boiko, to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine in spite of the fact that Boiko had requested political asylum in Russia. Now, Boiko is a very controversial person for sure (and, personally, not *at all* my cup of tea), but the sole fact that Russia would deport ANY anti-Nazi activist to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine is disgusting and revolting. And, sure enough, the bovine-excreta is already hitting the proverbial fan as now members of the Duma, journalists and various personalities are demanding explanations for this absolutely stupid and deeply immoral act. Sadly, can only agree with Nikolai Starikov who speaks of a "liberal revanche" following the "Russian Spring" of 2014. If this kind of nonsense continues we will see a further deterioration of Putin's personal rating along with a gradual degradation of the Russian political environment.


Andrei Martyanov , says: Website January 18, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMT

Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the solutions offered by Marxism.

The phrase of the year, so far. Superb.

Annatar , says: January 20, 2019 at 11:24 am GMT
I don't see what issue the Russian people have with the current administration, the main economic indicator that impacts most people directly is real wage growth, and it is not as if wages have been stagnant, real wages grew by 7.4% in the first 11 months of 2018, no reason to believe December data will be any different, if 7% real wage growth isn't enough for people, then nothing will be. Real wage growth was slow in 2017 at 2.9% but it has accelerated significantly since then.
jilles dykstra , says: January 20, 2019 at 2:37 pm GMT

Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a "social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.

For the inhabitants of the EU member states mutatis mutandis :
Do they really want to live in a society ran by multinationals and globalists, (with all the russophobic politics, and the destruction of European cultures, such a choice implies), or do they want a "social-democratic society", meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above profits and dictatorial rule ?

anon [244] Disclaimer , says: January 20, 2019 at 3:27 pm GMT
@Felix Keverich The foundation of the capitalism is based on exploitation at home and abroad . The foundational base is the 3 rd world . Capitalism including those based on 17- 20 th century's colonization would have not succeeded the way it has . We intentionally forget that the western capitalism is much more destructive than the soviet marxism . Soviet marxism failed because it did not colonize the rest of the world and make them pay for its survival the way Capitalism did.

No one talks of the vile corrupt despicable poor situation of Congo Niger Nigeria or Gabon . They are capitalist friendly crony dictatorial countries whose existences without any media reported daily grinding poverty and violences are possible due to the western support and media silence . They are not socialist they are not capitalist . They are support countries . They maintain support and enrich western capitalism . They ( king cronies dictator and limited choice based elected leaders ) in turn get western protection support and help . The media ( western ) don't refer to them , don't remind of them , and don't bother about the plight of the citizen . Their disenfranchised citizen support the western capitalism like the slaves propped up the culturally savvy educated well dressed well fed elites of Greece and Rome.

When those illegal manipulated created support system are gone, west 's capitalism as we know for 400 hundred years will be gone . Reason of the disconnect we see in the west is because the system is failing at the margins at the borderlands, at the periphery of the control ,whose victims are the middle class . The margin will move to the centers slowly and the elites will start killing each other and fighting each other . Capitalism can't feed and can't enrich and can't hold the promise as it used to before . Because the major victims of the 400 yrs capitalism have become also successful capitalist themselves . It is like the 19 th European dynasties are challenging each other over the territories . It is like Pope being threatened by new ideologies from the fringes . Pie is shrinking . Capitalism's success has so far been left externalities un -addressed . Externalities are in the ruins of the 3rd world .

follyofwar , says: January 20, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
@Felix Keverich I wonder if any other commenters are as dumb as I am. I didn't know that Putin wasn't in charge of pretty much everything in Russia. Saker says that Medvedev, as Prime Minister, actually runs domestic policy, while Putin, as President, runs foreign policy. It seems that these two have been taking turns being either President or PM for a few decades now.

With these two constantly at odds, it would be like our President and VP being of different parties, except that our VP has no power (unless it's Dick Cheney). But I do think that our President, elected to an office designed for the 18th Century, has far too much on his plate for any one person. A country the size of the US should have both a President and PM, but I'd like to see them run as a slate, not in opposition to each other.

[Jan 21, 2019] Control of money and control of information are two keys to the making other states vassals. The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that control system.political power

Jan 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

Robert Snefjella , says: January 18, 2019 at 4:57 pm GMT

The MSM and its allies in the controlled alternative media, and the global private-interest financial, investment and banking system, are a tag-team, indispensable to each other. Control of money and control of information. The first narrowly concentrates wealth and thus power and influence. The second through agenda-driven selection, lies, censorship, spin, misdirection and so on – disinformation – controls people's sense of what is real and possible, thus dis-empowering them.

The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that control system.

The combined effort of narrowly controlled and narrowly advantaging globe straddling finance, media, and muscle has facilitated the development of a near global Empire. In common with traditional Empires this new Empire had totalitarian ambitions: but since its reach was global, this is really a first attempt at global totalitarian control.

Russia under Putin – leaving aside China – has developed enough strength to attempt alternative modes of communication and finance and development, not as adjuncts or subordinates to the Empire's efforts in those regards. And their military is antidote and opposition to the totalitarian project.

The forgoing is pretty obvious stuff, but I think that the Saker's concluding paragraph provides a limiting summary of how the issue can play out.

"But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a
western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption
of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.

You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics."

This is a simplistic way of looking at the choices available. We are all caught up in transitional culture processes, no matter where we live. The conjunction of the cornucopia of new technology and unprecedented environmental and social challenges is everywhere at play, leading who knows where?

What the Russian people have been given, and this is near singular on Earth, is a protected and enhanced opportunity of developing a culture in which honest national discourse is a predominant feature. This is in complete contrast to the predominant 'fake news' system of discourse control that is in place in so many countries. And full and honest discourse will create its own original cultural developments.

The Russian adoption of more honest discourse is already having global influence. An example is Russia Today, which far from perfect and all that, still provides an enormous advance over the extremely controlled western mass media, and a powerful foe to 'fake news'.

Perhaps the most visible exemplar of rationale discourse has been Putin himself, with for example his marathon annual Q and A with the Russian people, or his articulate well considered sallies on many issues

And with that – if Russia can use unfettered reason writ large as a prime ingredient of cultural and political development, as a basic developmental 'steering tool' – then the simple dichotomy of "western-style capitalist society" vs "a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits" , as much as I'm sympathetic to the latter, seems to me to be a limiting way of expressing the range of potential beneficent possibilities.

[Jan 21, 2019] NATO is a Danger, Not a Guarantor of Peace

Notable quotes:
"... "Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"? ..."
"... I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake. ..."
"... European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one or other Western power de jour. ..."
"... Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and Germans are still down. ..."
"... Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are invested in empire instead of America's citizenry. ..."
"... Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what the adults told him. ..."
"... "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot." ..."
Jan 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The New York Times scored a serious scoop when it revealed on Monday that President Trump had questioned in governmental conversations -- on more than one occasion, apparently -- America's membership in NATO. Unfortunately the paper then slipped into its typical mode of nostrum journalism. My Webster's New World Dictionary defines "nostrum" as "quack medicine" entailing "exaggerated claims." Here we had quack journalism executed in behalf of quack diplomacy.

The central exaggerated claim is contained in the first sentence, in which it is averred that NATO had "deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." This is wrong, as can be seen through just a spare amount of history.

True, NATO saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism. But it did so not over 70 years but over 40 years -- from 1949 to 1989. That's when the Soviet Union had 1.3 million Soviet and client-state troops poised on Western Europe's doorstep, positioned for an invasion of Europe through the lowlands of Germany's Fulda Gap.

How was this possible? It was possible because Joseph Stalin had pushed his armies farther and farther into the West as the German Wehrmacht collapsed at the end of World War II. In doing so, and in the process capturing nearly all of Eastern Europe, he ensured that the Soviets had no Western enemies within a thousand miles of Leningrad or within 1,200 miles of Moscow. This vast territory represented not only security for the Russian motherland (which enjoys no natural geographical barriers to deter invasion from the West) but also a potent staging area for an invasion of Western Europe.

The first deterrent against such an invasion, which Stalin would have promulgated had he thought he could get away with it, was America's nuclear monopoly. By the time that was lost, NATO had emerged as a powerful and very necessary deterrent. The Soviets, concluding that the cost of an invasion was too high, defaulted to a strategy of undermining Western interests anywhere around the world where that was possible. The result was global tensions stirred up at various global trouble spots, most notably Korea and Vietnam.

But Europe was saved, and NATO was the key. It deserves our respect and even reverence for its profound success as a military alliance during a time of serious threat to the West.

But then the threat went away. Gone were the 1.3 million Soviet and client-state troops. Gone was Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Indeed, gone, by 1991, was the Soviet Union itself, an artificial regime of brutal ideology superimposed upon the cultural entity of Mother Russia. It was a time for celebration.

But it was also a time to contemplate the precise nature of the change that had washed over the world and to ponder what that might mean for old institutions -- including NATO, a defensive military alliance created to deter aggression from a menacing enemy to the east. Here's where Western thinking went awry. Rather than accepting as a great benefit the favorable developments enhancing Western security -- the Soviet military retreat, the territorial reversal, the Soviet demise -- the West turned NATO into a territorial aggressor of its own, absorbing nations that had been part of the Soviet sphere of control and pushing right up to the Russian border. Now Leningrad (renamed St. Petersburg after the obliteration of the menace of Soviet communism) resides within a hundred miles of NATO military forces, while Moscow is merely 200 miles from Western troops.

Russia Sure Behaves Strangely for a Country Bent on Conquest NATO Welcomes Another Military Midget

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has absorbed 13 nations, some on the Russian border, others bordering lands that had been part of Russia's sphere of interest for centuries. This constitutes a policy of encirclement, which no nation can accept without protest or pushback. And if NATO were to absorb those lands of traditional Russian influence -- particularly Ukraine and Georgia -- that would constitute a major threat to Russian security, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to emphasize to Western leaders for years.

So, no, NATO has not deterred Russian aggression for 70 years. It did so for 40 and has maintained a destabilizing posture toward Russia ever since. The problem here is the West's inability to perceive how changed geopolitical circumstances might require a changed geopolitical strategy. The encirclement strategy has had plenty of critics -- George Kennan before he died; academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Robert David English; former diplomat Jack Matlock; the editors of The Nation . But their voices have tended to get drowned out by the nostrum diplomacy and the nostrum journalism that supports it at every turn.

You can't drown out Donald Trump because he's president of the United States. And so he has to be traduced, ridiculed, dismissed, and marginalized. That's what the Times story, by Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper, sought to do. Consider the lead, designed to emphasize just how outlandish Trump's musings are before the reader even has a chance to absorb what he may have been thinking: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot."

Henry Kissinger had something interesting to say about Trump in a recent interview with the Financial Times . "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history," said the former secretary of state, "who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses." One Western pretense about Russia, so ardently enforced by the likes of Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper (who, it may be safe to say, know less about world affairs and their history than Henry Kissinger), is that nothing really changed with the Soviet collapse and NATO had to turn aggressive in order to keep that menacing nation in its place.

Trump clearly doesn't buy that pretense. He said during the campaign that NATO was obsolete. Then he backtracked, saying he only wanted other NATO members to pay their fair share of the cost of deterrence. He even confessed, after Hillary Clinton identified NATO as "the strongest military alliance in the history of the world," that he only said NATO was obsolete because he didn't know much about it. But he was learning -- enough, it appears, to support as president Montenegro's entry into NATO in 2017. Is Montenegro, with 5,332 square miles and some 620,000 citizens, really a crucial element in Europe's desperate project to protect itself against Putin's Russia?

We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge the country in necessary new directions.

But Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the status quo defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century.



Stephen J. January 17, 2019 at 10:18 pm

The writer states: "NATO, in its current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it." Well said.
-- -- -- --
But it is more diabolical than that, there is reported evidence that NATO and its allies have been funding, training and arming terrorists.
See links below for reported evidence of this treachery. https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-diabolical-work-of-nato-and-its.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-nato-rious-member-war-machine-that.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-war-criminals-new-billion-dollar.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-numerous-affiliated-terrorists.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2015/12/is-nato-gang-of-turkeys.html http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-war-gangs-and-war-criminals-of-nato.html

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Based on the evidence in links above I ask:

"Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html

Emil Bogdan , , January 17, 2019 at 10:22 pm
We recently heard Trump get real mad at the Germans because their energy policy is strengthening Russia, meanwhile, we're protecting them from Russia, so like what the hell, Germany, make up your mind but you know that we're just venting, we're with you no matter what, Germany, and NATO is sacrosanct, you know the status quo, and Trump is very often a status quo kinda guy, which is why when the newly liberated Poles and Czechs and Hungarians and Baltics insisted on NATO protection, there is no way Trump would have refused to expand the alliance, no chance whatsoever that he would have listened to Kennan -- Kennan who?

Kennan was a smart man, but he didn't get everything right all the time, for example, be didn't think the Germans were made for democracy, in fact he had serious doubts about American democracy as well.

Personally, I supported the NATO expansion, and even in hindsight I'm not so sure it was the wrong move. It's easy to talk loudly when you don't have to weigh deeply competing interests and make the hard calls. Plenty of smart people were also convinced after '89 that a re-unified Germany would spell grave misfortune, but a decision had to be made, and we'll never really know where the road not taken would have led. Truly, are we so sure that leaving 100 million Eastern Europeans as a buffer zone would have been the absolute and unambiguous best choice?

But to reiterate, knowing his abiding love for their women, my bet on Trump gladly and effusively welcoming them is a safe one.

Cornel C Lencar , , January 18, 2019 at 12:17 am
I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake.

And then NATO came to life in 1949, and then the other shenanigans that the U.S. did that convinced the Soviets that the time started ticking against them. So they managed to pull together the Warsaw Pact in 1955. And then they always tried to catch up with having enough to deter a nuclear attack from US.

European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one or other Western power de jour.

Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and Germans are still down.

Russians, for a long time looked up to and got inspiration from Europe and wanted to enjoy it. Why to debase it with their boots?

An instructive book is Brendan Simms' "Europe -- The Struggle for Supremacy". Provides quite a perspective

sb , , January 18, 2019 at 1:12 am
Well written Robert! We in the West don't even think much about extant structures like NATO, but they have raised the tension needlessly with Russia, at a time we need to build friendship.

Trump should chat to Putin about bringing Russia into NATO -- that would set the cat among the pigeons!

We will need all the Euro-Christian nations to unite and defend against Islamic invasion soon, as 23% of world are Muslim, and they follow a global domination death cult in the Koran. Even China may have to swing on board (not in NATO, but as allies like in WW2).

Of course, Russia would need to improve its democratic practices, and it would take time to ease suspicions, but with fast falling fertility & birth rates in all Western nations, and fast rising 3rd world births and forcible migration into the West, a united Europe & West will be vital

Is anyone discussing such Russia-Nato alliance?

Fran Macadam , , January 18, 2019 at 2:39 am
Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are invested in empire instead of America's citizenry.
JK , , January 18, 2019 at 5:42 am
Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what the adults told him.
Tony , , January 18, 2019 at 7:31 am
This is a very good article about why we should now take a very critical look at the question of NATO.

However, I do not see any evidence that the Soviet Union, so devastated by war, ever planned an invasion of Western Europe and this article has not supplied any.

For an alternative view of the Cold War, I would recommend Andrew Alexander's book: America and the Imperialism of Ignorance: US Foreign Policy since 1945. https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/america-and-the-imperialism-of-ignorance

The writer was a former conservative journalist and one-time Conservative Party election candidate in England.

Mark VA , , January 18, 2019 at 7:35 am
AP European History Class, Classwork, Date: 1/18/19

There are two things I have learned from reading this article:

First, there is Europe, which from geography we know is a continent called Europe, and then there in Eastern Europe, which may or may not be a continent, but it seems it is somewhere in the East. Also, Western Europe is mentioned, but its precise location is not given. Thinking critically, I think it's in the West;

The second thing I learned is that Russia needs a permanent radius of 1200 miles centered on Moscow, to feel safe and secure within its western borders;

Conclusions and critical thinking thoughts:

Russia is right to defend itself. It is surrounded by enemies of peace, so this need for buffer areas is justified. In my opinion, that's because for centuries Russia suffered invasion after invasion, so it's justified. Also, because Peter the Terrible built Leningrad, which freezes in winter;

Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.

Michael Kenny , , January 18, 2019 at 7:40 am
Clearly, the US should not have excluded the Russian Federation from NATO but that is now purely academic. That exclusion spawned Putin just as the harshness of the Versailles Treaty spawned Hitler. However, having spawned the monster, the US has litle choice but to destroy him and the only effect of abandoning NATO would be to encourage him to continue to grab other ountries' territory until, one day, he will go too far and will have to be fought with military force. The same argument Mr Merry is making was also made about Hitler in the 1930s:"Not our problem. Anyway, he's only taking back what is rightfully his". It didn't work then and I don't see why it would work now.
SteveM , , January 18, 2019 at 8:00 am
This is a an excellent essay by Robert Merry. Congrats.

Re: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot."

That Russia wants NATO gone is true. But for economic, not military reasons. NATO is the front that the U.S. Global Cop Gorilla uses to pressure Europe in all dimensions, military and economic. Washington demonizes Russia, even equates Russia with the Soviet Union to maintain the basis for its ham-fisted interference in every issue of importance to the Europeans.

Russia's objectives are economic, not territorial. It wants to set up a pan-Eurasian economic architecture that includes Europe as a primary trading partner. The U.S. via NATO will do anything and everything to subvert that benign economic activity, e.g., Nord Stream 2. Because the Gorilla insists on absolutely controlling everything that it touches.

American Elites have lived parasitically large for decades under the existing model. America as a "force for good" is their sole argument for sustaining the foreign policy pathologies regardless of the record of wreckage and waste.

Unfortunately, with a War Machine that is worshiped, a compliant cronied-up corporate culture, sycophantic MSM and seduced population, at this points it's wiser to bet on the Elites. I.e. the Gorilla fronted by the NATO it controls, will be sticking its fat, greasy thumb in European affairs for years to come. And the American taxpayer will again be forced to pay the bills for Elite arrogance and stupidity.

peter mcloughlin , , January 18, 2019 at 8:32 am
'America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace', is true. We live in extremely dangerous times and the signs are ominous. It's correct that Russia had a huge buffer zone after it pushed west at the end of ww2, for which NATO was justifiable to counter this. But now Russia sees itself encircled, threatened, with the choice of either rebounding or imploding; no state chooses that latter.
The present crisis is worse than the Cold War because the Cold War was the peace. Today it is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent the scenarios where Mutual Assured Destruction will be resorted to. We will soon face the scenario where (unlike the Cuban missile crisis or Euro missile crisis) one protagonist will not be able to step back from the brink, blindly stumbling into a situation they cannot de-escalate. All that is left is Deterrence's fall-back position -- annihilation.
The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. They all ended: followed by war. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world war.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Matt W , , January 18, 2019 at 8:50 am
The GLORIOUS LEADER is always right! His big brain and best words must never be questioned. Any criticism is TREASON.

Or am I being too unkind? Is this satire? It's so hard to tell nowadays

Dan Green , , January 18, 2019 at 9:24 am
Wasn't post WW 2 perceived logic, you cannot allow the Germans to ever rearm, and the Russians need be isolated. So give them half the spoils, to keep them happy, and occupy Germany. Well here we are, spending billions to have a European military presence, while Putin looks on in wonderment, at our Government and the Brits. We concentrate on impeachment , and the Brits chose to ignore 51.9 percent of their population, wanting out of Germany controlled so called EU, administered by Brussels puppets. If we got out of Nato , which is all about the US military capabilities, would Russia invade western Europe? Bottom line is that wouldn't be practical. Russia prefers to have eastern Europe willingly join Russia in a re-constructed Soviet Union.
Kurt Gayle , , January 18, 2019 at 9:33 am
Henry Kissinger: "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses."

Robert Merry: "Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the status quo defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it."

Thank you, Mr. Merry. You're a historian, I know -- and that gives you many advantages -- but why do you think so few among the Elite Classes understand that even a man whose favorite meal is two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted "may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses" -- a man who "almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers"?

Johann , , January 18, 2019 at 9:34 am
It was more nuclear weapons than NATO that deterred the Soviet Union.
Sid , , January 18, 2019 at 9:43 am
An opportunity to move beyond NATO was missed in 2001. Putin had been president for a year and a half. Russia was even weaker than it is today. Pointing out that the Soviet Union was gone and NATO had won the Cold War, Putin had a few suggestions: NATO could disband; Russia could join NATO; or a new European defense league could be formed to include Russia. The response to such feelers? Aggressive NATO expansion.
Mark Thomason , , January 18, 2019 at 1:06 pm
As laid out in detail in contemporary books, NATO did not ever have the conventional military force to stop a conventional attack by the Soviets.

If NATO is seen as a military force that could stop the Soviets, that is just wrong. It never was. It must not have been meant to be either, since the balance of forces was obvious and nothing was done to change that.

Nuclear deterrent could have been done with a lot less conventional force, and was for awhile.

So what was it really all about? Likely it was US dominance of military force on the Continent, to such an extent that they could not imagine fighting each other. That provided peace from the 400 years of European civil wars. We now take that for granted, or credit it to "the Soviet threat" but it was far more complex than that.

Collin , , January 18, 2019 at 1:26 pm
As much as I am sympathetic to Trump's views of NATO, I would say this:

1) I wish Trump simply pulled out of EU with military. It seems like a lot of small changes could be made without Trump throwing another temper tantrum.

2) I am fine with keeping the nations the same and not expanding in order to avoid Russia being threatened.

3) The best part of NATA the last 30 years is peace within Europe. When was the last time Spain, Italy, France, England, and Germany did not have a major war in over 70 years? And look at Eastern Europe the last 18 years, in which it has been historically peaceful.

John S , , January 18, 2019 at 1:30 pm
As the evidence mounts that Trump is nothing but a stooge for Russian intelligence, this old idea that NATO is the problem is less and less credible.
Fayez Abedaziz , , January 18, 2019 at 1:32 pm
This read is actually composed of actual history and common sense.
President Eisenhower, as well as Kennedy and Johnson kept diplomacy and civility, in relations with Russia.
Even with the Berlin so-called crises in the early 60's, the Bay of Pigs and so on, these leaders were calm, using diplomacy.
Isn't that what diplomacy is for?
Now, we have very narrow minded and crude people advising Trump. To think, Bolton and Kushner are the face of a great country as the USA to the world?
What a dangerous and insulting situation we have,because of these two, insulting to the American people. Pompeo is also an extremist and so they bring America down to the level of a bully and war loving nation. They sure as hell don't care about US troops and civilians in other nations suffering, dying. And, the leaders of NATO have been talking nonsense.Russia attacking W Europe? Why? That's bull.
NATO and the US state department are run by nuts.
georgina davenport , , January 18, 2019 at 2:48 pm
There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist system? No, we fix the problematic parts. Likewise with NATO.

Given the aggression from Putin in invading Ukraine, and in interfering with the elections of not just United States but also other European countries, NATO is needed more than ever to deter Putin from increased aggression.

NATO however can be strategic and not provoke Putin by expanding NATO right next to Russia's border. This author is as short sighted and foolish as Trump.

Jeeves , , January 18, 2019 at 3:18 pm
@ Mark VA
Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.

Hilarious. You've earned and "A" in Mr. Merry's geography class.

Lee Green , , January 18, 2019 at 3:23 pm
An interesting thesis, and well argued I think, except for the part about Trump's motives. It's more likely that he favors easing off on the Russians because Putin has something on him; specifically, that he's indebted to the Russian mob. I think the main thesis of this article is likely valid, and questioning NATO is overdue. Trump is probably doing it for corrupt and possibly treasonous reasons, so what does one make of the right thing being done for the wrong reasons? Trump may be one of those figures who appears at a time of transition in thinking, and provokes important thinking. That doesn't imply that the man himself has any kind of coherent strategy or understanding of what he's doing. He's an opportunist, a con man, not a statesman or strategist, but he still may break some things that need to be broken, even if for the wrong reasons or no clear reason at all. None of what's happening fits into any kind of good-vs-evil or wise leadership narrative.
Whine Merchant , , January 18, 2019 at 3:52 pm
A cogent debate on this topic would be useful, at least for academic purposes [if only the few people in the current administration capable of such a carefully reasoned examination did not keep getting forced out]. The Deplorables like the "gut feel" of it, but would never countenance the shrinking of the military budget.

Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of dark-skinned people?

One Guy , , January 18, 2019 at 4:31 pm
What's really ironic is that, even if the author is absolutely correct, Trump will have done more to strengthen US involvement in NATO than any recent president. Once Trump is relegated to the ash-heap of history, suffering the scorn of millions, if not actually in prison, his ideas will become toxic-no subsequent president will touch them.

If Trump had been a thoughtful, well-spoken leader, perhaps we could have withdrawn from NATO. But he will be a laughingstock, generating endless jokes about hamberders, raking the forest, his ties made in China, rather than made in America, and tunnels under walls.

Cratylus , , January 18, 2019 at 4:59 pm
Merry writes a clear case against NATO and its Drang nach Osten but one that has been patently obvious for a long time now.

But then as he gets to the end he writes in what is a total non-sequitur:
"We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge the country in necessary new directions."

Trump Derangement Syndrome strikes again! Note that Merry dislikes Trump for his style -- you can almost hear in it the snotty putdowns of Trump and Deplorables from the refined and brutal hawk, Hillary, or the contempt of a Marie Antoinette for the rabble who would soon cart her off to face the guillotine.

The upper professional classes cannot stomach the nouveau riche Trump -- and that is true whether they are Right or Left. The original NYT dislike for Trump in the early days of his candidacy came of its judgement that he was "vulgar" and "boorish." So Merry completes his piece by unwittingly put himself in the same crowd he seeks to discredit at the beginning.
TDS is catnip for the Respectables.

Mark Krvavica , , January 18, 2019 at 7:12 pm
With respect to NATO, that Cold War relic should have ceased operations some years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Sadly the West had other ideas and now we're threatening Russia in the 21st Century, ironically some of the cheerleaders against Moscow are the political descendants of NATO opponents during its heyday.
Tom S. , , January 18, 2019 at 9:06 pm
For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that would seem obvious except to the author.
VikingLS , , January 19, 2019 at 8:29 am
@Whine Merchent

Why are you trying to make this about Donald Trump?

EliteCommInc. , , January 19, 2019 at 8:37 am
"I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe."

I think this is accurate. That press is probably an overstatement. Not only is it doubtful they had that desire, it is doubtful that even then they could have accomplished that task. Based on what we now know, by the the 1960's the Soviet Union and it's "empire" was in trouble.

"There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist system?"

There are valid reasons to suspect that capitalism is gone or at least under tremendous pressure by merchantil behavior.
-- -- -- -- --

For some reasons that make a little sense and plenty more that are incomprehensible to me -- this president chose not to embrace the mantle of transformational change. Sec. Kissinger's observation is correct. But ultimately, this president has chosen to be that transformative force those of us that voted for him so desired. Breaking the social communicative norms of "political correct speech" is the least of the substantive behaviors I was hoping to see occur.

I fully expected that he would press NATO for either a less substantial US presence or a they pay a larger share of the expense.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of dark-skinned people?"

Referring to this president as a Lord/PM Churchill or PM Chamberlain in light the conditions in which the both operated makes no sense. As I understand it, PM Churchill's choices was to stand in the face of extreme criticism. His choice made, there he stood. He believed in his being he had a destiny and he seized it as a bull dog might sieze it's prey. He by sheer will and force -- regardless of the odds. He actually served . . . in battle and it appears was as brazen and certain as consistent to his character throughout.

PM Chamberlain actually embraced the popular will of the people when he chose a peaceful, understanding that GB was neither in the mood or a condition to go to war.

Our current president, has neither stood consistently, has any deep certainty of his place nor marshaled the will of the people to advance policy on any grand scale. The comparison's made have been false comparisons about what this president could be or might have been, but refuses to fully embrace save as facades of leadership, despite have been given a clear mandate.

-- -- --

And that has been unfortunate for the country.

Kurt Gayle , , January 19, 2019 at 10:54 am
"Tucker Carlson: You're not allowed to question NATO" Tucker Carlson Tonight, Jan 15, 2019:

(3:20) "They consider asking difficult questions a criminal act. Just this morning, Preet Bharara, the most famous former federal prosecutor in America, explained this on Twitter. Quote: 'If true, Trump should immediately and publicly state his apparent wish to withdraw from NATO so he can be promptly impeached, convicted, and removed from office'." Unquote. In other words, talking about leaving NATO isn't simply unwise. It's an impeachable offense. Lots of famous and powerful people in Washington think this. Watch:

"SOT: JAMES CLAPPER: Withdrawing from NATO -- even discussing withdrawing from NATO -- would be disastrous for the security of the United States.

"REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D), CALIFORNIA: I think that act would be so destructive to our country (edit) it would be a ground for some profound effort by our part, whether it's impeachment or the 25th Amendment. He can't do that to this country. And I don't believe that he can do it without Senate ratification."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UScRHLH0mu0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Kurt Gayle , , January 19, 2019 at 11:06 am
I understand that TAC's editors might not have wanted to run two fine NATO essays head-to-head on the same day, but this is Pat Buchanan's regular Friday TAC column:

"At Age 70, Time to Rethink NATO" by Pat Buchanan, Jan 18, 2019

https://buchanan.org/blog/at-age-70-time-to-rethink-nato-135716

Stephen Reynolds , , January 19, 2019 at 1:23 pm
'Trump saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism.'

So we are working with a definition of Europe that does not include former Yugoslavia, former Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, or the Baltic countries. Well, Russia is geographically vulnerable, so it needs to ride roughshod over all its neighbors to establish a defensive perimeter. So let us all understand what Russia feels it needs, and dismiss what, say, Poland feels it needs. Then we can characterize the eagerness of former satellites and Soviet 'republics' to join as 'NATO expansion'. And we can ignore Russian manipulation of Abkhazia and of its exclaves in Moldova and Ukraine to violate the territorial integrity of former 'Union Republics', and the threats of invasion and nuclear devastation uttered against various neighbors.

NATO handled the applications of countries in the area with due reserve until recent years, when needless loose talk about prospective membership of Ukraine and Georgia predictably caused upset in the Kremlin. But considering occupation of parts of the supposed territories of both, can you at least understand why a lot of Ukrainians and Georgians might want to join NATO? And can you stop talking as though accession to NATO on the part of Visegrad and Baltic countries was driven by some megalomaniacal obsession to expand on the part of NATO?

Chris Atwood , , January 19, 2019 at 2:24 pm
Like most Trump-leaning conservative opinion on NATO, this leaves out a key part of the picture: the EU. Because Robert Merry, like most Trump-leaning conservatives dislikes both NATO and the EU, and would like to see both dissolve.

But realistically, US leaving NATO and the EU breaking up or weakening together would leave a massive vacuum of power which would lead to either Russian domination (likely in the short run), or (more likely in the long run), a return to Anglo-Franco-German great power rivalry -- and we know the dangers of that.

There's a solution that avoid both the Scylla of an unending US trusteeship over European security or a return to the pre-1914 idea of a remilitarized, competitive Europe.

That is preserving and extending European union, by making the EU a defense union as well as a political and economic one. and then tying the US to that resulting European defense union, as its ultimate guarantor of strategic depth.

Whine Merchant , , January 19, 2019 at 4:23 pm
VikingLS @Whine Merchent
"Why are you trying to make this about Donald Trump?"

Because I read the article --

Stephen J. , , January 19, 2019 at 5:02 pm
'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed [And other info on this Tax Funded Monster that reportedly Funds, Arms, and Trains Terrorists]
-- -- -- -

'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed

With NATO rattled amid pressure from Donald Trump, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen made an appeal for the alliance in a New York Times op-ed. She described NATO as an "emotional bond" between the US and Europe.

18.01.2019
Author Rebecca Staudenmaier

"Maybe the most basic benefit of NATO is that it provides reliability in an unreliable world," the Christian Democrat politician wrote .
[read more at link below]
https://www.dw.com/en/world-still-needs-nato-writes-german-defense-minister-in-new-york-times-op-ed/a-47143021
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 14, 2018
The Diabolical "Work" of NATO and Its Allies: Why Are These War Criminals Still Free?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-diabolical-work-of-nato-and-its.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

The World Still Needs NATO
The alliance is not just about bases and troops. It is about defending the world order.

By Ursula von der Leyen
Ms. von der Leyen is the German defense minister.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/opinion/nato-european-union-america.html
-- -- -- -- -- --
NATO is a Danger, Not a Guarantor of Peace
Status quo supporters like the New York Times poke fun at Trump for questioning the alliance. But who's the fool?

By ROBERT W. MERRY • January 18, 2019

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nato-is-a-danger-not-a-guarantor-of-peace/
-- -- -- -- --

NATO is harbouring the Islamic State
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/europe-is-harbouring-the-islamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.7875bdwsf
-- -- --

https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-christmas-report-on-crimes-of-war.html
-- --
https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html
-- --
https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/09/despite-all-evidence.html
-- -- -- -
October 11, 2017
Do We Even Realize What "Our Leaders" Are Doing?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/10/do-we-even-realize-what-our-leaders-are.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

VikingLS , , January 19, 2019 at 5:02 pm
"For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that would seem obvious except to the author."

I'm pretty sure the author and everybody else here understands why the Baltic States wanted to join NATO.

The question is why NATO should have been eager to want to admit the Baltic States.

Does that not bear discussing?

Stephen J. , , January 19, 2019 at 5:23 pm
Is a NATO supporter being questioned? See story links below.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
German opposition to probe defense minister over spending scandal

Ursula von der Leyen is suspected of poor management and nepotism over her department's allocation of contracts and its decision to hire a consultant as her deputy. A parliamentary committee is set to investigate.

12.12.2018

https://www.dw.com/en/german-opposition-to-probe-defense-minister-over-spending-scandal/a-46704514
-- -- --

https://www.dw.com/en/world-still-needs-nato-writes-german-defense-minister-in-new-york-times-op-ed/a-47143021

JohnPerth , , January 20, 2019 at 7:46 am
Is there no way to exclude the Atlantic Council bots from these comboxes?
Toño Bungay , , January 20, 2019 at 8:20 am
Mr. Merry must be aware that the advocates of NATO emphasize the fear that Eastern European countries have of once again being dominated so cruelly by Russia and the moral obligation the U.S. has to aid them in their self-defense. If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least need to demonstrate that the Eastern European countries' fears are baseless or nonexistent?
South of the James , , January 20, 2019 at 1:51 pm
"If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least need to demonstrate that the Eastern European countries' fears are baseless or nonexistent?"

No. That's a sucker's game. The Israelis got us to play that game, and now we pay them to do nothing while we fight their wars for them. I'm sure that the Eastern Europeans would love to get in on some similar action. Let the stupid Americans do the paying and the heavy lifting.

We're not interested.

Fredar , , January 20, 2019 at 6:05 pm
Nato wasn't the one who annexed Crimea and who is conducting a shadow war in Ukraine.
Mark VA , , January 20, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Toño Bungay:

For an isolationist, it's much more convenient to act as if certain countries and their historical experiences are nonexistent

On the other hand, to be fair to TAC, no one should be coerced into playing a global role if one doesn't wish it. This is certainly honorable. And there is always a graceful way to either exit the global stage, or officially confine one's interests to a small region (say, England and France). But then there are consequences to accept: for example, China, with its One Belt One Road Initiative, may inherit the world;

In the meantime, Eastern Europe is exploring its own collective security initiative, called Intermarium:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/t_FX4oUGe8E?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

[Jan 20, 2019] Even as an old timer, I am drawn to the arguments made by our "Dissident Right"(DR), who seek to find a Third Way between destructive international capitalism and destructive international socialism

Jan 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: January 20, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT

Even as an old timer, I am drawn to the arguments made by our "Dissident Right"(DR), who seek to find a Third Way between destructive international capitalism and destructive international socialism. That movement is Nationalism. Some might call it Fascism, though that loaded term has become far too pejorative. It is not surprising that one of the heroes of the US DR is Mr. Putin.

The people making the best oral arguments for this third way that I've listened to thus far are Mike Enoch and Eric Striker. Do not dismiss them lightly. They are obviously highly intelligent and their movement is growing. As young white males are increasingly marginalized and oppressed by the dominant culture, they have nowhere else to go. Old-time GOP civic nationalism is dead, killed by the Diversity Cult that they foolishly embraced. On their own, after Trump, and given the snowballing demographic catastrophe, the GOP could never again win another national election. At some point there will be an uprising, unless young indoctrinated males have been become like frogs in slowly boiling water, who don't realize they are being scalded alive until it is too late.

[Jan 19, 2019] Putin and Skripals: Neither Putin personally nor the Russian government in general have ever shown themselves to be so petty as to kill a triator, who was elready exchanged for another spy. On the contrary, one of the notable qualities of Putin's is that he believes, as we Russians put it, "the crown would not fall off his head if he bows"

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:55 pm GMT

@Zogby

It's also untrue that he "shot himself in the foot", as the event, if anything, strengthened his image for the election.

What strengthened his image was an insane hysterics by the UK and the West in general. The Russians do tend to consolidate when perceive themselves under external threat.

the pettiness of going after apparent pipsqueaks

Neither Putin personally nor the Russian government in general have ever shown themselves to be petty. On the contrary, one of the notable qualities of Putin's is that he believes, as we Russians put it, "the crown would not fall off his head if he bows". Apparently, he feels strong, so he is not afraid to be magnanimous and make concessions. This quality is much appreciated by some but drives other people crazy.

None of that however proves Putin did it. It's just a possibility.

Theoretically, it's a possibility that the Martians did it. However, given the behavior of the UK authorities, there is no reason to believe anything even remotely like the picture described happened in reality. There is a scientific impossibility to identify the agent, first, as fast as it was supposedly done, and, second, unless they had a sample and/or detailed information in their possession. It's scientifically impossible to establish provenance unless the UK had samples of both the agent used and a comparison sample. Multiple comparison samples, I should say, since there are many such compounds. But if they did, the whole premise "only Russia could have done it" goes out of the window.

Add here the inconsistency of the symptoms and the outcome with the "military grade" nerve agent poisoning – and here you have a complete a story of a very clumsy false flag operation.

anonymous [397] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:13 pm GMT
Like a gullible person I at first accepted that there was indeed some event that involved the Skripals. Now I wonder if the entire thing was a scripted hoax, that nothing had hit them, that it's all fake. It wouldn't be surprising. We seem to be in an age of rule by sociopaths whose only compass is that of power and riches. The populations of our countries are being hustled along for the benefit of the few. This can't have a happy ending for the majority of people. The much vaunted democracy of the west looks like just a fixed shell game.

[Jan 19, 2019] The central political question in all Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive tendencies of the elite?

Notable quotes:
"... Robert Henderson [ Email him ] ..."
"... is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs. ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

So what is really happening -- in the U.K. and the U.S.?

The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact, it is better thought of as a blind sociological event. There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being groomed to have the same opinions or at least saying they do.

Link Bookmark What has happened in the UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is the success of the long march through the institutions . That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite ( politicians , mediafolk , teachers etc) who are overwhelmingly Politically Correct internationalists. And it's those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.

How did it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s Rudi Dutschke, echoing the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , put forward the idea whereby societies could be subverted from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be enough of such people to change the policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones. That point was reached in the UK at least 50 years ago and the Politically Correct stranglehold on our society is now complete.

The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit and even overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures, denigrate their own societies, traduce the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the pernicious Totalitarian creed of Cultural Marxism which has "anti-racism" (in reality anti-white racism) at its heart. The last brick in the Politically Correct building is the increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who refuses to toe the line -- increasingly including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.

That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a revolt against that mentality.

Most MPs overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result by promising it in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of the legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for its implementation.

But by doing so, MPs forfeited their right to do anything other honour the result of the referendum. That applies just as much to Remainer MPs as Leaver MPs.

Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed Remainers with power and influence (including many MPs and peers in the House of Lords) has shattered utterly the idea that the UK is a fully functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite -- an elite in the UK whose general political ideas are largely held in common and go against the interests and wishes of most of the electorate.

None of this should be a surprise. The sad truth: the central political question in all Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive tendencies of the elite?

Robert Henderson [ Email him ] is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs.

[Jan 19, 2019] The Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rurik , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:46 pm GMT

@jacques sheete

the Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be."

-David Graham Phillips, Cosmopolitan magazine, February 1906

and to think that was over a hundred years ago

... ... ...

[Jan 19, 2019] The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Giuseppe , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:10 pm GMT

I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.

The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet, it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give unanimous bipartisan assent.

What the hell is going on?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:35 pm GMT
@Giuseppe Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
jacques sheete , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:05 pm GMT
@JoaoAlfaiate

The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s

Who controlled the press there and then?

What can be said about the control and conformity of the Soviet, British and American press of the time?

and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ.

That's probably because the usual thugs don't need to do that any longer since they control virtually everything.

A couple of anecdotes to illustrate my point.:

2 of the reasons we don't hear much about mobsters these days are that the press and judiciary are owned by them and if you do get something published, you run the risk of getting snuffed. They probably don't stop at mere blinding anymore.

Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in news related to labor unions. In 1956 a mobster threw sulfuric acid in his face on a public street in Chicago causing his permanent blindness.

"Treason is a strong word, but not too strong to characterize the situation in which the Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be." This indictment launched a nine-part series of articles entitled "Treason of the Senate."

-David Graham Phillips, Cosmopolitan magazine, February 1906

In 1911 Phillips was shot multiple t imes by Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, a Harvard-educated scion of a prominent Maryland family ,at Gramercy Park in New York City.

Joe Hide , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:34 pm GMT
Good article.

Still, you authors need to start digging deeper. Trump and his Allies are putting on an amazing show / act to distract their ( and Humanities going back generations) hidden enemies.

The Bad Guys have for millennia weoponized information, convincing the public, reporters, and journalists that the rabbit hole ends here, that they don't need to dig any deeper, to just accept this slightly deeper layer of the onion. That warm and fuzzy feeling from scratching just a little deeper into to information matrix, isn't enough anymore. You guys have the intelligence, experience, and ability just do it please!

Jake , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:12 pm GMT
@tjm The CIA, the Mossad, and the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency are all children of British secret service.

[Jan 19, 2019] The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance more and more relies upon the lever of public credulity and Neoliberal Newspeak

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mulegino1 , says: April 10, 2018 at 4:49 am GMT

A great man once wrote that the "big lie" had a force of credulity among the broad masses, as the latter were wont to engage in lying about minor quotidian matters of little or no significance while the big lies were engaged in by the mainstream press, dominated by the usual tribal suspects.

It was the case with blaming General Ludendorff for Germany's defeat, and it is the same case today, 100 years after the fact.

The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance relies upon the lever of public credulity and kosher Newspeak.

What the unconditional and incorrigible Trumpetistas do not realize is that those of us- a very large plurality of of Trump supporters- voted for him because he was not Hillary Clinton and had pledged to keep us out of foreign wars. We will neither support, nor abet, foreign wars for the sake of Israel, whether they are started by Trump or anyone else. Intervention in Syria against the Assad regime is a no go. Trump cannot hope to compare himself to Assad, since the latter has formed a real and effective alliance against the Christian hating head choppers with Russia and Iran. Trump is totally clueless with respect to geopolitics. He is a rank amateur.

Jon Baptist , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:27 am GMT
It makes complete sense if one simply looks at the British Establishment's prior behavior of intentionally starting world wars at the order of the Society of the Elect. It's all in the CFR's archives. Their guilt in starting WW1 is emphatically admitted and documented in roughly the first 200 pages of the following book. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf

Who is in the Society of the Elect? Read the back pages of http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/The_Anglo-American_Establishment.pdf

Anonymous [280] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:33 am GMT
It's surreal to watch such staggering levels of dishonest incompetence among our globalist "elites".

This is worrying. Nobody is that stupid so it's more like they don't care about credibility going forward. Like it won't matter.

annamaria , says: April 10, 2018 at 5:52 am GMT
"In 2016 an official British government inquiry determined that Bush and Blair had indeed together rushed to war. The Global Establishment has nevertheless rewarded Tony Blair for his loyalty with Clintonesque generosity. He has enjoyed a number of well-paid sinecures and is now worth in excess of $100 million."

-- The character of Blair and the Establishment is well established: Blair is a major war criminal supported by the major war profiteers. His children and grandchildren are a progeny of a horrible criminal.

What is truly amazing is the complacency of the Roman Catholic Church that still has not excommunicated and anathematized the mass murderer. Blair should be haunted and hunted for his crimes against humanity.

With age, Blair's face has become expressively evil. His wife Theresa Cara "Cherie" Blair shows the same acute ugliness coming from her rotten soul of a war profiteer.

Blanco Watts , says: April 10, 2018 at 6:34 am GMT
The UK is governed by the same Neo-liberal psychotic cabal that runs the US, Israel and France.
quasi_verbatim , says: April 10, 2018 at 7:01 am GMT
The Skripals are to be disappeared. Their home, the pub and the restaurant are to be demolished. This is a Tarantino cleanup. Move on
JR , says: April 10, 2018 at 7:06 am GMT
Keep in mind how long ago all this is:
Skripal was recruited around 1990 and arrested in 2004. Guess that the Russian attitude towards Skripal took the chaos of the 90's as mitigating circumstances into account.
Skripal served his sentence of only 13 years till 2010 when he was pardoned and given the option to leave. Russia did not revoke Skripal's citizenship. The UK issued Skripal a passport too. On arrival in the UK Skripak was extensively debriefed by UK intelligence services. Skripal has lived for 8 years in the UK now.

And now out of the blue this incident nicely dovetailing with May ratcheted up anti Russia language only a few months before this false flag incident and the rapidly failing traction of the Steele/Orbis/MI6 instigated Russia collusion story on the basis of that fake Trump Dossier. By the way Orbis affiliated Steele and Miller have been among Skripal's handlers.

Realist , says: April 10, 2018 at 7:49 am GMT
Why anyone would believe anything Western governments say is beyond me.
animalogic , says: April 10, 2018 at 8:28 am GMT
Good article.
The Skipnal affair has been an utter disgrace from day one. May & Boris are a shame on the UK fully reminesent of that utter dog, Blair.
The fact that the msm still babbles on about Russia & Skipnal is indicative of their monumental contempt for the public & factual balanced reporting .well what's new, I guess ?
Ronald Thomas West , says: Website April 10, 2018 at 8:43 am GMT
From the Steele dossier lies falling apart to the Skripal lies falling apart to the 'Assad did it' lies falling apart:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2018/04/08/open-letter-to-die-linke/

^

Paul Craig Roberts is correct when quoting The Saker:

"The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified." -- The Saker

I expect that makes the Russians right

OMG , says: April 10, 2018 at 10:35 am GMT
These ridiculous, suicidal gas attacks by Assad seem to coincide not only with battleground victories against the head-choppers, but co-incidentally with Israel's murderous attacks on unarmed Palestinians "throwing stones".

What nobody seems to have picked up is the emphasis – and red lines – on Gas; gas, gas attacks. Why is gas so much worse than being dismembered, disembowelled, and mutilated by high explosives? Certainly I would favour unconsciousness and death by gas before being smashed to pieces by depleted uranium.

These relentlessly repeated claims are an exercise with the dual purpose of providing a subliminal message about the greatest tragedy in human history, repeated ad nauseam. The massive 'gassing' of European Jews some 65 years ago. Lest we forget.

Anonymous [249] Disclaimer , says: April 10, 2018 at 10:43 am GMT
What makes you think the Skripals are still alive? The entire British charade stinks to high heaven.
Escher , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:06 am GMT
What is surprising is how the MSM is able to lead along so many supposedly educated people, with at least some critical thinking skills.
All we like sheep , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:13 am GMT
Compared with the Litvinenko umbrella attack with its tip having been dipped in an Amazonian Indians' style curare variant of Polonium the intelligence level of the MI6 & CIA seems to have hit the ground with the twofold miracle of the dead being raised. Now the miracles are posing a big problem for the demonizers of Russia & President Putin: how to spirit these two living & talking people away, who have returned from the dead, where they were supposed to be so safe and well for all truth-loving investigators. This whole story seems to unfold like a Jesus Christ Superstar sequel with James Bond appetizers having been added. At present the roles have been reversed: the Russians being the champions of free will and the Western intelligence services being the Joker.
Greg Bacon , says: Website April 10, 2018 at 11:14 am GMT
Until some kind of sanity returns to this planet and war mongering gangsters like the Bush and Clinton Mobs, Blair, Obama and a host of Pentagon generals, along with their boot-licking MSM are indicted, tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes, found guilty and sentences carried out, there will be no peace on Earth, just an endless series of False Flags, hysterical reactions by the ones who were behind the False Flags and more wars.
Simon in London , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:25 am GMT
It does look rather like those Syrian chemical weapon attacks that happen whenever the rebels are about to be defeated.

I am pretty sure that it was not ordered within the British government and that most of the British government don't know where it came from, but are willing to believe it was Russia.

While the CIA does have plenty of form on assassinations, the risk if they were found to be assassinating in Britain seems quite high due to the close CIA links with the UK intelligence sector. But CIA agents could have paid someone else to do it.

Mossad is the one group that can act freely in the UK, has a record of assassinating scientists, engineers etc here, and unlike CIA, can take the risk of being caught. So it's a possibility – OTOH Israel has shown a lot less anti-Russian hatred than the US Deep State has.

Normally I'd assume it was indeed Russia – I thought there was plenty of evidence the Polonium poisoning was Russia – and it still seems possible, but US or Mossad must be at least equally likely in this case. It's just possible it could have been British initiated but I doubt it.

I do think it's most likely the person who actually poisoned them was not an employee of any agency.

Jake , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:38 am GMT
Theresa May as more evil than Bill Clinton? That will sound odd to some, but I think it is true. Hillary is the pure evil half of the Clinton marriage. Bill is simply charming and filled with a desire to amass enough power to have a group adore him as he finds new panties to explore.

May is English, and she has the very long line of Brit Empire secret service evil at her disposal. And her move is a bold one. What it means is that she is signaling that at least if she is PM, the UK could replace the US as Fearless Leader of the actual New World Order, which is the WASP Empire with Israel and worldwide Jewry as Junior Partner #1 and Saudi Arabia elevated to Junior Partner #2 in an insane attempt to make Israel secure forever.

The English have never been happy that the lowly Americans leaped them as A-#1 of the WASP Empire, and being English they have no permanent alliances, no permanent allies, not even kin (perhaps especially kin – which type and degree of ruthlessness impresses all Semites).

This alliance was sealed by none other than the very epitome of WASP culture: Mr. Archetypal WASP himself, Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-Saxon alliance with Jews precisely to wage wars against non-WASP white Christians was the logical (and inevitable if WASP culture were to acquire large scale political power) .

By the Victorian era, virtually all Elite Brit WASPs were knowing philoSemites. The new twist was that a growing number of them were becoming obsessed with Arabs and/or Islam. decades before the Balfour Declaration, the Brit WASP Elites were wrangling among themselves over how best to use the largest and wealthiest Empire in world history to express its philoSemtism.

The solution recently agreed upon was to elevate the Saudis. The assumption is that as the Saudis control the actual land of Mohammed, if they are elevated to suzerainty over not merely all Arabs but the entire Islamic Middle East, then the entire Islamic world can be controlled, including to allow Israel to exist in 'peace.'

And that means all that oil is under the indirect, but very firm, control of the WASP Empire, or as The Saker calls it: the Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Of course, the Saudi royal family is the most amorally vicious power party in the Middle East. They would slaughter half the Sunni Arabs in order to become unrivaled suzerain over the entire Islamic world. Such monstrousness makes the House of Saud exactly the type partner that those who control the WASP Empire want as partners.

The Russians are in the way of that beautiful plan of world domination. Russians have common sense and, much worse, they express it, even publicly. Russians know that Sunni Islam is a much worse threat to the world than is Shiite Islam. The Russians know that the Iranians are much more honorable and moral than are the Saudis. The Russians know that as bad as the Turks are, they are more honorable and trustworthy than the Saudis.

And the Russians also know that the Anglo-Zionist Empire would be tickled pink to make all non-WASP Elite whites – all in the world – a permanent serf class, treated the way Cromwell treated the Irish, the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians.

Randal , says: April 10, 2018 at 11:48 am GMT
@Corvinus Corvinus, George Galloway has a message addressed directly to you:

It's harsh, but one has to concede it is also a fair assessment.

Giuseppe , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:10 pm GMT
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.

The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet, it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give unanimous bipartisan assent.

What the hell is going on?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:35 pm GMT
@Giuseppe Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
tjm , says: April 10, 2018 at 1:08 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Agreed to all you said, but I would include the assassination of JFK and his brother, and likely Martin Luther King Jr.

And each time they took out a great American, they used that assassination to push a destructive narrative: With the killing of MLK they pinned the killing on a white southern man, thus pushing their white hate narrative.

With 9/11 is was all about stoking hate of Muslims

These creatures lie as easily as breath, and they have all the money in the world to push their lies.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: April 10, 2018 at 2:40 pm GMT
@jacques sheete The intent of my post was to show that the MSM here is conformist and doesn't like to stray far from what the USG is claiming and what other journalists are writing. Rather than explore the topics you raise, as worthy of exploration as they might be, I thought I'd offer what newspapers around the USA were saying about Saddam's WMD after Powell's UNSC speech; seems a bit more germane.

The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable.

The Wall Street Journal

Piling fact upon fact, photo upon photo Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell methodically demonstrated why Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remains dangerous to his own people, Iraq's neighbors

The Los Angeles Times

On Wednesday, America's most reluctant warrior, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, presented succinct and damning evidence of Saddam's enormous threat to world peace.

Arizona Republic

Saddam Hussein's illicit arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, as well as the equally illicit means that he possesses to deliver them, poses a tangible and urgent danger to U.S. and world security. Millions of innocent lives are at risk.

Dallas Morning News

At some point, the world chooses to believe President George W. Bush and Secretary Powell or the international community chooses to side with Saddam Hussein and those who broadcast his lies to the world. Powell has painstakingly presented a strong case against Iraq.

Greenville News/South Carolina

Iraq is busted. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the case clearly. No one hearing Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council could doubt Iraq's actions and intentions.

Jacksonville Times-Union/Florida

The threat is real and at our door. Sept. 11, 2001, stripped away the belief that the United States can peacefully coexist with evil. Prove it, they said. Powell has.

Charleston Daily Mail/West Virginia

We are a country always loath to fight unless provoked. The reluctance of Americans to initiate a war needlessly does the nation credit. But this is not a needless war, nor is it unprovoked. Powell laid out the need, and explained the provocation, in step-by-step fashion that cannot be refuted without resorting to fantasy.

Chicago Sun-Times

The Dispatch repeatedly has called on the Bush administration to make a compelling case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction and hiding these efforts from U.N. inspectors. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell made that case before the Security Council.

Columbus Dispatch

Powell has methodically proved Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. mandates. With each passing day, Iraq's own choices move it closer to a war that full compliance would prevent.

Indianapolis Star

Secretary of State Colin Powell's 90-minute presentation to the U.N. Security Council, buttressed with surveillance photographs and recorded phone conversations, should remove all doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has developed and hides weapons of mass destruction, in violation of U.N. resolutions.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council presented not just one 'smoking gun' but a battery of them, more than sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt about the threat the Iraqi dictator poses.

Denver Post

The United States has made a compelling case that Iraq has failed to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. This failure violates the U.N. Security Council resolution of late last year which ordered Iraq to disarm. As a consequence and it is a grave one, the Security Council must act now to disarm Iraq by force.

Salt Lake City Tribune

Powell has connected enough dots to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda and show that this alliance is a threat to all of Europe as well as the United States.

Manchester Union Leader

In fact, the speech provided proof that Saddam continues to refuse to obey U.N. resolutions. Any amount of time he has now to comply fully and openly with U.N. demands should be measured in days or a few weeks – and no longer.

Portland Press-Herald/Maine

[Jan 19, 2019] Oh, nothing new; extortion, perjury, forty per cent, face-grinding.

Jan 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike Sylwester says: Website April 10, 2018 at 12:43 pm GMT The Moon of Alabama website has been doing great work criticizing the Skripal yarn.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/the-best-explanation-for-the-skripal-drama-is-food-poisoning.html#more

jacques sheete , says: April 10, 2018 at 12:50 pm GMT

@Giuseppe

What the hell is going on?

Nothing new. Same ol same ol.

But how are things going up here? what is Athens about?

Phi. Oh, nothing new; extortion, perjury, forty per cent, face-grinding.

-Lucian of Samosata, MENIPPUS, A NECROMANTIC EXPERIMENT, ~150 AD
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl1/wl176.htm

[Jan 18, 2019] The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people

That's probably wrong. Distancing from Russia was the main theme for all post Soviet States. And the fact that Ukraine had chosen Baltin model -- becoming the sattelite of EU is not surprising, taking into account connections of Western Ukraine and Germany which goes to the time when this territory was a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The the fact that this distancing took such a toxic and self-destructing form and incldes the loss of territory and population, can be attributed to the USA. Here I would agree with the author.
Notable quotes:
"... The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut dollie." ..."
"... The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people." ..."
Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:45 pm GMT

@Anonymous "More occupation and killing in Crimea "
-- Evidence? It seems that you are very upset that the Kagans' cookies did not deliver.
"One Year Later, Crimeans Prefer Russia:" https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-02-06/one-year-later-crimeans-prefer-russia
"How Crimeans See Ukraine Crisis:" https://consortiumnews.com/2016/02/11/how-crimeans-see-ukraine-crisis/

"A Pew poll from April 2014 revealed that 91 percent of Crimean respondents believed the referendum was free and fair, 93 percent had confidence in Putin, and 85 percent believed Kiev should recognize the results.

Another poll in June 2014, this one from Gallup , showed 94 percent of ethnic Russians in Crimea thought the referendum reflected the views of the people and 68 percent of ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea agreed . The poll found that 74 percent believed that joining Russia would make life better.

A GfK poll from February 2015, sponsored by a pro-Ukrainian group in Canada, revealed 93 percent of Crimeans endorsed the referendum."

-- Still not enough for you?

"Ukraine [post-Maidan] under pressure from West over corruption:" http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2017/dec/07/ukraine-under-pressure-from-west-over-corruption-1721487.html

"Enough documents have been released -- citing coup-backed snipers killing dozens of protesters, US embassy officials planning false flag attacks, extremists downing a passenger airliner and NATO peddling falsified intelligence -- to make it very clear that the "coup" is more of an invasion than anything else.

The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut dollie."

The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people."

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/07/neo-ukraine-fighting-the-spin/

"In 1950, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined Crimes against Peace, in Principle VI, specifically Principle VI(a), submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, as:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)."

Dave Bowman , says: April 10, 2018 at 3:48 pm GMT
@annamaria Bravo, indeed, Annamaria. Beautiful, perfect, resounding, harsh, unforgiving words for a pair of worthless human vermin masquerading as civilised, intelligent professionals with a moral compass.

[Jan 18, 2019] I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these Satanic wars.

Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rurik says: April 10, 2018 at 2:17 pm GMT 400 Words @Randal I watched Tucker Carlson last night as well.

He makes great points, and I'm encouraged that he's allowed to do so on to a big and important audience.

I remember when his predecessor, Bill O'Rielly, claimed to have seen the evidence of Saddam's WMD, and told his audience, on the run up to war, and I was appalled. As indeed, it turned out he too was lying.

When the ZUSA was entrenched in the highly profitable war on Vietnam, there seemed to be no way to end it. Protests in the streets and at the universities, and anger at the war and war pig$ seemed to no avail.

But then a phenomena began. Fragging.

one wonders .

at seven minutes in, Carlson interviews a senator. The senator does his best to lie and deceive, as only a ZUS senator can. But Tucker eviscerates him on screen.

now if this senator, and others like him, were themselves put into peril by these serial, treasonous wars for Israel, would they still be so keen to have Americans die, slaughtering innocent people- to bolster and benefit the main enemy of America; Israel?

I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these Satanic wars.

Just as Tucker says, any general who advocates for these wars, should be required to actually visit a battlefield, so too I wonder about the politicians, and how they eventually have to go home, and live among their constituents. What if some of the worst of them, like Graham for instance, were to actually suffer some consequence for all the evil he's done, and continues to do?

Of course I'm not advocating anything illegal. Just ruminating on potential solutions to the Eternal Wars for Israel – which are nothing more or less than a continuation of the first two World Wars (for Israel) duh

END the FED!

(or watch your nation bankrupted and looted and made to die for Israel)

[Jan 18, 2019] On the British Establishment

Notable quotes:
"... The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment. ..."
Jan 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

annamaria says: April 10, 2018 at 2:44 pm GMT 100 Words On the British Establishment:
The Skripal affair is better understood in the context of "sir" Savile' knighthood -- when the influential pedophile had been raping and molesting kids for 40 years and none stood up to the criminal. The BBC has dutifully refused to publish anything that would upset "sir" Savile. The Scotland Yard looked the other way -- precisely as the Establishment ordered them to do.
Savile' specialty were orphans. He was the embodiment of British Establishment.

The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment.

[Jan 17, 2019] Brasil neoliberal counterevolution by James Petras

Jan 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Originally from: President Trump's Losing Strategy: Embracing Brazil and Confronting China James Petras January 8, 2019

Introduction

The US embraces a regime doomed to failure and threatens the world's most dynamic economy. President Trump has lauded Brazil's newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro and promises to promote close economic, political, social and cultural ties. In contrast the Trump regime is committed to dismantling China's growth model, imposing harsh and pervasive sanctions, and promoting the division and fragmentation of greater China.

Washington's choice of allies and enemies is based on a narrow conception of short-term advantage and strategic losses.

In this paper we will discuss the reasons why the US-Brazilian relation fits in with Washington's pursuit for global domination and why Washington fears the dynamic growth and challenge of an independent and competitive China.

Brazil in Search of a Patron

Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro from day one, has announced a program to reverse nearly a century of state directed economic growth. He has announced the privatization of the entire public sector, including the strategic finance, banking, minerals, infrastructure, transport, energy and manufacturing activities. Moreover, the sellout has prioritized the centrality of foreign multi-national corporations. Previous authoritarian civilian and military regimes protected nationalized firms as part of tripartite alliances which included foreign, state and domestic private enterprises.

In contrast to previous elected civilian regimes which strived – not always successfully – to increase pensions, wages and living standards and recognized labor legislation, President Bolsonaro has promised to fire thousands of public sector employees, reduce pensions and increase retirement age while lowering salaries and wages in order to increase profits and lower costs to capitalists.

President Bolsonaro promises to reverse land reform, expel, arrest and assault peasant households in order to re-instate landlords and encourage foreign investors in their place. The deforestation of the Amazon and its handover to cattle barons and land speculators will include the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous land.

In foreign policy, the new Brazilian regime pledges to follow US policy on every strategic issue: Brazil supports Trump's economic attacks on China, embraces Israel's land grabs in the Middle East, (including moving its capital to Jerusalem), back US plots to boycott and policies to overthrow the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. For the first time, Brazil has offered the Pentagon military bases, and military forces in any and all forthcoming invasions or wars.

The US celebration of President Bolsonaro's gratuitous handovers of resources and wealth and surrender of sovereignty is celebrated in the pages of the Financial Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times who predict a period of growth, investment and recovery – if the regime has the 'courage' to impose its sellout.

As has occurred in numerous recent experiences with right wing neo-liberal regime changes in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador, financial page journalists and experts have allowed their ideological dogma to blind them to the eventual pitfalls and crises.

The Bolsonaro regime's economic policies ignore the fact that they depend on agro-mineral exports to China and compete with US exports Brazilian ago-business elites will resent the switch of trading partners.. They will oppose, defeat and undermine Bolsonaro's anti-China campaign if he dares to persists.

Foreign investors will takeover public enterprises but are not likely to expand production given the sharp reduction of employment, salaries and wages, as the consumer market declines.

Banks may make loans but demand high interest rates for high 'risks' especially as the government will face increased social opposition from trade unions and social movements, and greater violence from the militarization of society.

Bolsonaro lacks a majority in Congress who depend on the electoral support of millions of public employees, wage and salaried workers ,pensioners,and gender and racial minorities. Congressional alliance will be difficult without corruption and compromises Bolsonaro's cabinet includes several key ministers who are under investigation for fraud and money laundering. His anti-corruption rhetoric will evaporate in the face of judicial investigations and exposés.

Brazil is unlikely to provide any meaningful military forces for regional or international US military adventures. The military agreements with the US will carry little weight in the face of deep domestic turmoil.

Bolsanaro's neo-liberal policies will deepen inequalities especially among the fifty million who have recently risen out of poverty. The US embrace of Brazil will enrich Wall Street who will take the money and run, leaving the US facing the ire and rejection of their failed ally.

The US Confronts China

Unlike Brazil, China is not prepared to submit to economic plunder and to surrender its sovereignty. China is following its own long-term strategy which focuses on developing the most advanced sectors of the economy – including cutting edge electronics and communication technology.

Chinese researchers already produce more patents and referred scientific articles than the US. They graduate more engineers, advanced researchers and innovative scientists than the US based on high levels of state funding . China with an investment rate of over 44% in 2017, far surpasses the US. China has advanced, from low to high value added exports including electrical cars at competitive prices. For example, Chinese i-phones are outcompeting Apple in both price and quality.

China has opened its economy to US multi-national corporations in exchange for access to advanced technology, what Washington dubs as 'forced' seizures.

China has promoted multi-lateral trade and investment agreement ,including over sixty countries, in large-scale long-term infrastructure agreements throughout Asia and Africa.

Instead of following China's economic example Washington whines of unfair trade, technological theft, market restrictions and state constraints on private investments.

China offers long-term opportunities for Washington to upgrade its economic and social performance – if Washington recognized that Chinese competition is a positive incentive. Instead of large-scale public investments in upgrading and promoting the export sector, Washington has turned to military threats, economic sanctions and tariffs which protect backward US industrial sectors. Instead of negotiating for markets with an independent China, Washington embraces vassal regimes like Brazil's under newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro who relies on US economic control and takeovers.

ORDER IT NOW

The US has an easy path to dominating Brazil for short-term gains – profits, markets and resources, but the Brazilian model is not viable or sustainable. In contrast the US needs to negotiate, bargain and agree to reciprocal competitive agreements with China ..The end result of cooperating with China would allow the US to learn and grow in a sustainable fashion.

[Jan 14, 2019] As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, the Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More Militaristic and Pro-War Than Republicans

Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, the Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More Militaristic and Pro-War Than Republicans" [Glenn Greenwald, T he Intercept ].

'But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal.

The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent."

Those of you who followed my midterms worksheets will recall that the liberal Democrat establishment packed the ballot with MILOs (candidates with Military, Intelligence, and Law enforcement backgrounds, or Other things, like being a DA), preparing the way for further militarization of the Party, and ultimately for war.

[Jan 14, 2019] Something about MIC gargantuan appetites: the cost of running Texas Railroad Commsion (RRC) for year are less that one half of the cost of (mostly useless) F35 not including fuel

Jan 14, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com

GuyM x Ignored says: 01/13/2019 at 8:26 pm

In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50 million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!
Longtimber x Ignored says: 01/14/2019 at 8:24 pm
Could have 1/2 of a F35 not including Fuel.

[Jan 14, 2019] Its official: was of terrorism was replaced by war on populism

Jan 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du jour, "populism."

[Jan 13, 2019] Whether kabuki theater or real gamesmanship but the threshold of decency has been crossed by Trump and uncrossing it is going to be very tricky

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

EliteCommInc. , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:04 am GMT

In my view, at the moment the deed is done. The president signed onto the report acknowledged the he accepts the report has even gone as far to say, he blames Pres. Putin

Another backtrack, just muddies the waters, and mat be acceptable because no one wants to accept the real consequences of a president who has repudiated the one state president he most desired to make a deal with -- the jig is up.

Whether kabuki theater or real gamesmanship --

A threshold has been crossed and uncrossing it is going to be tricky and in my further humiliation for the wh. The analysis here mattered before the president agreed with the report. But when he did, this analysis, becomes moot. Having a chit chat about de-escalating nuclear tensions is quaint in light of the president acknowledging that russia has in fact undermined the US democratic process. This is a serious charge and no amount of changing the subject, crying foul, or pretending it was all a big misunderstanding is going to change that.

I think it would have been prudent for the president to hold fire in Helsinki and read the report and then responded . He did make any of those choices. It matters not how exposed the establishment in wanton eagerness to have their way, wh has embraced the matter. it is on record and . . . oh well. I see merit in maintaining his original position of disbelief -- however, the president did a complete about face -- and there is no question of that or the implications.

[Jan 13, 2019] Those Porky Pentagon Earmarks Never Really Went Away

Notable quotes:
"... What's 5 billion dollars for a largely useless wall compared to this. The mind boggles. ..."
"... "People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy. They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a strategy; it is 'Don't interrupt the money flow, add to it.'" -Col. John R. Boyd (USAF Ret.) John Boyd (Fighter Pilot, Tactician, Strategist, Conceptual Designer, Reformer) died in 1997. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

about:blank

Those Porky Pentagon Earmarks Never Really Went Away In fact, the new scheme is even more venal, underhanded, and wasteful. By Winslow T. Wheeler January 11, 2019

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Michael Hogue In past years, Congress has become notorious for adding dubious items we call "pork" to spending bills. That way, senators and House members can advertise themselves to their constituents as bringing home the bacon, while picking up a few campaign contributions from thankful contractors along the way.

This practice was particularly notorious in defense bills, especially, and only became worse during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After they were exposed spending billions of taxpayer dollars for earmarked projects like museums, artificial lungs, and VIP air transports for senior generals, bureaucrats, and lawmakers, Congress supposedly reformed the practice of earmarking -- first in 2007 by the Democrats in the majority, and again in 2011 by the Republicans in the majority, who claimed to have banned them altogether.

In truth, both parties in Congress have simply swapped the pork system for a scheme that is even more venal and underhanded. They've circumvented their own rules and are putting even more pork in defense bills than before. They hypocritically proclaim that their bills are earmark-free, while simultaneously boasting about the pork to constituents. They deceptively pay for the hidden earmarks by raiding essential accounts for soldiers' pay and military readiness, and they readily accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from the very contractors who received huge chunks of the billions of dollars that Congress added.

The new pork system is deceptive and complex. It took all of my 31 years of experience on Capitol Hill to fully unravel it, with the help of some excellent research from two outstanding watchdog groups, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

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To explain, let's start with one of the more brazen acts of hypocrisy.

On October 22, Niels Lesniewski reported in Roll Call that 10 senators from both parties announced in a letter to the House and Senate leadership that they wanted to strengthen the existing ban on earmarks and make it impossible for anyone to "bring back earmarks" as President Donald Trump and others have suggested . Their new bill , they said, would impose even more serious procedural blocks on any earmark in any bill. But the bill, the senators' press release, and their letter are a sham. Another Roll Call reporter pointed out that gimmicks and various porky items in a new Department of Defense appropriations bill gave the lie to the idea that contemporary bills were free of earmarks. And Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance noted at the same time that the new DoD appropriations bill, just signed into law, was already stuffed with hundreds of earmarks costing billions of dollars.

The explanation of Congress's new, more deceptive and expensive pork system starts with Trump declaring that "America is being respected again" on September 28, while signing an appropriations bill into law that provided $675 billion to the Pentagon. The bill was passed in the House of Representatives with the vote of four of every five House members and in the Senate with almost nine of every 10 senators.

Speech after speech credited the bill with solving the problem of planes that cannot fly, ships with repairs delayed for years, and pay increases for soldiers who deserve more for their service.

Mattis: One More General for the 'Self Licking Ice Cream Cone' Why the Regulators Went Soft on Monopolies

Notably, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top-ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, praised the bill he helped to write, saying , "The priority of this defense bill is supporting our troops . This bill shows what Democrats and Republicans can accomplish when we work across the aisle to solve problems." The chairman of the subcommittee, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who had an even larger hand in shaping the bill, said , "I am proud to present this legislation to my colleagues and urge their strong support."

The issues they didn't talk about

Despite numerous speeches in the congressional record praising the defense spending bill, important details attracted not one word of discussion. The bill was riddled with earmarks, and the very pay and military readiness accounts that member after member praised were being raided to pay for it. This is hardly new. In my three decades on Capitol Hill, this behavior was typical -- and even self-styled "pork busters" including, I regret to say, the recently passed Senator John McCain, were known to participate. Despite the rule changes in 2007 and 2011, nothing ultimately changed for the better. Today, the money flow for earmarks has greatly increased, and the process that was once evident with a little inspection has been almost totally obscured.

What earmarks? The legislation has none; it says so. The joint explanatory statement (JES) for the defense spending bill, which purports to clarify the statutory text, contains the following on page two : "The conference agreement does not contain any congressional earmarks as defined by clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives."

That rule defines an earmark as spending specifically requested by a member of Congress for "an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or congressional district ." But simply fuzz up the authorship, recipient, or location of an added spending item, and it transforms from an earmark to a "congressional special interest item." There are hundreds of those, most of them buried in sparsely worded tables in the JES.

But these congressional special interest items are important: the conference committee that wrote the JES went to some length to cite them to the Pentagon for special treatment; they made the congressional special interest items subject to special rules to prevent DoD from reducing the amount to be spent. That conference committee, appointed to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, consisted of senior members of the same House and Senate defense appropriations subcommittees who wrote the original bills, such as Senators Durbin and Shelby.

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) reported that 68 procurement programs in this defense bill received $7.5 billion in new, unrequested spending, a large portion going to the Lockheed Corporation. These are blatant earmarks, as explained by TCS, which also pointed out that the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee added $5.6 billion to the procurement account for these items, while its Senate counterpart added a more generous $6.2 billion. The bill was "compromised" by the conference committee at a level above both: $7.5 billion.

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) tabulated all the add-ons in the bill -- not just the 68 in Procurement -- above the Pentagon's request. Again, the Senate Defense Subcommittee proved more generous than the House, and again the final conference was higher than either subcommittee's recommendation. TPA found 679 earmarks costing $19.3 billion.

Pigs in a poke

Are these earmarks all pork, that is, poorly justified spending slipped into bills to enable a member to boast that he or she can "bring home the bacon" for jobs back home or to appease defense corporations?

The authors of this bill don't want you to know. In the past, earmarks would specify things like "Intrepid Naval Museum," "Fort Richardson Running Trail," or "Fort Huachuca Readiness Center" as the recipient, and for a short period, committee reports identified them and their House or Senate sponsors.

Now, none of that is done. Instead, sparsely worded tables contain vague entries like "Program Increase." Many add a hint such as designating the increase for "modernization" or "silicon fiber research." But there is nothing to indicate the state or district, the contractor, or any other specifics. Hence, they do not technically qualify as "earmarks." However, after the bill is law, congressional staff contact the Pentagon to make sure it knows where the money is to go -- and what will happen if it doesn't.

The rules meant to reform earmarking have made the practice worse. It is now more opaque, and it gobbles up more money than ever. The $19.3 billion TPA found in 2019 absolutely dwarfs the amounts that I and others, such as the Congressional Research Service and the Committee Against Government Waste , found in these bills before the so-called reforms took hold.

Perhaps the biggest joke is the recent debate on whether it would be a good idea to "bring back earmarks." They never went away. The hypocrisy of the members who opine on this is only exceeded by the cluelessness of the press and the president, who raised it as something to ponder. Then there's the mendacity of those 10 senators who designed their phony legislation to pretend earmarks are gone and must not be allowed to come back. The last section of their bill reads as follows : "(e) APPLICATION. -- This section shall not apply to any authorization of appropriations to a Federal entity if such authorization is not specifically targeted to a State, locality, or congressional district."

Yes, you are reading that right: the bill exempts any earmark that fuzzes up the targeted location, and under the existing system that would be all of them. The 10 authors of this fraud are the following: Senators Claire McCaskill, Jeff Flake, Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, Ben Sasse, Rob Portman, Joni Ernst, James Lankford, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz.

Too big to be hidden

Despite the carefully applied opacity, some of the biggest giveaways and their authors are clear. The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairwoman, Texas Republican Kay Granger, was widely identified as behind $726 million added for six additional F-35Cs to be built by Lockheed in her Fort Worth congressional district.

But is this an example of pork? Granger and official Pentagon witnesses would surely testify that more F-35Cs are urgently needed. Others, including myself and colleagues at the Project on Government Oversight, will tell you that the F-35 is an ineffective boondoggle and is not ready for initial operational testing, let alone expanded production. However, despite many critical Government Accountability Office evaluations and embarrassing official and leaked reports from the Pentagon, the majority of Congress rejects such advice and welcomes more F-35 spending. Pork is in the eye of the beholder.

However, such easily identified earmarks are few and far between.

Trump requested $676 billion for the defense bill; the final Conference Report reduced that by $1.1 billion to $674.9 billion. How was the additional $19.3 billion found by TPA for 679 earmarks stuffed into a bill that cut spending?

While publicly touting the "largest pay raise for troops in nearly a decade" and claiming the bill "improves military readiness," Defense Subcommittee Chairman Shelby, Ranking Member Durbin, and other authors actually cut the budget for both.

They reduced the Pentagon's request for military pay, the Military Personnel account, by $2.1 billion. That's right: while praising themselves for supporting higher pay, they actually cut the budget for it. The request was $148.2 billion; the bill provided $146.1 billion.

Praising their handiwork on supporting military readiness, they cut the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) request from the Pentagon by $5.8 billion. O&M is a huge diverse account, but it is also the heart and core of spending for training, maintenance, spare parts, military depots, and everything else that means "readiness." The Pentagon requested $199.5 billion; it got $193.7 billion.

The way they cut both the Military Personnel and O&M accounts was notably duplicitous. A veteran journalist, John M. Donnelly, reported in Roll Call that most cuts were obtusely justified with explanations such as "Revised Estimate," "Historical Unobligated Balances," and "Not Properly Accounted."

My own research shows $809 million of cuts in those "Revised Estimates." They are completely unexplained in any text and neither committee report from the House or Senate appropriations committees mentions any such reduction. They appear to have been an invention of the conference committee.

When I worked for a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee member (Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico), I observed staffers being instructed to phony up reductions with just such a ruse. In one case, to make room for all senators' earmarks, the subcommittee chairman, Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, directed the staff to use the earmark dollar total to determine the cuts to be announced. I suspect this crude offset technique underlies the "revised estimates" that appeared out of nowhere.

In both R&D and Procurement, they cut $1.5 billion using "Historical Unobligated Balances" or "Historical Unobligations" as a reason. An unobligated balance is money that DoD has planned but not yet spent: the program may be behind schedule, or it may be on schedule, but the timetable for sending out the money has not occurred yet. Here, some unidentified actor took the money away without a word of explanation as to what parts of the program were being lost or why.

The "Not Properly Accounted" justification meant $706 million in unexplained cuts.

Another term in the bill is "Rate Adjustments"; they cut $124 million. How is this different from "Revised Estimate" or "Historical Unobligated Balances?" The House Defense Subcommittee contains not a word of explanation. The Senate Defense Subcommittee report contains assertions of "Improving funds management: Rate adjustments," but that is all the explanation you get.

Further indecipherable cuts included "Unjustified Growth," another $1.1 billion; "Excess Growth," $468 million; "Underexecution," $134 million; and "Insufficient Justification," $35 million.

Yet another ruse was to transfer $2 billion out of the O&M budget to Title IX of the bill that funds the "Global War on Terrorism." But there, only $1.4 billion of the transferred $2 billion is actually retained. The transfer is a shell game.

There are other ruses in other parts of the bill; the details are mind-bending, but you get the point.

They were cutting military pay and readiness accounts so they could add to the DoD Research and Development (R&D) and the Procurement accounts. That's where the vast majority of the earmarks -- rather, congressional special interest items -- are.

In R&D they added $3.9 billion to the Pentagon's request. The account went from $91 billion to $94.9 billion. In Procurement, they added $4.8 billion to the Pentagon's request of $130.6 billion. Some of the earmarks in these accounts were huge. The controversial F-35 got over $2 billion in several earmarks, the notorious Littoral Combat Ship got $950 million, unrequested C-130s got $640 million, and so on.

Other unspoken consequences

While money over the years was being redirected to earmarks, something very different was happening at the other end of the world -- among our operating military forces.

On January 8, 2014, 29-year-old Liuetenant Wes Van Dorn died when his MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter, beset with maintenance problems the Navy had deferred, caught fire due to frayed wires and a leaking fuel line. He had been battling for three years to get adequate spare parts and much-needed refurbishment work to bring these old and unreliable helicopters up to minimally safe flying condition. His was only one of several lethal accidents involving the MH-53E resulting from inadequate maintenance, as reported by Mike Hixenbaugh and others in the The Virginian-Pilot and in a new documentary by investigative reporter Zachary Stauffer.

Such accidents resulted from raiding O&M money, such as in 2010 when, for example, Democratic Defense Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha of Pennsylvania cut O&M by a net $2.3 billion to stuff money into earmarks.

Advertising the earmarks they said didn't exist

Though their legislation proclaims earmarks banned, the authors of the defense bill changed their tune when they self-advertised to constituents.

In a press release from his personal office, Senator Dick Durbin declared , "From Rock Island Arsenal to Scott Airforce Base and Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois [t]his bill safeguards Illinois defense jobs by continuing investments in our state's defense installations and initiatives." Durbin took credit for funding nine programs in Illinois, costing $2.8 billion, most of it for Boeing -- headquartered in Chicago and the producer of the Navy's F/A-18 Super Hornet and MQ-25 Stingray refueling drone.

Subcommittee Chairman Shelby claimed he helped acquire $8.3 billion for 25 projects in Alabama.

Granger claimed she helped win over $12.3 billion for Fort Worth -- including $9.4 billion for Lockheed's F-35, $1.8 billion for Lockheed's C-130J, and $1.1 billion for the Bell Boeing V-22.

Note that they each claimed credit not just for their add-ons but for the entire program expense, including both the Pentagon-requested money and money spent outside their states or districts. For example, the C-130 is assembled in Marietta, Georgia, not Durbin's Illinois, and the F-18's engines are contracted by General Electric in Ohio. In fact, the entire F-18 is fabricated in Missouri; Durbin is advertising himself not to workers but to the Boeing headquarters.

The ranking member on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Pete J. Visclosky of Indiana, did not participate in these overblown claims. His website shows no press release listing defense budget goodies for his Indiana district.

The under the table incentives

On the other hand, Visclosky was no shrinking violet when it came to accepting campaign contributions from the corporations benefiting from the legislation's earmarks. OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics that documents federal campaign contributions, shows that for his 2018 reelection campaign, Visclosky accepted $347,933 from defense-related donors, $59,800 of it from Lockheed . The $347,933 constituted 27 percent of Visclosky's total campaign contributions , reported as of November 2018. For these and other efforts, Visclosky is getting a promotion: with the Democrats taking over the House next year, he is slated to be defense subcommittee chairman.

Chairwoman Granger accepted $397,560 from defense aerospace and electronics donors, constituting 17 percent of her larger total of $2,371,044 in reported contributions. Granger's contributions from Lockheed were more than twice Visclosky's: $136,360 .

The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member, Senator Durbin, does not run for reelection until 2020. The OpenSecrets.org data on his last election in 2014 show that Durbin accepted $236,549 from defense aerospace donors, making him the Senate's top beneficiary of such donations at the time. Adding other defense contribution categories, he took in $455,799 .

Senator Shelby's total reported defense-related contributions for his reelection in 2016, before he became defense subcommittee chairman, were $334,800. Commensurate with his elevation to chairman in 2018, he received $1,048,000 , nearly tripling his defense-related total, and he is four years away from his next campaign in 2022.

Granger, Durbin, and the others will resent any implication that their actions are influenced by the generosity of Lockheed or other defense contractors, lobbyists, and PACs. Indeed, campaign finance laws, as written by Congress, make it hard to conclude that contributions illegally influence congressional decision-making, and a recent Supreme Court ruling makes it even more difficult.

The bottom line

All this adds up to a Pentagon budget process in Congress that is:

Dishonest : The bill and its authors proclaim it is free of earmarks, but it has 679 of them costing $19.3 billion according to research from an independent group. Deceptive : The bill's authors, with huge support from the rest of Congress, proclaim their dedication to better pay for the troops and military readiness, and yet cut those very accounts by almost $8 billion. The reductions are arbitrary and vague, and are used to offset those 679 earmarks. The senators and representatives circumvent their own rules on earmarks by fuzzing up sponsors, recipients, and locations, making the entire process opaque. Hypocritical : Imagine the gall of nine Republicans and one Democrat with their bill to profess earmarks gone and making sure they don't "come back." There is nothing new about members of Congress posing as pork reformers and actually being pork enablers; however, these 10 assume an unprecedented level of cluelessness among the press; in some but not all corners, they were right to do so. Mercenary : $19.3 billion in earmarks makes rich material for senators and representatives to advertise themselves, with considerable exaggeration, as successful porkers for their states and districts. They also accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from the contractors, lobbyists, and PACs that benefit from the millions, if not billions, of dollars that the Pentagon never requested.

All this is not illegal, but according to common English, it is venal.

Winslow T. Wheeler worked in the U.S. Senate for Republican and Democratic senators and in the Government Accountability Office on national security issues for 31 years. After he left the Senate in 2002, he ran the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, which moved to the Project on Government Oversight in 2012. He retired in 2016.

about:blank



HenionJD January 11, 2019 at 4:43 pm

What's 5 billion dollars for a largely useless wall compared to this. The mind boggles.
Minnesota Mary , , January 11, 2019 at 5:13 pm
This is a rather long article but well worth reading. I am sick of the Washington 2-Step dance.
Ed Lindgren , , January 11, 2019 at 7:48 pm
"People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy. They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a strategy; it is 'Don't interrupt the money flow, add to it.'" -Col. John R. Boyd (USAF Ret.) John Boyd (Fighter Pilot, Tactician, Strategist, Conceptual Designer, Reformer) died in 1997.
Taras 77 , , January 11, 2019 at 11:16 pm
This is a solid article by a very respected critic of the obscene defense spending and weapons programs. I believe Mr Wheeler early on was on this F-35 debacle, labeling it the flying swiss army knife. (aplogies to the manufacturer of the knife and its fans.) Notable of recent are a series of feel good reports that the F-35 is combat ready, etc. Hopefully, the pilots of the F-35's will never have to face the real test.

Thank you, Mr Wheeler, for the continuation of exposing this fraud.

EliteCommInc. , , January 12, 2019 at 1:26 am
Deeply appreciated this article.
Brendan Sexton , , January 13, 2019 at 1:56 pm
Now that we are well into this new era of draining the swamp, we are all over our heads in muck and democracy AND prosperity are in danger of drowning. Venal is awfully polite.

[Jan 13, 2019] Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon case

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

RobinG , says: July 24, 2018 at 4:59 am GMT

@exiled off mainstreet #BROWDERGATE

A perfectly good article, I'm sure, but why diffuse ourselves [and engender feelings of fear and hopelessness as you express] when a strategic pressure point has presented? Johnstone makes no mention of Bill Browder. Nor do the [100, so far] commenters.

BILL BROWDER is a key figure in the anti-Trump, anti-Russia hysteria. The notorious Trump Tower meeting was about the Magnitsky Act, a fabrication by Browder to hide his financial crimes. Browder "testified" in the Senate expressly to demonize Putin. Browder's contacts in the IC, the Jewish Lobby, and the fawning media have enabled his propaganda assault this week. He's appeared -- unchallenged, virtually unquestioned -- on countless talk shows. But he's been running scared at the mention of interrogation by Russians. There are huge holes in his story, made clear in his deposition in the Prevezon case. The truth will bring him down! And perhaps his Deep State supporters, along with him.

Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon case. (See comment 161 under The Untouchable Mr. Browder? by Israel Shamir for links.)

Research links to primary sources on #Browdergate --
https://populist.tv/2018/01/20/bill-browder-links-and-resources-to-understand-controversy/

RobinG , says: July 24, 2018 at 5:02 pm GMT
@yurivku How about Idiot AND Troll.

BTW, have you seen "THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES" that Phil Giraldi posted today? Debunking anti-Russian criminal sociopaths like Bill Browder will go a long way to improving relations. Not to mention easing pressure on the unfortunate Trump.

Full research primary links available here, including Browder's 2015 deposition in the U.S. vs. Prevezon Holdings case. Every Senator who voted to support Browder should see this. [Any who already have, double shame!]
https://populist.tv/2018/01/20/bill-browder-links-and-resources-to-understand-controversy/

Yurivku , says: July 24, 2018 at 5:26 pm GMT
@RobinG UWell, we here in Russia know all this (about Browder) for quite a time. What new did you find? It's just one story in long list of those written and spoken for western idiots like Scripals
, MH17, chemicals in Syria and WMD in Iraq, Russian meddling in f-n US elections and so on. Eat it all dummies.

[Jan 13, 2019] RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

MK-DELTABURKE , says: July 23, 2018 at 12:40 pm GMT

@Cagey Beast Yup. Furthermore, CIA is organized crime and organized crime is CIA. CIA recruits and runs agents in favored criminal syndicates in every illicit trade: drugs, child sexual trafficking, arms, fraud, bustouts, extortion, money laundering. Their purpose is not to interdict the trade but to control it.

CIA manages transnational organized crime to top up their budget for unauthorized clandestine operations, like killing JFK.

CIA protects its criminal proteges with their chartered impunity. They call off law enforcement with the magic words national security or 'sources and methods.' If the plan gets exposed, CIA's criminal cutouts insulate the agency from exposure.

RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.

https://popularresistance.org/the-mass-media-will-not-review-rfk-jr-s-book-why/

Evenfurthermore, CIA is the government and the government is CIA. Decades ago Fletcher Prouty showed that CIA's deepest-cover illegal moles are embedded in our own government. Every agency with repressive capacity is infiltrated with focal points, who report to CIA handlers without the other agency's knowledge.

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html

Of course Israel is trying to infiltrate it -- they understand the levers of power.

Assange has got some mighty stinkers in his insurance file. All we can do is hope they're enough to destabilize the CIA Reich that has ruled America since 1949.

[Jan 13, 2019] CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald

Notable quotes:
"... CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald ..."
"... Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA ..."
"... Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.) ..."
"... To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin. ..."
"... Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Halper , says: July 23, 2018 at 6:52 pm GMT

CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald .

https://dailystormer.name/is-carter-page-a-cia-spook/

Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA :

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/07/22/a-review-of-the-doj-fbi-fisa-application-release/

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/07/fisa-fraud-by-obamas-doj-and-intel-community-by-publius-tacitus.html

Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.)

Daniel Rich , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:35 pm GMT
@peterAUS It's impossible to asses [correctly] who's influenced by what, but it seems that telling lies doesn't work that well any longer. You can find some numbers in the following article: Democracy Dies in Debt? US News Outlets Slashing Staff Left and Right -- Link to Sputnik.

Excerpt : "A Pew Research analysis on Monday found that more than a third of the US' largest newspapers and more than a fifth of its largest digital outlets experienced layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018."

Bill the Cat , says: July 24, 2018 at 12:06 am GMT
To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin.

Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her.

Hillary of course was incompetent in having America interfere in Russian elections. That campaign never had a chance as Putin is a lot more popular in Russia than Hillary is in America. So, she took a pot shot at a rival world leader knowing (or at least some smart people did) that it would have no effect and that Putin would win that election anyways. And of course Hillary the Arrrogant could never imagine that another player in the game would get to take a turn, and that others might interfere in her election, and she knew she'd run and she knew she'd rig the Dem party to get the nod, in the same way the NED and the Soros NGO's tried to interfere in Russia.

skrik , says: July 24, 2018 at 1:59 pm GMT
@Northgunner

'ruling class', 'elites'

I share your sentiments [in a slightly different vernacular]; of course they, the usurping 'rulers' are neither a class nor in any way 'elite,' but who/what ever they are [jews, oligarchs, 'simply' psychopaths or 'true' spawn of Satan], they do seem to be 'in control.' Proof of that is the coordinated criminal actions of 'the West.'

Find "CIA is the government and the government is CIA" above; it's the obvious place to expect a ccc = covert criminal cabal to establish itself. Add to that the truly weird concept of having spies a) out of all control and b) with apparently unlimited power. We 'shall know them by their deeds' which is almost unrelievedly a 'bad look.' Odd is that the 1st mention of any conspiracy that I heard of was that of 'jewish banksters ruling the world.' We since know that such was pilloried by the CIA, but it seems to me to be a case of the tar-baby: The more they [CIA, jews] howl/deny, the guiltier they prove themselves to be. rgds

Mulegino1 , says: July 24, 2018 at 9:55 pm GMT
I would say that what is affecting the western establishment elites at this juncture is not mere dementia but the madness which arises from acts of pure, hellish evil. These people are the Gadarine swine of the contemporary era; a good portion of them appear to be Satanic perverts and pedophiles, if we are to judge from recent revelations. I am not being hyperbolic when I write that Antichrist's reign has been postponed. They had imagined it would be installed by November of 2016 and this is driving them to despair. They hate Trump because his election blocked their lord and master's ascent and they hate Putin because he represents the great restraining power.
Cagey Beast , says: July 24, 2018 at 10:16 pm GMT
@yurivku He's of course is a bone in DC's throat, but his level of intelligence and real power seem to be extremely low.

Yes, he's a golden chandelier stuck in the belly of the Beast. I think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own. He also has some bad ideas and makes enemies when it isn't necessary but he's still the only hope for change at the centre of the American empire.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:12 am GMT
@skrik Be that as it may, Romper Stomper took place 30 years after the Vietnam War began. The reverberations of the war were felt in Australia long afterwards.
Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:27 am GMT
@peterAUS That's an armchair rugby referee for you, encouraging a Civil War in a country he's probably never set foot. What do you believe would change its policy towards Oz.

If you remember when Reagan broke the air-traffic control union strikes and 30,000 of them immigrated to Oz in 1981, what would happen would be that many qualified Americans would come to Australia and take Australian jobs.

That's how such unrest would affect you.

At any rate, the US would still have the same grip on popular culture (If not financial markets) and Vegemite would not suddenly replace McDonald's everywhere.

Also, though the Asians seem to slowly taking over your economy anyhow, if the US military was busy suppressing a civil war and Asian countries might get aggressive towards you militarily.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:31 am GMT
@peterAUS The Asians might get more aggressive if the US military suddenly found itself preoccupied with a Civil War.

Asia is taking over your country economically anyhow but they might get a bit anti-social if suddenly the US were to lose all capacity to maintain its presence in your hemisphere.

peterAUS , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:12 am GMT
@Jeff Stryker O.K.

Good luck.

skrik , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:15 am GMT
@peterAUS

I know, for your types. Feels comfortable

Aw, don't go all wussy -- you're acting like a wounded suitor. I suppose it was my rejection of your

I'd need to trust you and then we'd have a long chat somewhere in open public place

Similr to which you you offered Backstay

Have a quiet chat somewhere in a park, for example. Just two of us. Two

Try this google ; that the sort of place you had in mind? It's also reputedly a secret entrance to an ASIO bunker but I suppose you know that; I call attempted entrapment.

RobinG , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:18 am GMT
@skrik . ? ccc = 'great financial consortiums' ?

"As a matter of fact, the composition of the governments is predetermined, and their actions are controlled by great financial consortiums."

J. V. Stalin, Questions & Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview With the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia
Pravda September 15, 1927 ___________(h/t, J.S.)

yurivku , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:52 am GMT
@Cagey Beast

think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own

But I think he's stupid, ignorant, spineless (as well as most of POTUSes), the only difference is -- he's not completely belongs to DC. Probably it's better than if Clinton was on his place, but who knows, Trump can make any stupid thing

standall , says: July 25, 2018 at 7:39 am GMT
@exiled off mainstreet I agree.
skrik , says: July 25, 2018 at 9:31 am GMT
@RobinG

ccc = 'great financial consortiums' ?

G'day, q.possibly and glad you responded. Yeah sure, Stalin is 'close;' it's why some suggest oligarchs, but it demonstrably falls a bit short. My ccc = covert criminal cabal, each word of the highest significance; let's examine each one:

[COED:] covert = not openly acknowledged or displayed -- this is 100% true, since they operate from 'behind a curtain' of deliberate secrecy. Not declaring who they are is a lie of omission, then see after cabal below. Before moving on, let's consult Cicero:

mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor

= A liar is not to be believed, even when speaking the truth. That's never a 'good look,' and leads to the next:

criminal -- self-evident, then:

[COED:] cabal = a secret political clique or faction. Øarchaic a secret intrigue .

ORIGIN
C16 (denoting the Kabbalah): from French cabale, from medieval Latin cabala (see Kabbalah).

Finally [COED:] Kabbalah (also Kabbala, Cabbala, Cabala, or Qabalah = the ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible .

I allow myself to propose an exactly apposite example of the latter: 'Xxx promised it to us!' -- Where Xxx comes directly from some "mystical interpretation of the Bible." 'Nuff said?

More? IF it were only "great financial consortiums" THEN one would need to explain the criminality, since I'm pretty sure oligarchs *could* work legally. Then, the 'normal' consortiums' business is to 'make money' [and cheating and/or theft may be sort of 'normal'], but the ccc goes *far* past that into [mass-]murdering for spoil, quite/most often for oil and/or *soil* . The latter is within Nuremberg class = supreme international criminality. That may complete the loop and explain why covert in the 1st place.

I wrote above that I would 'revisit' lies; here's a partial quote:

But it remained for the yyy, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood,

Feel free to 'guess' at the yyy, then I assert QED rgds

Anon [243] Disclaimer , says: July 25, 2018 at 2:30 pm GMT
Great article. Good to read someone not suffering from dementia!
Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 3:00 pm GMT
@peterAUS Good luck?
EugeneGur , says: July 25, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMT
@peterAUS

Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?

Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.

the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.

That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians aren't coming.

Poupon Marx , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:05 pm GMT
The moniker "journalist" should immediately by banished by replacement of "reporter", as in report the facts and observations, not interpretations or personal opinions.
Eagle Eye , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:18 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman

I am not a Scientologist, but I consider [L. Ron Hubbard] to be one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century

Interesting point. Serious question -- in your view, what else (other than psychotropic medication) was Hubbard "brilliant" about?

Authenticjazzman , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMT
@Eagle Eye " In your view what else was Hubbard brilliant about?"

Well for example his bizarre sounding concepts regarding the sources of mankind, and the history of this insane planet, which are repeatedly ridiculed and labeled as absurd by the PTB, who of course have their own turf to defend, and their own concepts which they do not want to be brought into question.

AJM

peterAUS , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:53 pm GMT
@EugeneGur Well can't say I disagree with the comment.
Or, better, can't provide any concrete evidence to the contrary, especially re the second paragraph.

The thing is, nationalism is a peculiar feeling.
So, while this

Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come.

could be true, the rest of Ukraine could get into quite the opposite.

But, as you say

The problem is the Russians aren't coming.

so it's all academic.

Now, speaking of

people are fed up with the current power .

one could feel, probably, the same in Donbass.
Things aren't great there either.

In any case the conflict is there, frozen for the moment (not for the people along the front line) and can erupt, again, when the US Deep State wants it.

Interesting times.

Cratylus , says: July 26, 2018 at 5:49 am GMT
@Michael Kenny If one wants a clear example of the Russophobic or Putinophobic hysteria infecting the West, one need go no further than this demented fellow. And to that he adds a conspiracy theory about the gangsters ruling over it all.
Uncle Bee , says: July 26, 2018 at 12:06 pm GMT
@Cyrano Imagine if the WMDs get you attacked rule applied to Israel?
Jeff Davis , says: July 26, 2018 at 3:17 pm GMT
@seeing-thru You got it 100% Right my friend. That's the best reality-connected assessment of the Donald's performance that I've read. I'm going to swipe it for reuse elsewhere. Thank you, and may the force be with you.
seeing-thru , says: July 26, 2018 at 5:58 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis Glad you liked it. Yeah, go ahead use it any which way. BTW, my fear is that the Donald may not be able to succeed because of the massive line-up of forces against him. The whole lunatic asylum is out of their cages, snarling and clawing and planning all sorts of stuff to bring him down. Let us wish him success.
Apolonius , says: July 26, 2018 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Vojkan Bravo Vojkane!
Jeff Davis , says: July 27, 2018 at 6:24 pm GMT
@Lauri Törni

So standing up for American citizens is considered a "mentally insane" thing?

You are utterly and completely out of your mind, virtually from another planet, another reality. A textbook example of insanity. The fact that you don't recognize it, simply confirms the fact.

The Deep state is not, repeat not , the American people.

Regarding the Intel community: There are the guys in the trenches. these are honorable guys. Then there is the leadership. The current leadership is on notice to behave itself, on account of the new "Sheriff" in town. The corrupt politicized leadership from the Clinton/Bush/Obama regimes however, now out of power, are attempting to overthrow the legitimately elected president of the United States. In so doing, they are pursuing treason-lite.

Clapper, Brennan, and Hayden are already full-on war criminals: Iraq & torture. Now, in their attempt to destroy the Trump presidency, they are adding betrayal of democracy and betrayal of the Constitution of the United States to their criminal resume. These are evil men who think it is their job to run the United States from behind a malleable (gutless?) figurehead who does what they tell him to do.

As I said in my original post, it is fascinating to observe people like you, utterly dominated -- brain-raped really -- by a neocon/neoliberal narrative that has reduced them to robotic -- even willing -- slaves of the 1%. Good for you. Enjoy. The others, who prefer self-mastery to self-enslavement, will benefit from your choice of enslavement.

That is what all of this boils down to; Trump treating Americans like s*hit in front of the whole world, while praising Russia and Russians.

The IC war criminals/traitors should not be equated with or allowed to hide anonymous behind the majority population of decent Americans. Which is what simpletons like you enable and then fall for.

I fully understood all the concerns for what the Left is doing to people and to the society.

Trump praises Israel and says that, "Securing Israel's safety is our most important task" not a peep comes from the Trump-supporters?!

Some Trump supporters do object. Others however grasp the political reality of Jewish political influence in the US. Politically incompetent simpletons like yourself think Trump should commit political suicide by taking on the Jews.

The Jews/Israel will be dealt with -- or not -- later, when Trump has secured his presidency. And then, the rebalancing of the US-Israeli relationship will not be grounded in hostility to the Jews, but will be more along the lines of America First.

Never ever did I expect, that it would be the Trump-supporters surfacing as the fifth column, giving the "finishing touch" to the destruction of American citizens.

The above is pure paranoid, "the sky is falling", TDS whackadoodle.

The Liberals seem to have woken up,

The country is in the throes of a cultural war between the bubble-wrapped snowflakes and "real" people. Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the advantage of being reality-connected. The snowflakes will benefit as well -- you will benefit -- by the resulting opportunity to reconnect with reality.

Good luck, best wishes, Trump is rapidly changing the world for the better.

And let me add: The Soviet Union is a quarter century gone, and with it Soviet Communism. Putin is the preeminent statesman of our times. Go to YouTube and listen to what he says. He and Trump, aligned, are a force for good in the world. Peace with Russia is coming, and with it a new era of peace and prosperity in the world.

Which leaves me to echo your closing comment:

Are you ever going to be able to comprehend this?

(Answer: Probably not for another six years, if ever.)

Malcontent , says: July 29, 2018 at 8:59 pm GMT
@Cyrano Are you joking? Russia is the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
Malcontent , says: July 29, 2018 at 9:01 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis Bravo! Exactly my thoughts!
peterAUS , says: July 29, 2018 at 9:27 pm GMT
@Jeff Davis

Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the advantage of being reality-connected.

Ah, good.

The last time when "real" people won against the US "Deep State" was let me see .well shame on me, can't think of it.

Let's see after the fall of the Wall:
Yugoslavia, then Serbia proper .no
Afghanistan .no .
Ah Iraq .no ..
Lybia no .
Syria well not so sure.

Ah, yes, those weren't Americans. Yeah.

I got concerned for a bit; all good now.
No need to think about M.A.D. anymore. (Re)focus on fishing. Snapper, preferably.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 30, 2018 at 8:09 am GMT
@peterAUS Australia's problem is going to be an Asian economic overclass you Australians always obsess about country's located halfway around the world first the UK now the US.

you're worried about blacks in the US in the ghetto's wealth inequality while Chinese business elite reduce you to paupers IN Australia and eventually you go the way of the black aborigines.

But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you have seen in Hollywood films.

Jeff Stryker , says: July 30, 2018 at 8:15 am GMT
@peterAUS Sorry, countries not country's.

Point is that in the sixties you were still obsessed with the British Empire though you are a bit of a lost colony now you are obsessed with the United States, another waning Empire.

Pretty soon the Chinese will have you sleeping in your cars and you will still be focused on the state of blacks in the US ghetto and inequality in America.

But see, the US won't be the problem in Australia. China will.

You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony and white settler nation but it is Asia that will stomp you.

James Bacque , says: Website July 31, 2018 at 7:16 pm GMT
She is most likely onto something important. My solution is that most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us.

St Paul, Shakespeare and Montaigne all complained of their own double-mindedness.

I hope that a column of mine on this topic will appear soon in The U.R.

James Bacque Penetanguishene ON

peterAUS , says: July 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm GMT
@James Bacque

most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us ..

I guess you are onto something here.

It could go a bit deeper, though, as:

. most people are double-minded because it suits us to allow our betters to lead us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for their and our faults and errors which profit us.

skrik , says: August 1, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMT
@Jeff Stryker

But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you have seen in Hollywood films You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony and white settler nation

If I may intercede, no, and that twice.

1. peterAUS, if my interpretation is correct, sees the world through 'military blinkers,' is assumed not to notice China et al. except as one 'enemy' among many, and probably thinks that ~100 F35s, xxx new warships, yyy new submarines and zzz new 'armoured cars,' costing the Aus-taxpayer nose-bleeding squillions will 'save his/their bacon.' As such, peterAUS cannot be addressed as any valid representative of 'the great Aus-unwashed.'

2. That great Aus-unwashed, hoovering up the trash err, sorry for the US-speak; hoovering up the horrendous rubbish 'presented' to them via their '1984-style telescreens' err, one-finger flat-screen distraction devices [when not actual television sets], is largely unconscious of any 'real world.'

Since the CIA-sponsored coup of 1975, the country has been 'going to the dogs' at an increasing rate. The sheople glory under their 'Lucky Country' delusion, not even knowing its full import: Lucky not to be even partly aware. Yeah sure, the corrupt&venal MSM+PFBCs [= publicly financed broadcasters] try to revive 'the yellow peril' scare, but that's just standard 'Bernays haze' scare mongering, to keep the proles from thinking: Der, they [as peterAUS] didn't think. rgds

PS The great Aus-unwashed, as any 'Western' citizen, has zero choice; so-called 'Western democracy' allows for as good as zero 'citizen input.' The 'choice' of Trump should be put down to an aberration -- some 'clever-clogs' manipulators -- *not* Russians -- pulled off a coup. But as they used to say: "Better red than dead;" better Trump than HRC.

Johnj , says: August 2, 2018 at 11:48 pm GMT
Do we have a democracy? Or even representative government? So what happened to our jobs off-shored. Who approved that? Who approved 100 million legal immigrants in the last 50 years?

Why does anyone accept our stilted self-image, especially Diana?

Johnj , says: August 3, 2018 at 12:10 am GMT
@Lauri Törni Good God, this Lauri reads the NYT and has the gall to post it as proof of her opinions. So that means she is nuts and brainwashed.
Ace , says: September 15, 2018 at 5:55 pm GMT
Outstanding article.

On the point about the "world's greatest prison population" note that some one-third of the federal prison population consists of illegal alien criminals and the large U.S. black criminal underclass commits crimes at a higher rate than everyone else, so there are more blacks in our prisons. Oh, the horror.

If other nations enjoyed large illegal immigrant populations and a large black criminal underclass we would see similar inflated prison populations.

Spare us the silliness on this score as well as the "regular massacres of school children" garbage. No doubt you'll enlighten us with your anti-gun views on American gun nuts at a later time. I wait with bated breath.

Still, you almost got a lock on insightful commentary these days.

Ace , says: September 15, 2018 at 7:59 pm GMT
@Lauri Törni Liberals fight for the existence of Americans?

Amazing. Do you intend to live on our planet or are you just visiting?

james bacque , says: Website October 24, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMT
Ron Unz

This is a very good blog, column, whatever, because it illuminates with the light of reason the mass madness of the Washington crowd, and probably much of the American population. See the New Yorker article in the current issue about the utility of caregivers lying to and/or deceiving demented patients to keep them content. That is what is happening now in the USA and your failure to understand my explanation for it, in my essay on double-mindedness, which I sent you last summer, I mind very much. You could lead the way out of the mess if you would re-read that essay and try to understand it.

I am a very ordinary guy and I understand it. Please try again. The world needs this.

Jim Bacque

[Jan 13, 2019] Potencial of having a nuclear cataclysm out of civil war in Ukraine is firtneing perspecitve

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

EugeneGur , says: July 23, 2018 at 9:30 pm GMT

@Peter Akuleyev

who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes

I don't know where is Ukraine you spent your time and in what company, but this is complete BS. The South-Eastern Ukraine hates the Western Ukrainian "banderovtsi" as much as the Russians do if not more -- after all, the followers of Bandera operated mostly on the Ukrainian soil. There are deranged individuals in every country, of course, and Ukraine has been subjected lately to intense hate propaganda as well as repressions, but there is no hatred of Russia. This is contradicted by both sociology and everyday behavior of Ukrainian, which move to Russia in droves, spend time in Russia, support Russian sport teams, etc.

we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)

Nobody is asking about what the real Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians or even Poles actually think, least of all the US. There are almost as many Georgians living in Russia as there are in Georgia, and they show no desire to move back. In 2008 during the conflict, their biggest fear was that they'd be deported.

The Ukraine's Maidan was a violent coup, where a few thousand militants armed and trained abroad overthrew a government elected by the entire country. Protests that immediately started all over the country were suppressed with force -- the one in Donbass still is.

How could anyone with an access to Internet remain unaware of these facts is beyond me.

Vojkan , says: July 24, 2018 at 8:25 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev Why should anyone freaking care and put his ass in the line of fire because you bunch of primitives hate Russia? Between having a nuclear cataclysm because you pathetic dwarfs of nations are frustrated to have a neighbour you can't bully and Russia obliterating you, I say let Russia obliterate you, thus we won't have to suffer the ear-hurting dissonnance of your incessant whining any more. Though I doubt Russia would stomp on you. When you see shit, you don't stomp on it, you don't want you don't want your shoes to stink, you just walk around it.

[Jan 13, 2019] Who are the people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces?

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:25 pm GMT

@EugeneGur That's an interesting point. Even if true, doesn't matter. One could wonder ..who are the people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces?

Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass? All of them. Including those is logistics/maintenance depots far away from the (current) line of separation?

The will to fight against "Russia" ranges from a deep hate to simply not wishing to go against the (current) Ukrainian government. The former are in those "shock" battalions. The later are manning the logistics train. And everything in between.

Now .if/when a real shooting starts, as soon as Russia, as expected (and desired) by the most of readers here, starts delivering ordnance into operational depth of Donbass enemy, the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.

[Jan 13, 2019] Hypocrisy Without Bounds US Army Major Slams The Tragedy Of [Neo]Liberal Foreign Policy

Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Maj. Danny Sjrusen via AntiWar.com,

The president says he will bring the troops home from Syria and Afghanistan. Now, because of their pathological hatred of Trump, mainstream Democrats are hysterical in their opposition.

If anyone else were president, the "liberals" would be celebrating. After all, pulling American soldiers out of a couple of failing, endless wars seems like a "win" for progressives. Heck, if Obama did it there might be a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. And there should be. The intervention in Syria is increasingly aimless, dangerous and lacks an end state. Afghanistan is an unwinnable war – America's longest – and about to end in outright military defeat . Getting out now and salvaging so much national blood and treasure ought to be a progressive dream. There's only one problem: Donald Trump. Specifically, that it was Trump who gave the order to begin the troop withdrawals.

Lost in the haze of their pathological hatred of President Trump, the majority of mainstream liberal pundits and politicians can't, for the life of them, see the good sense in extracting the troops from a couple Mideast quagmires. That or they can see the positives, but, in their obsessive compulsion to smear the president, choose politics over country. It's probably a bit of both. That's how tribally partisan American political discourse has become. And, how reflexively hawkish and interventionist today's mainstream Democrats now are. Whither the left-wing antiwar movement? Well, except for a few diehards out there, the movement seems to have been buried long ago with George McGovern .

Make no mistake, the Democrats have been tacking to the right on foreign policy and burgeoning their tough-guy-interventionist credentials for decades now. Terrified of being painted as soft or dovish on martial matters, just about all the "serious" baby-boomer Dems proudly co-opted the militarist line and gladly accepted campaign cash from the corporate arms dealers. Think about it, any Democrat with serious future presidential aspirations back in 2002 voted for the Iraq War – Hillary, Joe Biden, even former peace activist John Kerry! And, in spite of the party base now moving to the left, all these big name hawks – along with current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – are still Democratic stalwarts. Heck, some polls list Biden as the party's 2020 presidential frontrunner.

More disturbing than the inconsistency of these political hacks is the vacuousness of the supposedly liberal media. After Trump's announcement of troop withdrawals, just about every MSNBC host slammed the president and suddenly sounded more hawkish than the clowns over at Fox News. Take Rachel Maddow. Whatever you think of her politics, she is – undoubtedly – a brilliant woman. Furthermore, unlike most pundits, she knows a little something about foreign policy. Her 2012 book, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power was a serious and well-researched critique of executive power and the ongoing failure of the wars on terror. Drift was well reviewed by regular readers and scholars alike.

Enter Donald Trump. Ever since the man won the 2016 election, Maddow's nightly show has been dominated the hopeless dream of Russia-collusion and a desire for Trump's subsequent impeachment. Admittedly, Maddow's anti-Trump rhetoric isn't completely unfounded – this author, after all, has spent the better part of two years criticizing most of his policies – but her zealousness has clouded her judgment, or worse. Indeed, that Maddow, and her fellow "liberals" at MSNBC have now criticized the troop withdrawals and even paraded a slew of disgraced neoconservatives – like Bill Kristol – on their shows seems final proof of their descent into opportunistic hawkishness.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this new "liberal" hawkishness is the pundits' regular canonization of Jim Mattis and the other supposed "adults" in the room . For mainstream, Trump-loathing, liberals the only saving grace for this administration was its inclusion of a few trusted, "grown-up" generals in the cabinet. Yet it is a dangerous day, indeed, when the supposedly progressive journalists deify only the military men in the room. Besides, Mattis was no friend to the liberals. Their beloved President Obama previously canned "mad-dog" for his excessive bellicosity towards Iran. Furthermore, Mattis – so praised for both his judgment and ethics – chose an interesting issue for which to finally fall-on-his-sword and resign. U.S. support for the Saudi-led starvation of 85,000 kids in Yemen: Mattis could deal with that. But a modest disengagement from even one endless war in the Middle East: well, the former SECDEF just couldn't countenance that. Thus, he seems a strange figure for a "progressive" network to deify.

Personally, I'd like to debate a few of the new "Cold Warriors" over at MSNBC or CNN and ask a simple series of questions: what on the ground changed in Syria or Afghanistan that has suddenly convinced you the US must stay put? And, what positivist steps should the military take in those locales, in order to achieve what purpose exactly? Oh, by the way, I'd ask my debate opponents to attempt their answers without uttering the word Trump. The safe money says they couldn't do it – not by a long shot. Because, you see, these pundits live and die by their hatred of all things Trump and the more times they utter his name the higher go the ratings and the faster the cash piles up. It's a business model not any sort of display of honest journalism.

There's a tragic irony here. By the looks of things, so long as Mr. Trump is president, it seems that any real movement for less interventionism in the Greater Middle East may come from a part of the political right – libertarians like Rand Paul along with the president's die hard base, which is willing to follow him on any policy pronouncement. Paradoxically, these folks may find some common cause with the far left likes of Bernie Sanders and the Ocasio-Cortez crowd, but it seems unlikely that the mainstream left is prepared to lead a new antiwar charge. What with Schumer/Pelosi still in charge, you can forget about it. Given the once powerful left-led Vietnam-era protest movement, today's Dems seem deficient indeed on foreign policy substance. Odds are they'll cede this territory, once again, to the GOP.

By taking a stronger interventionist, even militarist, stand than Trump on Syria and Afghanistan, the Democrats are wading into dangerous waters. Maybe, as some say, this president shoots from the hip and has no core policy process or beliefs. Perhaps. Then again, Trump did crush fifteen Republican mainstays in 2015 and shock Hillary – and the world – in 2016. Indeed, he may know just what he's doing. While the Beltway, congressional-military-industrial complex continues to support ever more fighting and dying around the world, for the most part the American people do not . Trump, in fact, ran on a generally anti -interventionist platform, calling the Iraq War "dumb" and not to be repeated. The president's sometimes earthy – if coarse – commonsense resonated with a lot of voters, and Hillary's hawkish establishment record (including her vote for that very same Iraq War) didn't win her many new supporters.

Liberals have long believed, at least since McGovern's 1972 trouncing by Richard Nixon, that they could out-hawk the Republican hawks and win over some conservatives. It rarely worked. In fact, Dems have been playing right into bellicose Republican hands for decades. And, if they run a baby-boomer-era hawk in 2020 – say Joe Biden – they'll be headed for another shocking defeat. The combination of a (mostly, so far) strong economy and practical policy of returning US troops from unpopular wars, could, once again, out weigh this president's other liabilities.

Foreign policy won't, by itself, tip a national election. But make no mistake, if the clowns at MSNBC and "liberal" hacks on Capitol Hill keep touting their newfound militarism, they're likely to emerge from 2020 with not only smeared consciences, but four more years in the opposition.

* * *

Danny Sjursen is a US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet .

[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

turkey george palmer , 43 minutes ago link

A the politicians carry their recordsike a ball and chain. Trump had no legislative baggage so in comparison he looked ok. There may be a chance that some plan to allow e wrything to sink to near chaos is happening, with that risk of a slip up being total collapse. It would appear total collapse is likely absent some very well thought out plan by a lot of people who appear to be morons

RussianSniper , 46 minutes ago link

The neowackjobs of the bush clinton bush bozo crime sprees must answer for their war crimes!

Put these monsters before a world court in Syria, Libya, Iraq, or Yemen.

Burn them alive on pay per view.

Zero-Hegemon , 53 minutes ago link

In the US the neocons switch between parties like changing underwear. Now that the republicans are soiled they'll wear democrats instead, lobby for more war until they're good and soiled, and switch when republican populism is back on the rise (like during the Bush years, and then Obama).

dogismycopilot , 53 minutes ago link

Lost me at calling Maddow a brilliant woman

halcyon , 1 hour ago link

Danny boy got sucked into the liberel-conservative-democrat fallacy. It is all one big party called the war party. The opposition is always theatrics.

AI Agent , 1 hour ago link

Lost me when you said Rachel MadCow was a brilliant woman.

Brilliant people have ethics. If she's brilliant, she wouldn't be lying. If she's stupid, then she's not smart enough to know she's lying.

quesnay , 53 minutes ago link

I don't watch her so can't comment on that, but brilliance and ethics have nothing to do with each other.

Got The Wrong No , 31 minutes ago link

Madcow is diabolical. A brilliant unethical he/she.

Debt Slave , 1 hour ago link

We all know it. If libtards didn't hate America, they wouldn't be trying so hard to change it.

Remember the happy white culture middle class America of 1955? Libtards hate it with a passion that can only be an obsession. The first thing libtards started whining about in the 1950's was the the poor 'oppressed' negroes weren't allowed to burp and fart at the same lunch counter as the evil white man. We foolishly caved in to that first step of liberal stupidity and look where we are today. Mall shootings in Chicongo and New Jersey.

Everytime the (((media))) shows you these violent examples, just remember how we got here.

Compromising with liberals is nothing more than a highway to hell, paved with compromise and liberal 'good intentions'.

Now we have Donald Trump who is willing to tell the liberal idiots to shove their fake altruism and egalitarianism up their collective asses. This chance of a lifetime for our children may never come again.

i know who I am voting for in 2020 ...

lincolnsteffens , 1 hour ago link

I voted for McGovern. I think that was the first time I voted. Now I can't stand either political Parties. I saw the games the Republicans pulled with the Massachusetts Caucus and Convention when I was an alternate delegate for Ron Paul. There is no trick dirty enough for either Party to pull. They are without a moral compass.

Escrava Isaura , 1 hour ago link

Bring 'some' troops home is just a political maneuver not a policy change. How can you tell?

Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon.

And that's why Trump moved drones attacks operations from the military to the CIA.

There's no evidence that Trump is ending US intervention anywhere.

Now check this out when the President is Democrat.

52% of Republicans disprove withdrawing troops: Americans widely support President Obama's recent decision to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, with 75% approving. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents. Republicans, however, are slightly more likely to disapprove than approve.

AI Agent , 1 hour ago link

How does firing Bannon mean Trump is an imperialist? That doesn't follow, it's a non-sequitur.

quesnay , 57 minutes ago link

I would argue that the Republicans are slightly more principled, although not necessarily in a good way. As your poll shows, when Obama was in power, 96% of Democrats were in favor of removing Troops. 96%!! And now only around 28% of Democrats support withdrawal - https://theintercept.com/2019/01/11/as-democratic-elites-reunite-with-neocons-the-partys-voters-are-becoming-far-more-militaristic-and-pro-war-than-republicans/ . This is almost a complete reversal.

The Republican position went from 50% supporting withdrawal with Obama to 70% under Trump. A change for sure, but not nearly as dramatic as the Democrats which have completely changed their positions i.e. their position has nothing to do with principles what-so-ever.

desertboy , 24 minutes ago link

So, I can interpret the deeper meaning of statements made by others, through your displayed intellectual acumen?

Really quite remarkable -- how utterly foreign is just a little introspection for some.

smacker , 11 minutes ago link

@Escrava Isaura: " Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon. "

Not so sure of the connection there.

But America is an imperial nation (both major parties have supported this for years) and the problem now is that its imperialism is on an irreversible trajectory which will bring it to an end. As one might expect, they are trying to keep it alive but that will only delay the inevitable. What we don't know is whether it will end with a whimper or a big bang.

[Jan 13, 2019] Parkinson disease and Russians

Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:46 am GMT

Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van, and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.

[Jan 13, 2019] The only reason the evil bastards who control our society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to lunch on the most important issues of our time.

Notable quotes:
"... This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. ..."
"... They are CIA assets who do what they're told. ..."
"... There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true. ..."
"... Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness. ..."
"... I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness. ..."
"... If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants. ..."
"... The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil. ..."
"... Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down. ..."
"... "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics." ..."
"... I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment. ..."
"... "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

lavoisier , says: Website July 23, 2018 at 11:47 am GMT

@peterAUS

Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.

Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit of blame to people in general. Not holding my breath.

I fully agree with this sentiment. The only reason the evil bastards who control our society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to lunch on the most important issues of our time. If the sheeple were to take responsibility to inform themselves of what is happening today they would be able to see the lies they are being constantly exposed to as just that -- lies. And then, they could put down the beer and turn off the damn sports channel and get angry at what has happened to their country.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for ignorant people to remain ignorant.

Giuseppe , says: July 23, 2018 at 1:01 pm GMT

This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations.

They are CIA assets who do what they're told.

Gordon Pratt , says: July 23, 2018 at 2:49 pm GMT
There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true.

This is the perfect environment for the virus of groupthink to spread.

And since our leaders, both on the left and the right, may be ahead of the curve on drug usage the neocons and the politically correct may use antidepressants at greater levels than 10 per cent.

Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness.

I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness.

If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants.

AnonFromTN , says: July 23, 2018 at 3:09 pm GMT
@Gordon Pratt I think you are mistaken trying to rationalize the behavior of the political class and their puppet masters. I believe the real driver are not antidepressants, but an obscene greed, which is so blinding that it made MIC profiteers forget that to enjoy the fruits of their thievery they have to be alive.
anonymous [339] Disclaimer , says: July 23, 2018 at 3:49 pm GMT
The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil.

Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down.

Jeff Davis , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:01 pm GMT

"I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics."

I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment.

Respect , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:10 pm GMT
QUOS VULT IUPITER PERDERE DEMENTAT PRIUS

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man

Jeff Davis , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:28 pm GMT
@Lauri Törni

Feel free to attack me.

TDS is a convenient shorthand for this form of disconnect from reality. That said it is absolutely fascinating to see and puzzle over this geopolitical tectonic event. The old narrative is crumbling, with the result that people like Lauri are fighting desperately to preserve their "sanity", dependent as it is on their tribal submission to the old order and its old narrative (its timeworn lies).

"Science advances one funeral at a time."
Max Planck

By which he means that people persist in believing in those "truths" (their belief system) they have held for a lifetime. Only when they die out will a new, revised belief system replaced the old. The same in geopolitics as in science.

Jeff Davis , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:34 pm GMT
@Tulips "Malefactors of great wealth."
Simple Pseudonym , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:58 pm GMT
American dementia is not new. It is current but after the false flags of almost all of our (US) wars going back as far as the Barbary Pirates, Americans have thrived on being the good guys in an evil world. We are SO GOOD, and the world thinks we are perfect and want to be part of US so much, that any other thought is treasonous.

The fact that getting along with Russia is necessary to NOT create armageddon, is irrelevant to the typical citizen because no matter how wrong, we are blessed and perfect in the eyes of the gawd we pretend to believe in.

So, same old same old

[Jan 13, 2019] They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control

Notable quotes:
"... Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

MK-DELTABURKE , says: July 22, 2018 at 8:25 pm GMT

@Cagey Beast Aspen Institute does make attempts at outreach, but they invariably cock it up by eliciting, recruiting, or suborning every single person they bring in. The shitheads even tried to do it to me. You would think they'd have a dossier saying I hate those cobags.

Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control.

Cagey Beast , says: July 22, 2018 at 10:58 pm GMT
@MK-DELTABURKE Exactly.

Aspen Institute is CIA.

Yes, the Aspen Institute is the CIA and the CIA is the Aspen Institute. Or, to be more precise, the CIA is the armed wing of Washington's permanently governing technocratic party, in the same way the KGB was the armed wing of the Soviet Communist Party.

Poor Julian Assange is likely going to be in their hands not too long from now. The citizen of one Five Eyes country will be arrested by another and then sent off to the imperial metropole, to be kicked around like a political football. The rest of us Anglosphericals are expected to cheer or remain silent. Either is acceptable.

skrik , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:59 am GMT
@TG

there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them

Me: Oh yes there is; by *them* I don't mean "Zuckerberg, others" but the actual rulers of 'the West,' then see this:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Consider also:

Aspen Institute is CIA

and [perhaps most critically] this:

may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!

Now, I term the actual rulers of 'the West' the ccc = covert criminal cabal. Of course they are in hiding -- acting from 'behind the curtain,' as some have it -- it has to be that *dishonest* way -- for them. Among their most notable 'fruits' are the JFK murder, USS Liberty outrage, inside-job 9/11 psyop and the utterly wicked destruction of Libya/Gaddafi, just 4 of many. The extended list is looong, and note that the 1st 3 in my list demonstrate the ccc 'murdering their own' -- except that to the ccc, anybody not actually in the ccc itself is not 'their own' but only exploitable/disposable objects. Of course the ccc causes lies to be promulgated, hence the Lügenpresse . Neoliberalism/austerity must also come from the ccc, causing misery wherever it's forced upon us, we the people. One of the spivs in suits who 'sold' neoliberalism to the Aus people called it 'economic rationalism' and jeered: 'What would you rather -- irrational economics?' Another ccc modus operandi item is coercion as demonstrated by the downstream effects of Downer's "Get a briefing!" -- which shows us that the CIA et al. is a 'command conduit' if not a command originator. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the ccc does not merely operate like a mafia, it *is* a mafia, and one of the author's "may depend on" items suggests a name for this mafia, namely: Khazar. That's our miserable world, deliberately made that way by that mafia; if that's not 'mindless and demented' what is? rgds

Pancho Perico , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:27 pm GMT
@MK-DELTABURKE The Aspen Institute is CIA, but the CIA is an organization created and controlled by the globalist conspirators at the Council on Foreign Relations, mostly the Rockefellers and other banksters.

[Jan 13, 2019] The USA repeats the history of the later Roman empire, with the army and intelligence agencies firmly in control

Intelligence agencies are a new Praetorian Guard
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

jilles dykstra , says: July 23, 2018 at 7:30 am GMT

In my opinion, no dementia. Too many careers and institutions are built on continuing hostility towards Russia. First ECB President Duisenberg's ph d thesis had as title 'The economic consequences of peace', something like that, his conclusion was that demilitarization was possible economically, when controlled sensibly.

Did anyone read 'The Iron Mountain Report', I never quite knew what to make of it, but it also is about if demilitarization is possible. Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990 describes how the USA weapons industry skillfully prevents that spending on useless weapons diminishes. The history of the later Roman empire, the army in control.

[Jan 13, 2019] The American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections

Notable quotes:
"... This link, I believe, points into a very interesting direction. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/imperial-naivete-american-public I don't think that "naivete" is a correct word there. ..."
"... the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

peterAUS , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:35 pm GMT

Back to topic. This link, I believe, points into a very interesting direction. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/imperial-naivete-american-public I don't think that "naivete" is a correct word there. Some, perhaps, interesting excerpts:

.a public lulled into a warm and fuzzy sense of moral superiority based on the notion that we only go to war to save the good and punish the evil, and if we meddle in other nations' domestic affairs and elections, we're only doing so for their own good.

If we weren't a kindly, generous Empire, we'd let them go down the drain without trying to set them straight.

Key expression " moral superiority "

There is more:

. the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections.

I don't think it's "naive" though. It's something else like, again:

there are no limits on our execution of power because we're morally superior

That is the key. That is what, deep in their hearts, Americans believe. We .are .better than .anybody .else. So, blaming "them", media, whatever no no that's a copout. Weak one. The crux is simple, eternal, hard wired: "I am better than you". "I can be homeless punk here, but, I am better than YOU." Feels good. That's all.

Blasphemy, a?

[Jan 12, 2019] Gen Kelly is a liar and coverup artist for his and others incompetence and inadequacies

Jan 12, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

im1dc , January 08, 2019 at 08:52 AM

No reason to believe anything retired Gen Kelly says ever, S. Harris nails the incompetent lying BS'er in her book

imo, he's a typical US Marine, a liar and coverup artist for his and others incompetence and inadequacies

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-john-kelly-got-mad-that-i-called-him-at-home-about-the-travel-ban

"Kamala Harris: John Kelly Got Mad That I Called Him at Home About the Travel Ban"

by Gideon Resnick...01.08.19... 5:16 AM ET

"In the early days of President's Trump first term, when he signed an executive order to ban travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority nations, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) decided to get more information about the chaos occurring at airports across the country.

"So I called [then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary] John Kelly," Harris writes in her new book, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.

Senators talking to Cabinet members is not rare, especially when it involves a pressing legal and political matter. But Harris hadn't called Kelly at his office. She had dialed him at home. And the soon-to-be chief of staff was not exactly pleased.

"There were a lot of ways Secretary Kelly could have shown responsiveness, a lot of information he could have provided," Harris writes. "Indeed the American people had a right to this information, and, given my oversight role on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, I intended to get it. Instead, he said gruffly, "Why are you calling me at home with this?" That was his chief concern. By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn't understand the depth of what was going on. He said he'd get back to me, but he never did."...

[Jan 12, 2019] In the news: NBC and MSNBC have been officially merged with the CIA

May be not yet, but talks talks are under way and hiring of former CIA officials commenced :-). What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak.
Jan 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were slow jamming the TPP with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).

The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist" revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things happen, and here we are.

... ... ...

And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other David Brock outfits , and a legion of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity, disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course, in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.

The good news is

[Jan 12, 2019] Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment by Diana Johnstone

A mind is a terrible thing to lose
Any unbiased observer would suspect that considerable part of US Congress consists of senile gerantocrats...
Notable quotes:
"... You can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery you have to be alive. ..."
"... They tricked us the last time, I hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore. ..."
"... Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous financial resources and access to the entire legacy media ..."
"... Let's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them "oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc. ..."
"... This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational, breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else besides. ..."
"... It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them. ..."
Jan 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Where to begin to analyze the madness of mainstream media in reaction to the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki? By focusing on the individual, psychology has neglected the problem of mass insanity, which has now overwhelmed the United States establishment, its mass media and most of its copycat European subsidiaries. The individuals may be sane, but as a herd they are ready to leap off the cliff.

For the past two years, a particular power group has sought to explain away its loss of power – or rather, its loss of the Presidency, as it still holds a predominance of institutional power – by creation of a myth. Mainstream media is known for its herd behavior, and in this case the editors, commentators, journalists have talked themselves into a story that initially they themselves could hardly take seriously.

Donald Trump was elected by Russia ?

On the face of it, this is preposterous. Okay, the United States can manage to rig elections in Honduras, or Serbia, or even Ukraine, but the United States is a bit too big and complex to leave the choice of the Presidency to a barrage of electronic messages totally unread by most voters. If this were so, Russia wouldn't need to try to "undermine our democracy". It would mean that our democracy was already undermined, in tatters, dead. A standing corpse ready to be knocked over by a tweet.

Even if, as is alleged without evidence, an army of Russian bots (even bigger than the notorious Israeli army of bots) was besieging social media with its nefarious slanders against poor innocent Hillary Clinton, this could determine an election only in a vacuum, with no other influences in the field. But there was a lot of other stuff going on in the 2016 election, some for Trump and some for Hillary, and Hillary herself scored a crucial own goal by denigrating millions of Americans as "deplorables" because they didn't fit into her identity politics constituencies.

The Russians could do nothing to build support for Trump, and there is not a hint of evidence that they tried. They might have done something to harm Hillary, because there was so much there: the private server emails, the Clinton foundation, the murder of Moammer Gaddafi, the call for a no-fly zone in Syria they didn't have to invent it. It was there. So was the hanky panky at the Democratic National Committee, on which the Clintonite accusations focus, perhaps to cause everyone to forget much worse things.

When you come to think of it, the DNC scandal focused on Debbie Wasserman Schultz, not on Hillary herself. Screaming about "Russian hacking the DNC" has been a distraction from much more serious accusations against Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders supporters didn't need those "revelations" to make them stop loving Hillary or even to discover that the DNC was working against Bernie. It was always perfectly obvious.

So at worst, "the Russians" are accused of revealing some relatively minor facts concerning the Hillary Clinton campaign. Big deal.

But that is enough, after two years of fakery, to send the establishment into a frenzy of accusations of "treason" when Trump does what he said he would do while campaigning, try to normalize relations with Russia.

This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. They have based their careers on the illusion of sharing the world empire by following U.S. whims in the Middle East and transforming the mission of their armed forces from defense into foreign intervention units of NATO under U.S. command. Having not thought seriously about the implications of this for over half a century, they panic at the suggestion of being left to themselves.

The Western elite is now suffering from self-inflicted dementia.

Donald Trump is not particularly articulate, navigating through the language with a small repetitive vocabulary, but what he said at his Helsinki press conference was honest and even brave. As the hounds bay for his blood, he quite correctly refused to endorse the "findings" of US intelligence agencies, fourteen years after the same agencies "found" that Iraq was bursting with weapons of mass destruction. How in the world could anyone expect anything else?

But for the mainstream media, "the story" at the Helsinki summit, even the only story, was Trump's reaction to the, er, trumped up charges of Russian interference in our democracy. Were you or were you not elected thanks to Russian hackers? All they wanted was a yes or no answer. Which could not possibly be yes. So they could write their reports in advance.

Anyone who has frequented mainstream journalists, especially those who cover the "big stories" on international affairs, is aware of their obligatory conformism, with few exceptions. To get the job, one must have important "sources", meaning government spokesmen who are willing to tell you what "the story" is, often without being identified. Once they know what "the story" is, competition sets in: competition as to how to tell it. That leads to an escalation of rhetoric, variations on the theme: "The President has betrayed our great country to the Russian enemy. Treason!"

This demented chorus on "Russian hacking" prevented mainstream media from even doing their job. Not even mentioning, much less analyzing, any of the real issues at the summit. To find analysis, one must go on line, away from the official fake news to independent reporting. For example, "the Moon of Alabama" site offers an intelligent interpretation of the Trump strategy , which sounds infinitely more plausible than "the story". In short, Trump is trying to woo Russia away from China, in a reverse version of Kissinger's strategy forty years ago to woo China away from Russia, thus avoiding a continental alliance against the United States. This may not work because the United States has proven so untrustworthy that the cautious Russians are highly unlikely to abandon their alliance with China for shadows. But it makes perfect sense as an explanation of Trump's policy, unlike the caterwauling we've been hearing from Senators and talking heads on CNN.

Those people seem to have no idea of what diplomacy is about. They cannot conceive of agreements that would be beneficial to both sides. No, it's got to be a zero sum game, winner take all. If they win, we lose, and vice versa.

They also have no idea of the harm to both sides if they do not agree. They have no project, no strategy. Just hate Trump.

He seems totally isolated, and every morning I look at the news to see if he has been assassinated yet.

It is unimaginable for our Manichean moralists that Putin might also be under fire at home for failing to chide the American president for U.S. violations of human rights in Guantanamo, murderous drone strikes against defenseless citizens throughout the Middle East, the destruction of Libya in violation of the UN mandate, interference in the elections of countless countries by government-financed "non-governmental organizations" (the National Endowment of Democracy), worldwide electronic spying, invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the world's greatest prison population and regular massacres of school children. But the diplomatic Russians know how to be polite.

Still, if Trump actually makes a "deal", there may be losers – neither the U.S. nor Russia but third parties. When two great powers reach agreement, it is often at somebody else's expense. The West Europeans are afraid it will be them, but such fears are groundless. All Putin wants is normal relations with the West, which is not much to ask.

Rather, candidate number one for paying the price are the Palestinians, or even Iran, in marginal ways. At the press conference, asked about possible areas of cooperation between the two nuclear powers, Trump suggested that the two could agree on helping Israel:

"We both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu. They would like to do certain things with respect to Syria, having to do with the safety of Israel. In that respect, we absolutely would like to work in order to help Israel. Israel will be working with us. So both countries would work jointly."

In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have much choice.

On another subject, Trump said that "our militaries" get along with the Russians "better than our politicians". This is another daring bet, on military realism that could somehow neutralize military industrial congressional complex lobbying for more and more weapons.

In short, the only chance to end the nuclear war threat may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!

The hysterical neoliberal globalists seem to have ruled out any other possibility – and perhaps this one too.

"Constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia forwards the opportunity to open new pathways toward peace and stability in our world" Trump declared "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics."

That is more than his political enemies can claim.

Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment

exiled off mainstreet , says: July 20, 2018 at 7:02 am GMT

This is a frightening, accurate commentary on what we face as a result of an unaccountable power structure resorting to any and all means to retain power which, if this structure continues to exercise it, will lead to our extinction.
Donatella , says: July 21, 2018 at 2:08 pm GMT
Thanks to say things that make me feel not alone.
AnonFromTN , says: July 22, 2018 at 3:30 am GMT
In the establishment, it's not dementia as such, it's just serving the highest bidder. You can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery you have to be alive. If only they die, it would be a great service to the humanity. Unfortunately, the way things go, they might take us all with them.
Cyrano , says: July 22, 2018 at 8:42 am GMT
This mass hysteria over a country hostile to both democracy and gay rights (it's hard to tell which one is worse) has been seen in the west before.

It's very reminiscent of the lead-up to Iraq war in 2003. I mean what's next? Are they gonna accuse Russia of having WMD's too?

They are pretty good at providing false evidence of WMD's, I wouldn't be surprised if they stage another presentation of evidence of Russian WMD's at UN, complete with satellite images of mobile trucks equipped with Uranium enrichment technology and all that.

That Nikki Halley can be quite persuasive, you know. I just hope that the world doesn't buy that BS again. Russia having WMD's? That's preposterous. They tricked us the last time, I hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore.

Cagey Beast , says: July 22, 2018 at 11:18 am GMT
Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous financial resources and access to the entire legacy media but seem to have almost no real base of support. Remember how the Never Trumpers had no one more prominent and well-known than Evan McMullan (!!) to run as their candidate? Note too the tiny number of views the YouTube videos of the Aspen Institute get: https://www.youtube.com/user/AspenInstitute/videos .

On its own, these things aren't conclusive proof but together they add up. The Aspen Institute crowd is an almost entirely self-contained subculture. They seem to have no base of support, beyond their stacks of money, job titles and the power that come with the various offices they hold. That's probably why they can never stop calling their opponents "populists" or why Bill Kristol keeps tweeting about encountering scrappy shoeshine boys who shout "give Trump hell, Mr Kristol!" as he goes about his urban peregrinations.

Anonymous [115] Disclaimer , says: July 22, 2018 at 11:54 am GMT
OT

Diana Johnstone is not alone. Others on the alt-Left are starting to wake up, too. This is Joaquín Flores:

People are seeing through dishonesty, and the old language traps are used up and done for. If reconquista is the goal, then we need to have an honest conversation about that. If there's a Latino nation with self determination in the south-west US, or rights 'back' to the south-west US, then let's speak of it in such terms. Because then we'd be looking at a Euro-American nation also. Now of course there's issues of interpenetrated peoples, and identities we carry in our minds in diverse urban centers. But the point here is that we have to have an honest discourse, and stop hiding reconquista sentiments under the rubric of 'human rights'. Because European-Americans don't have right of return to Europe, so the left is promoting what will ultimately be a race war, full scale, if they don't chill the fuck out and back off this disingenuous approach to policy-wonkism on immigration.

The paradigmatic question today is, how is wealth made, and where does wealth come from? What is the balance of trade and debts, and how is that is no longer manageable? The US empire and NATO is no longer manageable. Trump is unwinding NATO. That can't be a bad thing.

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/07/explaining-trump-to-socialist-liberals-flores/

Fort Russ News is really turning out to be a leading voice of the Third Way movement.

Tulips , says: July 22, 2018 at 7:31 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN Let's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them "oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc.
AnonFromTN , says: July 22, 2018 at 9:44 pm GMT
@Tulips You are right, of course, the word "elites" has too many positive connotations. In fact, they are oligarchs, mega-thieves, or something on those lines. Functionally, in our society they are puppet masters of all the venal puppets (politicians, journos, etc.).
TG , says: July 23, 2018 at 4:56 am GMT
I hear you, and I sympathize, but this is not mass dementia. The oligarchy that runs the United States was worried that Donald Trump might actually (!!) take some consideration for the national interest of the people of the United States of America. That will never do.

This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational, breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else besides.

It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them.

peterAUS , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:48 am GMT
@TG Agree.

Having a title "Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment" and approaching this effort as "mass insanity", "demented chorus" etc. is simply delusional.

They know exactly what they are doing and, it appears, they are doing it well. The are able to create their own reality. What puzzles me a bit isn't "them" or their servants (media etc.). It's people in general. They appear to be buying that manufactured reality with ease. In this era of instant communications it's .sobering. This constant shitting on "them" and their servants is fine and dandy but feels as just a feel good exercise. Perhaps some effort could be spared in trying to analyze and explain common people approach to all this. The buying, hook and sinker, that manufacture.

Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.

Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit of blame to people in general.

Not holding my breath.

jilles dykstra , says: July 23, 2018 at 7:31 am GMT
@Tulips I suggest 'ruling class'
Anon [122] Disclaimer , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:07 am GMT
@Daniel Rich The Russians are by nature cautious. They are a conglomerate of individuals, many of whom remember times when they would be sent by communist tyrants to a gulag for Wrongthink. Of course they're cautious.
Daniel Rich , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:13 am GMT
H.E. Mr. Putin clearly knows what the USA/West is about – Link to Youtube [03:42]
nagra , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:34 am GMT
How Hillary Clinton could even run for presidency after the murder of Moammer Gaddafi and Libya destruction, in any decent civilisation and society.
That's planetary shame and the most important question, not DNC hack or anything else, which just trace in wrong direction.

So, Trump should grow some balls and arrest not just her but Barack Obama as well on the same charges, as war criminals as they are, and prove that he really deserves to be trusted. And sacrifice himself in the process if needed as that would do any honest true US president, and he knew what to expect from such position from the start.

It's not TV reality show, as still it is. All he cares about is his ego and popularity, and he is loosing both.

Israel lobby finally see that they put their money in the wrong bank. I intend to believe more that West, namely USA and UK the most, keeps them more hostage in uncertainty for decades than in some Jewish conspiracy. Also, I also believe that only Russia can guaranty Israel security and peace in the region.

Sean , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:12 am GMT

In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have much choice.

Saudi Arabia spent 40 billion dollars helping Saddam's Iraq in its war against Iran, the cost of US efforts in the Syria civil war have largely been met by the Saudis. The coming attack on Iran will be as much to please the Saudis as to lock Israel into West Bank Arab expulsion mode. The Israel Lobby will is not pushing Donald Trump, they are playing catch up with him. Trump has already shown with the Jerusalem recognition that he is encouraging Israel in unilateral courses of action.

Cagey Beast , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:42 am GMT
@TG No, I agree with the assessment in this article and its title: the establishment is dangerously detached from reality right now. Our stagnant and locked-down political culture in the West allowed the "elite" to develop a false sense of security and and certainty. They thought they had things pretty much figured out a few years ago but now they're genuinely panicked.
yurivku , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:43 am GMT
Looking to this circus from Russia, to those insane speaches, insulting caricatures in MSM, I understand the huge amount of rotteness of Western society, mainly its high top part, but not only. Even here in comments (not in this particularly article) the percentage of trolls and brainwashed idiots exceeds all I could've imagined. So I stopped writing here – no sense, I beleive that something can change only after the dramatic changes in US/West society and that is possible only after a big war/revolution.
So, I'm afraid our future is vague

[Jan 11, 2019] That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on everyone but themselves

Jan 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete , says: Next New Comment January 11, 2019 at 1:04 pm GMT

That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on [everyone but themselves].

Another sign of degeneracy is that masses of people put their faith in such human garbage and fantasize that the essentially effortless task of casting ballots every few years will somehow, perhaps magically, improve their situations. Even more telling is the infantilism demonstrated by the attitude that they're special and "da gweatist" and that the world should cater to their every whim just like mommy and daddy did.

Dream on, darlings!

macilrae , says: Next New Comment January 11, 2019 at 3:29 pm GMT

Unlike the Titanic, most collapsed regimes don't fully sink. They remain about half under water, and half above, possibly with an orchestra still playing joyful music. And in the most expensive top deck cabins, a pretty luxurious lifestyle can be maintained by the elites.

A clever metaphor.

incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors.

Just so.

Dmitry Orlov's assessment rings dead true to me. The most terrifying factor is that a doomed and demented US administration may resort to the use of its vast air and missile power to save itself.

[Jan 11, 2019] There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.

Dec 18, 2018 | www.unz.com

Cyrano says: December 14, 2018 at 7:44 pm GMT 100 Words

If I could pinpoint where the things went wrong for the west – I would say it happened when they invented the idiocy of multiculturalism. It was supposed to prevent socialist revolution and on the face of it, it seemed pretty clever, but it's actually a moronic idea.

The thing that you are supposed to prevent should be the absolute worst case scenario, replaced with more benign idea. With multiculturalism – its' actually the opposite.

The remedy is worse than the malady. Multiculturalism is going to destroy the western civilization.

With that in mind and in the spirit of public service, I propose to replace the propaganda slogan: Diversity is our strength (which doesn't make sense to anybody), with a more logical and understandable propaganda slogan:

Diversity is our perversity. What Lies Behind the Malaise of the West?

Pat the rat , says: December 14, 2018 at 11:10 pm GMT

Feminism has been the cancer, pat.

Elite double income families have enjoyed great prosperity and influence and required many desk jobs for their wives and daughters, preferably in government. They have been fine, had a kid or two now and again and are very keen on their own self perceived virtue. Deep down they know the two incomes they enjoy comes at the expense of working class men who might aspire to better but are now rarely satisfied.

Further down the ladder poor men and women can rarely form bond and form stable families. They have little money and their women would rather use Uncle Sam as a partner.

They are harassed by one do-gooding government department after another.

The same do-Gooders have no problem with poor communities being flooded with porn and smut, nor do they seem overly concerned about rising house prices and rent. Wonder why?

There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.

MEN MUST STOP CHASING SEX AND THINK OF THEIR NEIGHBOR PARTICULARLY THEIR POOR NEIGHBOR.

Corvinus , says: December 14, 2018 at 11:20 pm GMT
@Ace "All if this combines to ensure that America is the go-to place for clowns everywhere. Nothing will be able to correct this cavalcade of lunacy, chaos, depravity, and destruction except economic catastrophe, coming soon to a neighborhood on top of you. Then to be followed immediately by dictatorship and years of statist and racial excess until, with luck, we reduscover what we have now uf we'd but lift a finger to protect it."

Congratulations, you are a doormat to the decline. So, what are you prepared to do about this dire situation other than lament and complain?

[Jan 11, 2019] It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure

Notable quotes:
"... If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. ..."
"... To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. ..."
"... I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm ..."
"... The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

I emailed Dmitry Orlov and asked him the following question:

In your recent article " The Year the Planet Flipped Over " you paint a devastating picture of the state of the Empire:

It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure. Beneath the rosy statistics of US economic growth hides the hideous fact that it is the result of a tax holiday granted to transnational corporations to entice them to repatriate their profits. While this hasn't helped them (their stocks are currently cratering) it has been a disaster for the US government as well as for the economic system as whole. Tax receipts have shrunk. The budget deficit for 2018 exceeds $779 billion.

Meanwhile, the trade wars which Trump initiated have caused the trade deficit to increase by 17% from the year before. Plans to repatriate industrial production from low-cost countries remain vaporous because the three key elements which China had as it industrialized (cheap energy, cheap labor and low cost of doing business) are altogether missing. Government debt is already beyond reasonable and its expansion is still accelerating, with just the interest payments set to exceed half a trillion a year within a decade.

This trajectory does not bode well for the continued existence of the United States as a going concern. Nobody, either in the United States or beyond, has the power to significantly alter this trajectory. Trump's thrashing about may have moved things along faster than they otherwise would have, at least in the sense of helping convince the entire world that the US is selfish, feckless, ultimately self-destructive and generally unreliable as a partner. In the end it won't matter who was president of the US -- it never has. Among those the US president has succeeded in hurting most are his European allies. His attacks on Russian energy exports to Europe, on European car manufacturers and on Europe's trade with Iran have caused a fair amount of damage, both political and economic, without compensating for it with any perceived or actual benefits.

Meanwhile, as the globalist world order, which much of Europe's population appears ready to declare a failure, begins to unravel, the European Union is rapidly becoming ungovernable, with established political parties unable to form coalitions with ever-more-numerous populist upstarts. It is too early to say that the EU has already failed altogether, but it already seems safe to predict that within a decade it will no longer remain as a serious international factor.

Although the disastrous quality and the ruinous mistakes of Europe's own leadership deserve a lot of the blame, some of it should rest with the erratic, destructive behavior of their transoceanic Big Brother. The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the world.

The departure from Syria is inevitable whether Trump, under relentless pressure from his bipartisan warmongers, backtracks on this commitment or not. Now that Syria has been armed with Russia's up-to-date air defense weapons the US no longer maintains air superiority there, and without air superiority the US military is unable to do anything. Afghanistan is next; there, it seems outlandish to think that the Washingtonians will be able to achieve any sort of reasonable accommodation with the Taliban.

Their departure will spell the end of Kabul as a center of corruption where foreigners steal humanitarian aid and other resources. Somewhere along the way the remaining US troops will also be pulled out of Iraq, where the parliament, angered by Trump's impromptu visit to a US base, recently voted to expel them. And that will put paid to the entire US adventure in the Middle East since 9/11: $4,704,439,588,308 has been squandered, to be precise , or $14,444 for every man, woman and child in the US.

The biggest winners in all of this are, obviously, the people of the entire region, because they will no longer be subjected to indiscriminate US harassment and bombardment, followed by Russia, China and Iran, with Russia solidifying its position as the ultimate arbiter of international security arrangements thanks to its unmatched military capabilities and demonstrated knowhow for coercion to peace. Syria's fate will be decided by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US not even invited to the talks. Afghanistan will fall into the sphere of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the biggest losers will be former US regional allies, first and foremost Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia.

My question for you is this: where would you place the US (or the Empire) on your 5 stages of decline and do you believe that the US (or the Empire) can reverse that trend?

Here is Dmitry's reply:

Collapse, at each stage, is a historical process that takes time to run its course as the system adapts to changing circumstances, compensates for its weaknesses and finds ways to continue functioning at some level. But what changes rather suddenly is faith or, to put it in more businesslike terms, sentiment. A large segment of the population or an entire political class within a country or the entire world can function based on a certain set of assumptions for much longer than the situation warrants but then over a very short period of time switch to a different set of assumptions. All that sustains the status quo beyond that point is institutional inertia. It imposes limits on how fast systems can change without collapsing entirely. Beyond that point, people will tolerate the older practices only until replacements for them can be found.

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.

Internationally, the major change in sentiment in the world has to do with the role of the US dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and the Yen -- the other two reserve currencies of the three-legged globalist central banker stool). The world is transitioning to the use of local currencies, currency swaps and commodities markets backed by gold. The catalyst for this change of sentiment was provided by the US administration itself which sawed through its own perch by its use of unilateral sanctions. By using its control over dollar-based transactions to block international transactions it doesn't happen to like it forced other countries to start looking for alternatives. Now a growing list of countries sees throwing off the shackles of the US dollar as a strategic goal. Russia and China use the ruble and the yuan for their expanding trade; Iran sells oil to India for rupees. Saudi Arabia has started to accept the yuan for its oil.

This change has many knock-on effects. If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. Consequently, there is no longer a need to buy up large quantities of US Treasury notes. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to run large trade surpluses with the US, essentially conducting trade at a loss. Further, the attractiveness of the US as an export market drops and the cost of imports to the US rises, thereby driving up cost inflation. A vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the US government and national bankruptcy then follow.

The US may still look mighty, but its dire fiscal predicament coupled with its denial of the inevitability of bankruptcy, makes it into something of a Blanche DuBois from the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire." She was "always dependent on the kindness of strangers" but was tragically unable to tell the difference between kindness and desire. In this case, the desire is for national advantage and security, and to minimize risk by getting rid of an unreliable trading partner.

How quickly or slowly this comes to pass is difficult to guess at and impossible to calculate. It is possible to think of the financial system in terms of a physical analogue, with masses of funds traveling at some velocity having a certain inertia (p = mv) and with forces acting on that mass to accelerate it along a different trajectory (F = ma). It is also possible to think of it in terms of hordes of stampeding animals who can change course abruptly when panicked. The recent abrupt moves in the financial markets, where trillions of dollars of notional, purely speculative value have been wiped out within weeks, are more in line with the latter model.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.

Within the US there is really no other alternative than the market. There are a few rustic enclaves, mostly religious communities, that can feed themselves, but that's a rarity. For everyone else there is no choice but to be a consumer. Consumers who are broke are called "bums," but they are still consumers. To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. Such a culture can die by becoming irrelevant (when everyone is dead broke) but by then most of the carriers of this culture are likely to be dead too. Alternatively, it can be replaced by a more humane culture that isn't entirely based on the cult of Mammon -- perhaps, dare I think, through a return to a pre-Protestant, pre-Catholic Christian ethic that values people's souls above objects of value?

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost.

All is very murky at the moment, but I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm . Of the ones they do pay attention, a fair number of them seem clued in to the fact that the US is not a democracy at all but an elites-only sandbox in which transnational corporate and oligarchic interests build and knock down each others' sandcastles.

The extreme political polarization, where two virtually identical pro-capitalist, pro-war parties pretend to wage battle by virtue-signaling may be a symptom of the extremely decrepit state of the entire political arrangement: people are made to watch the billowing smoke and to listen to the deafening noise in the hopes that they won't notice that the wheels are no longer turning.

The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses , such as the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilettes Jaunes movement (just as an example) are definitely not.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.

I have been saying for some years now that within the US social collapse has largely run its course, although whether people actually believe that is an entire matter entirely. Defining "your people" is rather difficult. The symbols are still there -- the flag, the Statue of Liberty and a predilection for iced drinks and heaping plates of greasy fried foods -- but the melting pot seems to have suffered a meltdown and melted all the way to China. At present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home, and a fair share of the rest speak dialects of English that are not mutually intelligible with the standard North American English dialect of broadcast television and university lecturers.

Throughout its history as a British colony and as a nation the US has been dominated by the Anglo ethnos. The designation "ethnos" is not an ethnic label. It is not strictly based on genealogy, language, culture, habitat, form of government or any other single factor or group of factors. These may all be important to one extent or another, but the viability of an ethnos is based solely on its cohesion and the mutual inclusivity and common purpose of its members. The Anglo ethnos reached its zenith in the wake of World War II, during which many social groups were intermixed in the military and their more intelligent members.

Fantastic potential was unleashed when privilege -- the curse of the Anglo ethnos since its inception -- was temporarily replaced with merit and the more talented demobilized men, of whatever extraction, were given a chance at education and social advancement by the GI Bill. Speaking a new sort of American English based on the Ohio dialect as a Lingua Franca, these Yanks -- male, racist, sexist and chauvinistic and, at least in their own minds, victorious -- were ready to remake the entire world in their own image.

They proceeded to flood the entire world with oil (US oil production was in full flush then) and with machines that burned it. Such passionate acts of ethnogenesis are rare but not unusual: the Romans who conquered the entire Mediterranean basin, the barbarians who then sacked Rome, the Mongols who later conquered most of Eurasia and the Germans who for a very brief moment possessed an outsized Lebensraum are other examples.

And now it is time to ask: what remains of this proud conquering Anglo ethnos today? We hear shrill feminist cries about "toxic masculinity" and minorities of every stripe railing against "whitesplaining" and in response we hear a few whimpers but mostly silence. Those proud, conquering, virile Yanks who met and fraternized with the Red Army at the River Elbe on April 25, 1945 -- where are they? Haven't they devolved into a sad little subethnos of effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?

Will the Anglo ethnos persist as a relict, similar to how the English have managed to hold onto their royals (who are technically no longer even aristocrats since they now practice exogamy with commoners)? Or will it get wiped out in a wave of depression, mental illness and opiate abuse, its glorious history of rapine, plunder and genocide erased and the statues of its war heros/criminals knocked down? Only time will tell.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.

The term "culture" means many things to many people, but it is more productive to observe cultures than to argue about them. Cultures are expressed through people's stereotypical behaviors that are readily observable in public. These are not the negative stereotypes often used to identify and reject outsiders but the positive stereotypes -- cultural standards of behavior, really -- that serve as requirements for social adequacy and inclusion. We can readily assess the viability of a culture by observing the stereotypical behaviors of its members.

It is possible to quote statistics or to provide anecdotal evidence to assess the state and the viability of a culture, but your own eyes and other senses can provide all the evidence you need to make that determination for yourself and to decide how much faith to put in "the goodness of humanity" that is evident in the people around you.

Dmity concluded his reply by summarizing his view like this:

Cultural and social collapse are very far along. Financial collapse is waiting for a trigger. Commercial collapse will happen in stages some of which -- food deserts, for instance -- have already happened in many places. Political collapse will only become visible once the political class gives up. It's not as simple as saying which stage we are at. They are all happening in parallel, to one extent or another.

My own (totally subjective) opinion is that the US has already reached stages 1 through 4, and that there are signs that stage 5 has begun; mainly in big cities as US small towns and rural areas (Trump's power base

Don't expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse

In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only further weakens the US. What is so telling is that the Democrats are still stuck with their same clueless, incompetent and infinitely arrogant leadership, in spite of the fact that everybody knows that the Democratic Party is in deep crisis and that new faces are desperately needed. But no, they are still completely stuck in their old ways and the same gang of gerontocrats continues to rule the party apparatus.

That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors. Again, think of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the Apartheid regime in South Africa under F. W. de Klerk, or the Kerensky regime in 1917 Russia.

As for the Republicans, they are basically a subsidiary of the Israeli Likud Party. Just take a look at the long list of losers the Likud produced at home, and you will get a sense of what they can do in its US colony.

Eventually the US will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to it's territory. But that can only happen after a real regime change (as opposed to a change in Presidential Administration) which, itself, is only going to happen after an "E2 catastrophe" collapse.

Until then, we will all be waiting for Godot.

peterAUS , says: January 11, 2019 at 5:13 am GMT

Stopped reading at:

The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the world.

Well, it's O.K. to have online therapy with that brief dopamine rush every now and then. Does help, I guess.

But, looks like, in order to keep having the "fix" the blathering is becoming ludicrous. Starting to feel desperate.

Like: " unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington .".

Some "analysts". Not even funny.

[Jan 09, 2019] Trump Foreign Policy for 2019 by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what they claimed to be humanitarian principles. ..."
"... More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe. ..."
"... Hotel California ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East cauldron, using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has thereby gone up exponentially. ..."
"... Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S. responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf, the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War. ..."
"... All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. ..."
Jan 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

Never before has any presidential administration been as all over the place in terms of national security and foreign policy as is that of Donald J. Trump. Indeed, one might well argue that there is no overriding policy at all in terms of a rational doctrine arrived at through risk versus gain analysis of developing international situations. Instead, there has been a pattern of emotional reactions fueled by media disinformation supplemented by "gut feelings" about a series of ultimately bilateral relationships that frequently have little or nothing to do with American national interests.

This is not to suggest that the "gut feelings" are always wrong. Established wisdom in Washington has long reflected the view that the United States must exercise leadership in establishing and maintaining the neoliberal consensus that gained currency after the devastation of the Second World War. Elections, free trade and a free media were to be the benchmarks of the New World Order but they also came packaged with U.S. hegemony to confront those who resisted the development. And it turned out that those "benefits" were frequently difficult to achieve as elections sometimes produced bad results while trade agreements and an uncontrolled media often worked against broader U.S. objectives. All too often the United States found itself going to war against nations that it disapproves of for reasons unrelated to any actual interests, routinely claiming inaccurately that dissident regimes were both "threatening" and disruptive of the universal values that Washington claimed to be promoting.

To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what they claimed to be humanitarian principles. Or Obama, who demanded regime change in Damascus and was prepared to launch a large-scale attack on Syria before he realized that there was no public support for such a move and backed down.

More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe.

But hope springs eternal, even in 2019. There have recently been some encouraging signs that change is in the air. Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers out of Syria and half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have slipped somewhat and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back. That Trump may have chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he succeeds in doing so, is certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California , "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."

There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3 rd , Trump offhandedly commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated shock waves through the neoconnish Washington Post 's coverage of the remarks. To be sure, other Administration officials have continued to send different signals, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisting that the U.S. will stay in Syria as long as Iran remains there.

Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East cauldron, using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has thereby gone up exponentially.

To be sure, there are some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is essentially fraudulent. They cite the unrelenting hostility coming out of the White House regarding Iran, which is vilified on a nearly daily basis for its alleged threats not only to the Middle East region but also to Western Europe and the United States. That the Administration's fulminations have little basis in reality is beside the point as it would seem that Trump, Pompeo, John Bolton and the now departed Nikki Haley all believe that the case for disarming Iran and bringing about regime change has been made effectively. Indeed, warfare directed against the Iranian economy has already begun by virtue of a punitive series of targeted sanctions with much more to come when a complete ban on oil exports kicks in in May.

Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S. responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf, the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Much of what happens in the Middle East will ultimately depend on the extent to which America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what is going on in the region. Trump, uncharacteristically, seems to be standing firm, telling a journalist that concerns about the Syria pullout are misplaced because "We give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And we give them, frankly, a lot more money than that, if you look at the books -- a lot more money than that. And they've been doing a very good job for themselves." Likewise, the much more important relationship, with Russia, will depend on the ability to ignore congressional hostility towards the Kremlin as well as the media bias that continues to promote Russiagate as a national security threat.

There is also North Korea, which has now indicated clearly that it is willing to talk to the U.S. but will revert to its nuclear development program unless sanctions are removed. And anyone for Latin America? Bolton has dubbed Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as a "troika of tyranny," though fortunately suggestions that Venezuela might be invaded by the U.S. to restore order appear to have faded.

If one reads the neocon press one cannot help but notice that China is the anointed over the horizon threat, but it is also a major trading partner and the drive to somehow renegotiate the terms whereby the two nations are linked economically will be complicated. Care must be taken lest what now appears to be an aggravated sense of great power competition becomes something more dangerous. The detention of Weng Manzhou in Canada one month ago together with the implication that the United States can and will enforce U.S. imposed sanctions globally could easily develop into a major problem with China as well as with others, including some NATO allies. The arrest has already disappeared from the media but several Canadians have been detained by Beijing and the U.S. government has warned American businessmen about traveling to China at the present time.

All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. There is admittedly a long way to go and it is very much a work in progress, but Trump actually has the ability to overrule the hawks in his administration and change the entire conversation about America's place in the world.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Trump Foreign Policy for 2019

renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

Oh for Gawds sake.
The reason the public cant figure out what the hell is up with Trump and his first pulling out of Syria forthwith and then back pedaling.
Is because no one will tell them about Bolton/Adelson and Bolton being in Israel yesterday telling Netanyahu the US will stay in Syria and wont tell them about the Kushner Jewish cabal deal with Saudi prince MBS.
And wont tell them about the neo General toddies who use war like a carpenter uses a hammer just cause that's all they know until they retire and get cushy jobs with the weapons industry.

Trump has run out of excuses for his many policy contradictions, even his supporters aren't buying them any more. A few are hanging in for the Wall, which they wont get either.

Trump is being taken down by the Dems and their liberal Jewish media and at the same time being taken down by his own installed Zionist Jews and their errand boy Bolton who every time Trump makes an announcement rushes out to contradict him.

Trump has one chance. There is no black mailable material on Trump that hasn't already come out since the NY AG is already looking into money laundering in Trumps businesses.
So Trump needs to blow every thing up .Fire Bolton, fire his son on law, fire all the zios and neos -- totally clean house and shock the shit out of everyone by bringing in some familiar names like realist Chas Freeman for the ME, Webb for Defense, etc that will have the zios, neos, deep state, the establishment and both parties pissing in their special interest bought and paid for pants.

Or he's done.

renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:30 am GMT
And then .

The Myth of the Russian Crime Boss, Semion Mogilevich, He's Israeli by Larry Johnson
(excerpts)

'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters. Only one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual evidence and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of Israel. Not a Russian.
One of the best recent examples of building the Mogilevich myth is Craig Unger's 2017 article in the New Republic, Trump's Russian Laundromat. Unger wrote:
In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. . . . he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower. . . .
The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin. . . .
In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to "launder money, to shelter and hide assets." A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the "boss of bosses" of the Russian mafia. At the time, Mogilevich -- feared even by his fellow gangsters as "the most powerful mobster in the world" -- was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America.
I have spent the last twenty years of my life working on money laundering cases and carrying out international financial investigations. I had never heard of Semion Mogilevich. Unger's claim piqued my interest. So I started digging.
I do not know if Semion is a genuine mobster. He certainly is portrayed that way in this very flawed FBI report. And that report has become ground truth for a host of writers who mindlessly repeat the fantastical claims and allegations without insisting on corroboration. Going back to my discussion about the busted gangster summit in Prague in May of 1995, I keep wondering if Mogilevich is actually an FBI asset or working for one of our friends, such as Israel. For a guy who is supposedly engaged in a broad swath of illegal activities that encompasses the gamut of bad behavior, Semion has enjoyed a relatively peaceful life. If he actually had such a record I would expect him to face a mountain of extradition requests. But that is not the case.
The final issue of relevance concerns Semion's ethnicity and citizenship status. He is not a Russian. Never has been. He is Ukrainian and a citizen of Israel. So why are media types so eager to claim Semion as proof that Donald Trump is under the thumb of the Russian mob? It does not compute."

Realist , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:38 am GMT
Excellent article. Things are coming to a head (it's about time). Here is another excellent article along the same lines.

Predators and Saprophytes, by Robert Gore

anon [196] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:00 am GMT
Trump is essentially trying to have the cake and eat it too.
anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:30 am GMT
Remember Helsinki? And then that creepy presser back home in Exceptionalia days later where, with Mr. Bolton dropping moustache dandruff down the President's collar, the talk of peace was walked back, and the lights literally went out?

So I'm afraid that the real answer to Dr. Giraldi's well put, real question is that in 2019 Donald J. Trump will lack both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia.

I hope I'm wrong, but this is nothing new and was foreseen by another of this website's best columnists:

"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."

Linh Dinh, as published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016 ("Orlando Shooting Means Trump For President")

Bolteric , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:02 am GMT
Great article as usual.
New World Order is usually capitalized.
George , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:22 am GMT
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises "

Gumption? He has ordered things, and his orders are disregarded. Tweeting his disregarded orders is gumption. Any thoughts on what more than gumption is needed?

Trump's Neocons Reverse His Syria Withdrawal Plan

Trump's Neocons Reverse His Syria Withdrawal Plan

jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:24 am GMT
@renfro

Or he's done.

He's done.

Anon [255] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:46 am GMT
@Bolteric Unless you are referring to a new world order.
jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:57 am GMT
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/2996129/russen-wij-leveren-goedkoper-gas-dan-vs
USA ambassador in the Netherlands and the Russian ambassador in a row about which country is going to sell us gas.
The Russian gas is cheaper.
Less dangerous too, maybe, liquid gas tankers are great objects for terrorist attacks.
As long as countries compete with each other about gas sales war does not seem imminent to me.
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 12:04 pm GMT
Go, Chuck!

one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California, "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."

mike k , says: January 8, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT
If Giraldi is thinking Trump is going to show some kind of intelligence, or moral sense, or simply backbone against his numerous enemies – then he is indulging in a fruitless and foolish daydream. Get real. Remember who you are dealing with.
Wally Streeter , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:18 pm GMT
Why Bolton hasn't been fired yet is a mystery. It's as if his real job is Presedential Minder and his appointment to that position was made by an unknown party. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Trump does try to fire him. It might even reveal who has the real power in this country.
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
@mike k

If Giraldi is thinking Trump is going to show some kind of intelligence, or moral sense, or simply backbone

Rest easy, sir!

Fed up Goy , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:50 pm GMT
@Mike G Actually AIPAC, Adelson, Kushner, and other assorted khazarian mafia slime are his boss. Chumps promises made are only kept if they're in line with AIPAC and HELL Aviv
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT

Why Bolton hasn't been fired yet is a mystery.

Why he was ever put in a position of power to begin with is an even bigger mystery than it is a disaster.

Fun quote borrowed from another good article over at LRC.:

"May God save the country for it is evident the people will not."

-- Millard Fillmore, 13th [purportedly in a Letter to Henry Clay (11 November 1844)]

A Farewell to 'Bargain Shopping'

EliteCommInc. , says: January 8, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMT
we'll see.
Johnny Walker Read , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:02 pm GMT
Trump is just another puppet for the moneyed powers of America and the western world. He is there to give the restless "deplorable's" the impression they have someone who is finally speaking for them and actually cares for them. The minute Trump steps to far off the reservation he is hauled back in. If he manages to get out of lasso range, other more deadly and final measures will be instituted.

If you have any doubt's about what I say, you can ask Sen. Paul Wellstone. Oh wait, no you can't, He's dead.

The Assassination of US Sen. Paul Wellstone, One of the Last Anti-War Populist Progressives

Harold Smith , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:10 pm GMT
"Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers out of Syria and half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have slipped somewhat and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back."

Didn't he also declare that he wants better relations with Russia? Yet he sees determined to take the world back to the darkest, most dangerous days of the cold war. So I guess we can't put any faith in the things he "declares."

"That Trump may have chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he succeeds in doing so, is certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California, "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."

According to his pre-election rhetoric (e.g. tweets from 2013), he broke with the "interventionist model" a long time ago; so why did he expand the illegal, immoral and unconstitutional U.S. military footprint in Syria in the first place? Of course he can leave Syria whenever he "wants" to.

"There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3rd, Trump offhandedly commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated shock waves through the neoconnish Washington Post's coverage of the remarks."

The problem is, as we see, nothing that he says or does can be taken at face value. Among other things, he's an ignorant, arrogant, stupid, shallow, incurious, feckless, malignantly narcissistic, completely morally bankrupt pathological liar – whose strings are apparently being pulled by a coterie of jewish-supremacist madmen. This is why I variously refer to him as "teflon-don-the-con-man", "orange clown", "perfidious presidential poseur"; etc.

"To be sure, there are some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is essentially fraudulent."

Why wouldn't they when it's clear that his whole presidential campaign was obviously a fraud?

"All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia."

Orange clown having "vision and necessary gumption"? Seriously? He's an unrepentant mass-murdering psychopath who "hears voices" and takes action. He's "Son of Sam" or the Zodiac killer in a suit and tie. He's leading us to planetary extinction, IMO.

Ahoy , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:14 pm GMT
They took away from him his advisors Banon and General Flyn. What happens to them will be the litmus test if he has any power at all.
renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:32 pm GMT
The Zionist have neutered Trump. He'll keep floundering claiming he gonna do something but its clear Sheldon Adelson's boy Bolton is running the country and bringing in more zio jews to plan war, hot or cold, for Iran
Trump is finished.

John Bolton, national security advisor, is tapping Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) for a key post.

FDD President Mark Dubowitz confirmed the hire on Twitter late Monday: "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." The White House has not yet publicly commented.

The story was first reported in Jewish Insider . Goldberg has locked his previously-public Twitter page, following the course taken by other NSC hires, such as Fred Fleitz (who has since departed) and Anthony Ruggiero, formerly of FDD, who swiftly locked their Twitter pages upon ascension to the White House.

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:46 pm GMT
What the U.S. has is a Zionist foreign policy driven by Zionist dual citizens who have as their number one agenda the goals of the Zionist satanic NWO! Zionists control every facet of the U.S. government and the so called congress might just as well be called the lower house of the Knesset as it grovels to kiss the hand that smites them continually in some type of Stockholm syndrome!

On 911 the Zionist controlled deep state and Israel destroyed the WTC and murdered some 3000 Americans and they got away with it and every American who has the ability to think for themselves knows that Israel and the deep state did 911! The Zionists not only got away with it but forced America into 17 years and counting of war and war crimes in the Mideast in support of the Zionist satanic goal of their NWO and in the process murdered untold millions of innocent civilians , men and women and children all for their Zionist masters who rule America!

America is under the control of the Satanist Zionists who have turned America into a nation that invades and bombs the hell out of countries and commits war crimes of the worst king and all this under the command of Zionist controlled U.S. government!

I do not know this government that is in control of America it is a foreign to me as if it came from Mars, and Trump is just another puppet in a long line of puppets going back to JFK , who was the last patriot POTUS and was shot in full view of America by the same ones who rule America today!

Zionists are going to destroy America , just as a parasite destroys its host!

anon [143] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
As long as Bolton and Pompeo are still in his cabinet, Trump has zero chance of pulling out of Syria. He needs to grow a pair and fire both of those clowns. He's gone this far, firing Haley, Kelly and Mattis, now he needs to finish the job so he can finally run the non-interventionist foreign policy that he promised his voters on the campaign trail.

Rod Rosenstein also needs to be fired, and Pence needs to be iced.

The first step to showing us he's serious is to replace John Bolton with Tulsi Gabbard.

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 2:59 pm GMT
Zionists control every facet of the U.S. government and every POTUS since JFK who they could not control so they shot him in front of America to show the people who was really in charge!

911 was done by the zionists and the zionist controlled deep state and every thinking American knows that the zionists did 911 and used this false flag to push America into illegal uncontitutional wars in the mideast for 17 years and counting all for the zionist goal of a zionist satanic NWO!

Trump is just another zionist puppet in a long line of zionist puppets and congress is the lower house of the knesset and the zionists are going to destroy America just as a parasite destroys its host.

jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:09 pm GMT
My idea is that quite a few of the commenters here do not understand that no dictator anywhere ever had absolute power.
Not Stalin, not Atatürk, not Hitler.
This is not to suggest Trump is a dictator, but to make clear that a USA president does not have absolute power.
Not even FDR had absolute power, as the diaries of Harold L Ickes make abundantly clear.
In my opinion Kennedy underestimated the forces against him.

Trump, again in my opinion, does not want suicide, not politically, not bodyly.
As long as he can handle fool Bolton, when he was at the UN staff had great difficulty not to laugh about his stupidities, why send the man away, escalate the conflict, and maybe has to accept a far more dangerous opponent ?
FDR's Bolton in my opinion was Henry L Stimson.
FDR fooled him with regard to the negotiations with Japan.
The saying is 'keep your enemies close', this was what all three dictators mentioned above did.
Trump won the elections, but he still has to annihilate Deep State.

Reuben Kaspate , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT
Maybe he wants to "Manzhou" her
jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
Ron Paul asks,

Will President Trump stand by and watch this coup taking place under his nose?

Trump's Neocons Reverse His Syria Withdrawal Plan
By Ron Paul
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/01/ron-paul/trumps-neocons-reverse-his-syria-withdrawal-plan/

Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an active participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around bully-and-exhibition-queen fashion spouting off like an adolescent.

I wonder what the dolt is tweeting now.

jacques sheete , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:15 pm GMT
Anyone else having trouble reviewing and editing posts?
Che Guava , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:17 pm GMT
Dear Doc. Giraldi,

It seems that Trump is trying, that at least is a small good. The next thing he is needing to do is to dismiss Walrus Bolton, perhaps decapitation would be a richly deserved fate?

If you were to be offered the job, would you take it? Most of readers here who are sane would love to see you have a stronger influence, but I am supposing it is never to be.

GamecockJerry , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT
Trump may be POTUS but he is just one man but he is continually beating on the door and moving the Overton window. Who was the last President – as President – who made these statements about getting out of these various 'wars' we are in. Generals and congress critters are now having to produce proof, arguments and RESULTS on why we should stay. I have seen very little of that before Trump. He certainly has a growing population behind this direction.
Obviously not much has moved in this direction, but I feel confident he will continue to batter this door and eventually it will fall. The sooner the better.
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:27 pm GMT
@jacques sheete My advise! Do not bet on it. Trump will finish his term, and he will win another one.
Harold Smith , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:29 pm GMT
@jacques sheete "Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an active participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around bully-and-exhibition-queen fashion spouting off like an adolescent.

I wonder what the dolt is tweeting now."

LOL! I couldn't have said it any better myself.

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT
@chris Regarding my use of the hit Eagles song "Hotel California" lyrics, as metaphor for ZUS war policy in Syria, Brother Chris noted & wrote, "PS BTW: awesome, Chuck for getting honorable mention in Phil's column via your Hotel California comment! ," and Brother Jacques Sheete also encouraged, said, "Go, Chuck!"

First off, I thank Phil Giraldi for using the noun "wit" to describe me, instead of the alternative "nitwit," which doubtless several U.R. commenters would have preferred.

One talent where Donald Trump is either equal to, or > 1930's FDR on-the-campaign-stump, is his being expert at the Zio art of "baiting" voters with vows to avoid war, & then executing a "switch."

There is nothing that exhausts serious American voters confidence more than ambitious politicians' campaign 'bait & switch" tactics.

Tonight, it appears President Trump shall address the "Homeland" from Oval Office.
Doubtless, he'll try to reestablish communication with his adoring voter base, silence Democrats, and in the name of a decades-long (Soros?) engineered & foreseeable "National Security Emergency," determine to build his border wall at all taxpayer cost, including permanency of a ltd. government "shut down."

What American TV viewers shall not learn about is the president's virulent pro-Greater Israel foreign policy, and Trump's silent construction of an impenetrable WALL, consisting of freak war building block-personages, namely, Steve Mnuchin, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo as a united cornerstone.
(Note: Absent in our Zio Corporate Media's vast conspiracy spin-machine is a voice which demands, "Tear down the F.P. wall!"

Regrettably, above, 'Merkins can not tear down that peace-prohibitive wall.

Thanks Phil Giraldi, Chris, and Jacques. Er , Welcome to Hotel California Discomfort Inns, D.C./Tel Aviv!

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:32 pm GMT
@jilles dykstra Trump is under Zionist control and the Zionist bankers who hold the paper on all of his properties and so even if he wanted to, can not and will not go against the Zionist control of the U.S. government.
jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Yes
anonymous [204] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:36 pm GMT
America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what is going on in the region.]

This is very laughable and only the propagandists make it.

Only the propagandists are making fake news to confuse the ignorant and illiterate people.
Trump is a war monger with different style, like criminal Obama had different style from mass murderers like Clinton family and the Zionist criminals in the different American regimes, especially since 911 staged as false flag operation by USG and Zionist Neocons to implement the plan they had against the Muslims and the region for hegemony and 'greater Israel'.

All evidence since 9/11 and before that proves that these wars are designed and carried out by the criminal and terrorist USG, its 'intellectuals', CIA, FBI and the rest of criminals in the American regime.
The 'nationalist' propagandists do not refer to 9/11 as FALSE FLAG OPERATION to protect the handas of the criminal and terrorists in American regimes to fool the public

Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia member, is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them.

Saudi Arabia and its terrorists army is US proxy army which Saudi Arabia follishly is fuding because USG terrorist state WANTS ITS COLONY TO DO THAT. Saudi Arabia cannot exist if does not OBEY THE ODER. The terrorist American regime is using the wealth of the Saudis (muslims) to kill and rob muslims. The dumb MBS must know that after they fund destruction of other states, then it would be their turn, is mbs that stupid? Then let them go down the tube. The west is milking Saudi Arabia for its geopolitical interest, staging false flag operation, to bring its dumb population on board. Is This so difficult to understand? USG has killed millions, millions, millions of people around the world. Every day is a new 'enemy', in Asia, Afria, even Europe. They construct enemy with the help of the criminal and fake media.
Now, people of the region know more than ever than NO one can trust US and their propagandists.
People of the region cannot trust the lies coming from the mouth of a Jewish Mafia member. They are not going to be fooled like American ignorant people who have been molded to be one.

The people of the region know that 'troop out of Syria' is NOTHING BUT A LIE. Because they see the activities of the criminal American and their mass murderer 'soldiers' and 'advisors' all around them.

The criminal US and jewish neocons' plan in Syria did not go according to plan. The mass murderer Obama DID EVERYTHING to implement accordingly, but were not successful due to sacrifices of Syrian people and army, Hizbullah and Iran. Russia a pro Zionist entity entered later in 2015 to fill 'a void' for its own interest and jewish mafia interest that Putin, like trump, is a member of.
Now, the jewish mafia stooge at the WH is changing the plan, but has NOT ABANDONED it. Now, the plan is to focus on Iraq as a base to weaken Iran more than ever.

To do that Trump is playing with Iraqi government, is trying to weaken its government to make it MORE dependent on Washington to follow orders with the help of TRAITOR KURDS and Turkey.

All evidence show that Trump has smuggled the terrorist MEK members, where have no influence in Iran, into Iraq to BE USED, ALONG WITH TRAITOR KURDS, for terrorist plot against Iranian people to put pressure on Iranian government.

But Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim said:

"These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo," imposed by the US is "unilateral, not international," and Iraq is "not obliged [to follow] them."

So, the plan is going to be continued by Trump, the war monger, but the propagandists tell you that IT IS THE 'DEEP STATE' DOES NOT ALLOW PEACE LOVING IDIOT TO DO ITS WORK.

They are lying to you. Trump is as criminal as the former American regimes.

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 4:50 pm GMT
@renfro Thanks for the information. Verrry interesting.
Rurik , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:09 pm GMT
Excellent article as usual.

the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House.

accepted as bogus, but the fraud is nevertheless enforced across the zio-fiefdom.

Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe.

Not to split hairs, but the fake news of 'Russian collusion' in the election, is and always has been a laughable farce. Just as any threats to Eastern Europe by Putin's Russia is a preposterous absurdity.

The real reasons for the hostility towards Russia is Russia's unwillingness to go along with ((the unilateral power's)) agenda.

https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Republican-senators-call-to-recognize-Israeli-rule-over-Golan-Heights-576675

Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in Syria.

So all their hysterical lies notwithstanding, our media and politicians are all hostile to Russia for Putin's intransigence in Syria. Not for 'hacking our democracy' or arresting Pussy Riot, or menacing Latvia or Poland. These are just more media turds for forced public consumption.

Also glad to see Brother Chuck get his mention!

c matt , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:10 pm GMT
@mike k To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array of forces facing Trump. The best intelligence he could show is to survive, and the most I would hope for is for him to bring the whole mess crashing down on his way out.
ariadna , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia."

I would put it differently and, I daresay, with more precision:
"If pigs had wings, AND if they were slender enough to enable the take-off, AND their flatulence did not create an outsize Coandă effect in flight, AND if and only if they had a strong desire to fly, then they might fly just as likely as Trump might do what Mr. Giraldi hopes he would."

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Hey Desert Fox!

Below fyr, is a curious Daily Beast report on how 2016 candidate, Trump, accepted money from Mr. Open Borders Man, Except For Israel, George Soros.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-took-liberal-icon-george-soross-money

One characteristic of a ZUS president is to capitalize on both the engineered successes and failures of their predecessors.

Hence, tonight, 'Merkins will hear President Trump speak accurately about how illegal immigration constitutes a present "National Emergency" threat; a western crisis which was promoted & established by cohort billionaire international Jew "Open Borders" engineers, & who Trump might chastise later on, but not by name.

Deus ex machina , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT
QUESTION: Is Adam Schiff, head, House Intelligence, a dual citizen?
anon [538] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:26 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski You go Chuck!

Must have been the Hail Marys.

--

btw -- re edit problems:
Problems on WP Software Upgrade?
RON UNZ • JANUARY 7, 2019

Problems on WP Software Upgrade?

--

also: Interesting post on SicSemperTyrannis: Cotton & Cruz are in Israel lobbying for recognition of Israeli annexation of Golan Hts

Don't Cheney & Biden & Kushner have financial interest in gas from Golan?

jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT
@anonymous

Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia member, is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them

.
Alas not obvious to me.
If you're fooling me, I do not know, what I do know is that a lot of assertions is not proof.

DESERT FOX , says: January 8, 2019 at 5:57 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Trump, who I voted for , has been a disappointment and I have given up all hope for him, and with his being surrounded by Zionists, it is going to take a grass roots awakening of the American people to the Zionist control of the government and that I think will not happen.

Soros , when 14 years old in Budapest Hungary lived with the Nazi commander who was charged with rounding up jews and Soros went out with the Nazis and pointed out where the jews lived and thus helped betray and send these jews to the death camps, this is true, and anyone can check this out, and not a peep out of the Zionists, they betrayed their own!

Soros and the Zionists are Satanists!

AnonFromTN , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:07 pm GMT
Trump is always for real. Problem is, he is for real for the next 15 minutes or so.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:25 pm GMT
@Rurik Knowingly, Rurik said: "Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in Syria."

Above, I totally agree, Brother Rurik.

Have not done a search/study, but I would wager Russian representatives stood tall & mighty at past globalist assemblies, for example, Davos.

Fyi, I still think Putin and Xi are to some extent acceptable to Globalist control designs, but the ZUS & western European Zionist zealots insist that an Israeli personage must sit at the right-hand of the coming (globalist) Mes$iah.

One rather purposely forgotten thing, Rurik? At Davos, January 2017, populist-President Trump's business pal, Anthony Scaramucci, delivered a curious address.

"Mooch" assured the Davos assembly that Donald Trump is "the globalists last good chance for success."

Why? Well , if Putin's and the very powerful Xi's rule happens to weaken to international Jewry's applied internal & external financial pressure, the poor world must (regrettably) suck-it-up and, in reverse, & sing together the old song lyric, "Jesus will not be just right with me."

Thanks, Brother Rurik! And no doubt, P.G. reads the comments to his articles, & he may deploy them

Moi , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
Loathed the man from the start and don't pay any attention to what he says.
Winston2 , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:38 pm GMT
@renfro Very blackmailable sadly.
Mueller has not even started,contrary to popular opinion.
Not sure what Trump won't do when his kids and biz are under threat of RICO charges and
confiscation.
Mueller will flip Alexander Slater the conduit for billions of Russian(Jewish)mafia money
laundered thru' the Trump organization.Cohen already flipped on Slater.
Mueller is involved in parallel construction of what the deep state organs already gave him.
He isn't looking for a crime,he already knows exactly what they are,he is looking for corroboration.
Charles Pewitt , says: January 8, 2019 at 6:54 pm GMT
Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.

Trump proposes some thing in regards to foreign policy and the globalizer Deep State ghouls in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire throw Trumpy some 97 mph chin music and Trumpy steps in the bucket out of fear of getting beaned in the coconut.

The Israel Firist globalizer goons in the GOP such as John Bolton and Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton do the bidding of the government of Israel and they do the bidding of wealthy Jew billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson. Jared Kushner, the money-grubbing Jewish real estate shyster, is also telling Trump to put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States.

Trump is doing good work on China, but he is not going far enough. The treasonous rat whores in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the United States sold out the sovereignty and security of the United States by allowing China to use cheap labor to crush American manufacturing. Greedy shyster rats such as Robert Rubin wanted to fully expand financialization and globalization and mass immigration to concentrate wealth and power in the United States.

Greedy dirtbags in academia fully supported the flooding of Chinese students into the United States. This has allowed Chinese intelligence assets and other Chinese elements to infiltrate themselves into areas of operation that should have been disallowed to them.

Trump should immediately put into place a 95 percent prohibitive tariff on all goods or services coming from China. Trump should begin mass deportations of as many Chinese interlopers as possible, and he should ban the entrance of any other Chinese people from entering the United States.

China and the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire are enemies of the American people.

George HW Bush and George W Bush did everything in their power to flood the United States with Chinese interlopers and Chinese manufactured products and goods. China boy George HW Bush is now rotting in Hell for pushing mass immigration and for colluding with the Communist Chinese against the best interests of the American people.

The disgusting, treasonous rats in the WASP/JEW ruling class have sold out the American people for cash and Trumpy is just now getting the American people to think in terms of US national interests when it comes to US foreign policy instead of some vague, nebulous "global economy" or some other abstraction.

In short, that German and Scottish and Irish guy named Patrick Joseph Buchanan has been right about US foreign policy and the WASP/JEW ruling class has been treasonously wrong.

RobinG , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:07 pm GMT
@renfro

'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters. Only one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual evidence and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of Israel. Not a Russian.

Thanks, renfro.

Charles Pewitt , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:22 pm GMT
@Wally Streeter John Bolton is a treasonous baby boomer globalizer rat who puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. That is treason.

John Bolton was a big backer of the Iraq War debacle.

John Bolton pushes nation-wrecking mass immigration and multicultural mayhem.

President Trump should fire John Bolton immediately.

Tweets from 2014:

RobinG , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT
@RobinG The Myth of the Russian Crime Boss, Semion Mogilevich, He's Israeli
by Larry Johnson

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/01/the-russian-myth-of-semion-mogilevich-hes-israeli-by-larry-johnson.html

Ahoy , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:33 pm GMT
This man fought for humanity to reach high ground.

This man wants humanity (the goyim part only) to burn in hell.

Americans are immersed in an existencial war for their values and beliefs. For starters start thinking what to do with poisonous Hollywood.

MEexpert , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:39 pm GMT
@jacques sheete

I wonder what the dolt is tweeting now.

Trump: Jamal Al-Badawi, Leader In USS Cole Attack, Killed: "Our GREAT MILITARY has delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole," Trump tweeted Sunday.

Mr. President, now let us ask our GREAT MILITARY to deliver justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Liberty.

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 7:55 pm GMT
@renfro Great post on N.S.A. Bolton's hiring of Richard Goldberg! Below, fyr, is followup information from National Interest.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/john-bolton-taps-iran-regime-change-advocate-40917

Unless the Islamic Republic of Iran is resisting ZUS demands, & has covert nuclear weapon & delivery systems, I am afraid that the post-WW2 (carved up) Germany landscape will become its terrible fate.

Thanks a lot for delivering such solid Gold(berg) information, renfro.

SolontoCroesus , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:24 pm GMT
@Ahoy

Americans are immersed in an existencial war for their values and beliefs. For starters start thinking what to do with poisonous Hollywood.

Hollywood is one cesspit; another is the public library that you, Mr & Mrs Taxpayer support.

I'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction writes. Among those interviewed:
David Ignatius
Brad Thor
Brad Meltzer
David Baldacci
Jodi Piccoult
Geraldine Brooks

Rabbi Manis Friedman's declaration triggered this rant:
Early in Meltzer's The Book of Lies , his main character asserts:

"If there was one constant in history it was that victors torched property, salted the earth, destroyed all the old idols. No sense warehousing the past when you could obliterate it entirely."

In, The Increment , David Ignatius praises: "The young Iranian scientist did the right thing: he betrayed his country and sold out to CIA."

Jodi Piccoult's "The Storyteller" is so full of holocaust propaganda she might as well be ghost writing for Simon Wiesenthal.

Baldacci is a hack sell-out. His writing -- as most of the others -- is two steps removed from Stratemeyer Syndicate / Hardy Boys – Nancy Drew. But be sure to mention Nazis in a bad light and Jews/Israel in a favorable light, and you're golden.

Meltzer is forthright enough to discuss his close relationship with CIA, Secret Service, and other US agencies that most of us do not have access to. What are the chances US government is subsidizing these authors to produce fiction to shape the minds of the American people?

There are non-profit organizations that work with publishing houses to send these books by the truckload to military service members in MENA and elsewhere.

Public libraries spend tens- if not hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring these books, in print, large print, and CD. Writers in this grouping construct their stories to make them readily adaptable to Hollywood movies.

The networking is extraordinary: C Span, "sponsored as a public service by your cable companies," provides a platform for these writers to promote their work.

Cable companies are owned by interests that also own newspapers as well as the publishing houses that market these books.

Hollywood is incestuously related to all of the above.

The American people are screwed every which way: their tax dollars are used to fund public libraries that peddle propaganda; they pay for cable services that propagandize them; they pay to see movies that degrade and propagandize them.

While their tormentors collect fat paychecks and laugh at them.

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:33 pm GMT
The fever pitch of Trump decent is off the charts.

Trump saying. he was going to pull out the troops from Syria – is a cultural and diplomatic earthquake. The possibility of that happening, has shaken the Jews to the core.

Look at Drudge today – things are going crazy – the Jew media is fighting him on virtually everything that is going on in America. They are attacking him on every pronouncement. It is 24/7 get Trump.

Hmm -- just who owns and controls the US MSM – JEWS.

Sorry folks – it is all Jew intimidation – they are saying to Trump "screw with Israel's security, and we Jews will kill your presidency."

Think Peace -- Do No Harm -- Art

jilles dykstra , says: January 8, 2019 at 8:56 pm GMT
@Ahoy Crazy religious people are not just among jews
Dutch politician vd Staay is under fire here because of his ideas about homosexuality, the Nashville declaration.
Why anyone bothers about such nonsense is beyond my comprehension
Probably the Torah forbids homosexuality in order to get maximum population growth
Ideas resembling what I read here, because the Chinese population grows the USA must welcome migrants
Idiots
anonymous [538] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:19 pm GMT
@Art
"ISTANBUL -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult.

Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.

"It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel," Mr. Erdogan said in a speech to political party members in Parliament. Turkey was only opposed to Kurdish militant groups and not ordinary Kurds, he insisted."

-- -- --
Erdogan Cancels Meeting With Bolton, As U.S. Seeks To Reassure Allies On Syria
NPR January 8, 2019

"Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apparently snubbed U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, canceling a planned meeting to discuss the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria as well as the fate of a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia fighting ISIS in Syria.

Bolton's meeting with Erdogan was canceled moments before it was to begin, reflecting Turkish anger at Bolton's insistence that those Kurdish forces be protected after more than 2,000 American troops exit northeastern Syria."

Harold Smith , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:21 pm GMT
@Art And then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate the Sandy Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."

And then I woke up.

Wally , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova I agree.
Hell, Trump wasn't even supposed to get this far per 'the polls' and the pre-election media onslaught, but here we are.
Strict immigration control is something way too may Americans want, even Hispanics & blacks are figuring it out, (1.3 of Hispanics actually voted for Trump in 2016), They see their wages taking a hit because of the cheap, illegal labor who pay no taxes, but access free stuff like they do.

And who will the ne0-Communists run against him? Airhead Ocasio-Cortez, Hillary? LOL
Trump would slaughter them.

The neo-Communists only chance is to get Trump out before the 2020 election with the fake Mueller thing, and that's not going to happen. Too many have seen through that scam, and Mueller has nothing or we would have seen it.

bluedog , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@Ilyana_Rozumova Your probably right and nothing will have changed,as Putin said presidents come and go but policy remains the same .
Greg Bacon , says: Website January 8, 2019 at 9:34 pm GMT
Trump will do whatever the REAL bosses, the FED, those corrupt Wall Street casinos and Israel tells him to do. He's nothing more than a carny barker, a fool that keeps the gullible marks occupied so they won't bitch about never-ending war; endless monetary support for Israel and our nation's infrastructure turning into 3rd world status while the MIC gets a bigger share each year.

Trump went bankrupt four different times, yet he's still a multi-billionaire? The ones who backed him thru that are now calling in their chits.

As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks For Corruption Charges -- Who He Owes Millions January 2018

While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the amount of money he owes them.

Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, a source told the Times that the actual number is likely much larger at $300 million.

Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years. http://thefreethoughtproject.com/trump-pardoned-megabanks-owes-millions-rampant-fraud-corruption/

Steal a couple hundred from a liquor store and you'll do ten years. Steal trillions and you'll get a pass, some money from Congress and the green light to steal again.

Wally , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:35 pm GMT
@renfro The alternative was Hillary.

I'll take my chances with Trump over the likes of Hillary, Ocasio-Cortez and the other Communists who are waiting in the wings any day.

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 9:40 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus I'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction writes.

S2C – Great comment – Thanks!

I love C-Span's weekend Book TV. It is the best programing on the tube.

They do all non-fiction except for this last year with the 3 hour long fiction writers. Most of them I turned off.

Art

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMT
@anonymous Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.

Bolton and Pompeo are living in the last century when America was respected.

The aftermath of 9/11 has destroyed our credibility. The world correctly views the US government as being controlled by the Jews.

Clearly, fighting terrorist wars for the Jews, has diminished our moral standing and place in the world. Our military is weakened and dissipated – we are falling behind in new tech – we are losing out in the cyber conflicts. America is getting dangerously behind in a thousand ways.

Bolton and Pompeo are bad guys working for the Jews – and the world knows it. Those two think, that all they have to do is say "Iran" and everyone will fall in place – it is not happening! (The world has no respect for our killing the Iran nuke deal.)

Think Peace -- Art

renfro , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Winston2

He isn't looking for a crime,he already knows exactly what they are,he is looking for corroboration

I agree with that.

Wally , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus Let's not forget the fake Diary of Anne Frank and the ridiculous & easily debunked Destruction of European Jewry</i,. by Zionist Raul Hilberg*, to name just a few of the witchcraft equivalent books on the "holocaust" that plaque our libraries.

" it is questionable whether one should accept improbable figures supplied by a not overly friendly source."
– American Jewish Year Book, , 1972, Vol. 73, p. 536

* Raul Hilberg quotes no less than 20 times as a source in his standard work about the "Holocaust" ,Filip Mueller, who described how he ate cake in an alleged cyanide-saturated gas chamber. : https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10426

Fraudulent "historian" Hilberg exposed in court : http://www.ihr.org/books/kulaszka/09hilberg.html

http://www.codoh.com

Ilyana_Rozumova , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:40 pm GMT
@anonymous Your opinion is really nice. So tell me please. Which next country US will be destroying?
Fatima Manoubia , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:51 pm GMT
Oh, I really would like to share this author´s New Year optimism with respect to the "US withdrawing from useless wars" , but, as far as I read over there, it seems quite certain the while possibly withdrawing ( in case this is going to happen anytime, or just they decide to remain so as to waste other´s victory ) from what has become useless wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, if not because of the presence of formidable opponents there, the US seems to not loose a minute to engage in others which could result much more usefull, mainly, if we remember Trump´s reproach on "we should had grabbed the oil" , and so, we have that preparations to disrupt countries in the Caribbean Sea , or intends to grabb portions of Africa even if necessary by usual method of kicking the door are next in the eternal list of unending agressions by the US and its "allies" .

After all, "it´s the oil" ..and other resources .

But I even do not discard extending IS/AQ jihad to European soil .now that the European "allies" have resulted so stubborn .

Thus, it is crystal clear to me that what we will have with Trump and the masters who put them in charge in the first place and move the strips behind him, is more of the same elevated to the nth potence .

I wonder what more is needed to have you all in the streets doing the only thing you can do to obligue them to do what you gratutiously affirm Trump is going to do ( whenever that is going to happen )
The information about what your country has always done, continue doing to date, and is all the way planning to do, is all out there for everybody to find and assess.
That you deny acknowledgment of this can only be for two reasons, willing blindness and deafness, so that your way of life does not change a bit, or willing collaboration with the so called "deep state"/"the borg" through taking part in disinformation operations, being the latter the highly likely case of, former or current, intelligence operatives/journalists/analysts .

May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake news", "fake success", "fake victories" ..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more people increasingly miserable, but, that all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and, consequently, you will end rotten in hell believe me, that is a fact .

ChuckOrloski , says: January 8, 2019 at 10:55 pm GMT
@Wally Wally said: 'Too many have seen through that ("fake Mueller thing") scam, and Mueller has nothing, or we would have seen it."

Hey Wally!

Speaking respectfully, "we" see what Zionist's want us to see, and they have no problem with 'Merkins' presumed capability to see through "fake" special prosecutor stuff.

I liken ZUS citizens' bizarre & engineered political situation to that which Simon & Garfunkel described in peppy song, "A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest."

The Zio Corporate Media, including the often gripping DrudgeReport, feasts upon what appears to be a (combined) left & right flogging of what appears to be the wounded political carcass of President Trump.

But tonight, when the contentious & divisive border-wall address is completed, Oval Office lights out, and Trump tucks-in, the ruling darkness never sleeps.

Fyi, Wally, earlier and while in-between Scranton school bus runs, I indulged "Head- Start Program, 101; No Dumb Goyim Left Behind," by reading Andrew Bacevich's mind expanding & new U.R. article, below, subtitle, "Abizaid of Arabia."

Try Bacevich? For nothing "is" as to what Zio spinners appear to tell what it is "is."

Our Man in Riyadh

Nonetheless, I greatly appreciate all your Continued Education comments & the linked coda tomes, Wally!

onebornfree , says: Website January 8, 2019 at 11:00 pm GMT
This just in!: The Wall Will Not Stop Illegal Immigration !

Even if built according "to plan" [an impossibility, of course, given the nature of governments], the border wall would not prevent illegal immigrants, except maybe in the very short term, until people found various ways around its presence.

A border wall would be just another government scam, a worthless boondoggle that would only benefit the contractors and the politicians, just like every other government program throughout history.

Why? Because so-called government "solutions" cannot work.

All one has to do to reach this conclusion is to look at the world around us with a cold, unbiased eye, and observe the massive failure of other government "solutions" to date such as:

1] the war on drugs.

2] government- run healthcare

3] government- run education

4] government environmental regulation

5] the government war on poverty via welfare programs

6] government racial integration policies

The list of failures is endless , and at the present time- ever expanding into new areas supposedly 'begging" for government "solutions" that will not work either, because , tah dah! : government "solutions " cannot ever work, [for reasons I will not get into here], although admittedly, in the very short term they might appear to work. but it never takes long for "the rot to set in"

Regards, onebornfree

RobinG , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:19 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus Do I remember correctly that perhaps David Baldacci was the ghost writer of Bill Browder's fiction-posing-as-fact, Red Notice ?
Talha , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:44 pm GMT
Who's gonna be our guy in Pakistan, Musharraf? Potential tax dollars at work:

If you see Trump shaking hands with the old general, then get set for what's coming

Peace.

Art , says: January 8, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

And then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate the Sandy Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."

And then I woke up.

Is Trump going to wake up and smell the Jews destroying him?

Will he call out the editors and CEO's of the media by name?

Hmm -- we will see what he is really made of!

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:05 am GMT
@Fatima Manoubia Hey Fatima Manoubia!

WOW! What outstanding, let me say, poetic (prophet-like) following paragraph, which addresses the doomed soul of real evildoers: "May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake news", "fake success", "fake victories" ..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more people increasingly miserable, but, that all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and, consequently, you will end rotten in hell believe me, that is a fact ."

Go, go, (Lady?) Fatima! Fyi, the sick U.S. Zio Corporate Media-directors and ZUS "Long War" practitioners cannot bear the reality of your warning. Thanks very much!

P.S.: During 1960's, Bob Dylan sang the pulsating "Masters of War" which for me, & decades later, rings to your tune.

peterAUS , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:08 am GMT
@anonymous

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home.

and, overall, simply continue with the plan.
Change of demographics, as one element of it, will, probably, accelerate.

renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski Here's another one for you.

Last year Trump Named Sigal Mandelker, a Former Israeli, as Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

She devotes all her time now trying to destroy Iran and Hezbollah for Israel.

Israeli Born Deputy Treasury Secretary: Iran Tripled Hezbollah's Annual Pay to $700 Million

Israeli Born Deputy Treasury Secretary: Iran Tripled Hezbollah's Annual Pay to $700 Million

One reason I keep pointing out the Zios now in government is that they can use their positions to create fake reports on Israel's enemies leading the US into even more actions against our own interest.
I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is. Too much of the talk about Jewish crimes and deceptions is ancient history and no one is going to punish or end Jewish manipulations over ancient history. ((They)) are only going to be stopped by exposing what they are doing TODAY.

John Doe doesn't give a shit about whatever Jews did 100, 1000 years ago. Joe Doe might give a shit about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and are sending all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY.

SolontoCroesus , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:43 am GMT
@RobinG RobinG -- most pertinent information I came across is that a British writer, William Nicholson, was working on a screenplay for a movie version of Red Notice.

I've never heard of the book. From a New York Times review, it appears there's a great deal of insider financial/ Wall Street information, which is not Baldacci's strength -- James Grippando specializes in that arena. The NYTimes review mentions Browder's "grating self-regard." Would a ghost writer allow something like that to remain unedited? (Why did an editor allow it to remain unedited?)

SolontoCroesus , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:01 am GMT
@renfro The office of Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence was created by uber Jew Stuart Levey, now legal counsel at HSBC.

When he left the post a few years ago, his former law partner, David Cohen, took his place.

Jews-who-hate-Iran created and have occupied the position at Treasury since they created it, specific ally for the purpose of bankrupting Iran.

You're right, renfro: people SHOULD know these things and SHOULD be outraged.

Thanks for putting it out there.

--

btw: Richie Goldberg has made a career of hating Iran. He was a student at a Chicago area Solomon Schechter school, whose website carried a front-page banner proclaiming their mission to "instill in students an undying devotion to Israel."

While still in his 30s, Goldberg became assistant to Illinois governor Bruce Rauner. He leveraged that position to make Illinois the first state to pass legislation divesting state pension funds from Iran-linked corporations.

Rich Goldberg is a proud defender of Israel and the United States, and that's not hyperbole; as Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs for Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and former Deputy COS to Senator Mark Kirk, Goldberg has helped advanced a number of initiatives to protect and benefit Israel and serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

In 2008, Goldberg spearheaded the deployment of X-Band missile defense radar to Israel and later played an integral role in the passage of economic sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran. This spring he helped Illinois become the first state to pass binding legislation countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Goldberg is a board member of AJC Chicago and a regional governor of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, for which he serves as the representative on Iran to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. http://www.juf.org/YLD/WYLD.ASPX (2015)

--

btw again: the Jodi Picoult book mentioned above focuses on the work of one Leo Stein, who occupies a US government office that searches out and prosecutes "Nazi war criminals," -- this novel revolves around a 93 year old "former SS" member that the main character ultimately kills. Jews use US institutions & tax $ to carry out their psychopathology

renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:33 am GMT
@SolontoCroesus Excellent additional information SC thanks.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@anon Thanks! Thanks to jiles too.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:46 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski

Great post on N.S.A. Bolton's hiring of Richard Goldberg!

I second that.

RobinG , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:47 am GMT
@SolontoCroesus "Grating self-regard" is the lesser fault with Red Notice . it's a tissue of lies. Anyway, ghost writers don't need their own depth of research, like biographers. They just take their subject's story and spin it well. His job was puffing up Browder as a hero.
renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:50 am GMT
'Morning Joe' anchor wants network TV to keep Trump's Oval Office

Fox News-3 hours ago

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday that television networks –including her own – should refuse to air President Trump's prime-time Oval

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:56 am GMT
@renfro renfro said: "I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is."

Hey renfro!

Pitifully, Jews count on millions of curiously alert American people who are trained & predisposed to "pay attention" to that which the TV tells them, and count on all to believe it, and obediently follow Judas Goat-herd authority.

At present, am a lot like you.

Average "John Does" today would let Jews slide if he/she learned that the stilted Holocaust education served as the state of Israel's launch pad, a reason to be criminal.

Now there's fascinating excitement about America getting a real 9/11 terror attack investigation, the one then FBI Director Robert Mueller missed. Am saddened to say that the Al Qaeda-perp "whopper" fantasy is more entertaining, and legions of dumb goyim (Bible-thumping) believers would persist to agree with Netanyahu's incredible assessment, "9/11 was good for Israel."

So, renfro, the great proposition is, & as you put it: "Joe Doe might give a shit about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and are sending all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY."

Big problem for me is the Protocols of Zion world takeover-plan, and how Jews will never let a bad (stinky) "taxpayer" finding fester out of control, for example, the facts you wrote, directly above.

As a pessimistic-optimist, here's how I see things: Contemporary Americans must dismount couches, reconcile to wear "do-rags" with bird feathers, fashion Anti-Zio War Paint instead of belly tattoos, and regain their stolen "Homeland."

Really hope/pray I'm nuts, renfro, but no Western Wall visit and yarmulke for me. Thank you!

DESERT FOX , says: January 9, 2019 at 2:25 am GMT
@renfro In 2001 a woman intern was found dead in then congressman Joes office with a gash on her head, and not one thing was done about this, who benefits?
Rabbitnexus , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:52 am GMT
I'd say they are getting out of Syria. If for no other reason than they lost and have nothing to do there, which is increasingly obvious despite the media held curtain of lies. I'm convinced Trump genuinely does want to withdraw US troops from some theatres but he is facing tremendous pushback from the bloated MIC and all it's little minions. Probably learning as he goes the real reasons for some of them, such as the minerals and opium in Afghanistan. I can't see them letting go of those goodies easily though replacing the troops with contractors is a likely option.
Al Moanee , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:52 am GMT
@chris "This is one crazy caper with us as 'the muscle,' Israel as 'the brain' and KSA is 'Mr. moneybags."

Indeed. I like to refer to US/SA/IS as "the Axis of upheaval", with their (respective) moto: "Force, Fund and Finagle!"

Rabbitnexus , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:12 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski People's capacity to ignore an uncomfortable reality is unlimited. I once had a shocking example of it when I and my 2 kids were witness to a massive triangle UFO, which moved silently, very low and slowly near a major road in the city I live in. My daughter hid under the dashboard and wouldn't even look. Even so that is how nearly everyone else from numerous cars reacted and even a bus which stopped and I tried to get a dozen people on-board to look at this thing. My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was absolutely ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads! I could see some of them staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under any circumstances to look. They seemed angry at me for trying to make them look even. They all either laughed at me as they passed or gave me a nasty look. This is NOT how people treat others in Perth, Western Australia usually, indeed several would normally have stopped to see if we were OK.

The people on the bus giggled and made fun of me, yet would not no matter how much I implored them simply look out that window and acknowledge a freaking massive aircraft carrier sized black aircraft no more than a couple of hundred meters off the ground. It was dusk but still somewhat light and it had three lights on it also. Eventually ONE guy did stop and look but it was a long way away by then. He could see the odd light configuration and noticed even at that distance it was not making the sound a jet would but that was it. I was astounded not by the UFO so much as by the weird reaction of most people who should have seen it yet something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they even saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have shattered their world view too much I guess.

That is why the truth of 9/11, Kennedy's slaying, the Holocaust [TM] and virtually all the wars which is so easy to access, will never become common currency so long as their acknowledgement will have a major impact on people's paradigms. The media of course do their part in feeding into this cognitive dissonance for their sheeple but in the end it is what the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they want to be validated and amused.

anon [119] Disclaimer , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:23 am GMT
John Bolton is the biggest piece of shite and no one is going to take Trump seriously as long as that traitor is still part of his cabinet.
Rabbitnexus , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:30 am GMT
More truths that people will not acknowledge, even if they were shown widely to them via their usual information swill bucket. ETs as my example directly demonstrates, MH-17, the USS Liberty. The nuclear 'Energy' lie. (Nuclear "Power stations" are really just part of the nuclear weapons process) The medical swindle around most "incurable diseases". The true history of almost any nation, they're almost all based on great founding myths which would not stand the light of examination but nobody wants to know except those for whom knowing might bring some benefit. An excuse to reclaim something supposedly lost and which loss itself is more often then not another invented myth. I despair of the human race becoming enlightened or exalting the virtues inherent in mankind. It will only happen on an individual basis, there's no 100th monkey situation that is another myth anyway.
peterAUS , says: January 9, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT

They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads! I could see some of them staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under any circumstances to look. They seemed angry at me for trying to make them look even. They all either laughed at me as they passed or gave me a nasty look.

. something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they even saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have shattered their world view too much I guess.

.will never become common currency so long as their acknowledgement will have a major impact on people's paradigms.

and, the most important:

.in the end it is what the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they want to be validated and amused.

Actually, the only important when dealing with average person.

I've had plenty related experiences. Nothing such extraordinary; just the usual stuff about power, politics, social issues, even health. Always willful, derogatory, even hostile reaction to simple common sense.

And, TPTBs do know that. That's why they are where they are.
They know the truth and act upon it. Realists.

And idealists, no matter what type, stick to their delusions. "If we could just inform and educate people" and similar bullshit.
Feels good, though.

Wally , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:58 am GMT
@ChuckOrloski Chuck:
Speaking of CODOH, coming soon from 'Holocaust Handbooks'
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, An Introduction and Update to Jean-Claude Pressac's Magnum Opus , By Germar Rudolf
http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=42

http://www.codoh.com

Art , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:04 am GMT
Oh my oh dear – surprise surprise' – Senator Marco Rubio pays back Jew sugar daddies with first bill of the 2019 Senate – killing free speech for BDS movement against Israel.

Heavens to Betsy – can you believe it – go figure' – the darling of American conservatism FOX JEWS defends the bill.

p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.

anon [128] Disclaimer , says: January 9, 2019 at 9:31 am GMT

Bolton Threatens Syria: US Troop Withdrawal "On Hold". Permanent US Military Base on Syria-Iraqi border

"On Friday, a State Department official said "(w)e have no timeline for our military forces to withdraw from" the country. Delay may turn out to be not at all.

On Sunday, a senior Iraqi parliamentarian said

"(t)he Americans have built a military base in Erbil (in) the Iraqi Kurdistan region to use against Iraq's neighboring countries, in particular Iran and Syria."

Iraqi media said the Pentagon has 14 military bases in the country – along with a reported 18 in Syria. The US is highly unlikely to abandon them, especially ones considered most strategically important.

An earlier report indicated the Pentagon intends establishing a permanent base along the Iraqi border with Syria. Turkey reportedly established one or more military bases in northwestern Aleppo.

On Saturday, a senior Trump regime official said US forces may remain indefinitely at the (illegally established) al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders "

-- -- -- -- -- –

There has been a major change in US propaganda. In its earlier versions , US has always downplayed whats it's interest are, what it is trying to achieve, how it is trying to achieve – whether the case was in Soviet or Iraq or Vietnam or Libya few years ago. Now the neocons declare what they plan how they plan and whats the objectives are . With that differences between former and current, one can see also so called victory before and the absolute defeat now.

Anon [413] Disclaimer , says: January 9, 2019 at 11:10 am GMT
@Rabbitnexus I was going to say that you had better make sure of your St Paul before taking the decisive trip on your donkey But then I see he is there ready to go in the shape of PeterAus. So now you needn't wait: get yourself crucified after alerting all the media, mainstream and alternative. Pruning the gospels for some semblance of consistency you will, I'm afraid, just have to trust Your Father will look after.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 11:30 am GMT
@Rabbitnexus

My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was absolutely ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads!

While I've never seen such a thing as a UFO, I've had similar responses from people when I've tried to warn them of potentially dangerous situations while driving on the freeway such as unlatched hoods on their cars to wobbling wheels on their trailers, to unsecured loads that were bouncing around.

Now as to the assertion that history is useless or foolish, I do agree with the idea that for most people a knowledge of history is wasted on them, but there are a significant few, I think, who see the light after understanding that what's being detailed today is largely the fruit of past efforts. I also am a proponent of exposing past crimes so that people are not surprised when they see how the methods are very similar to those being used at the present and will likely be used in the future. A further benefit is that people will begin to understand what is not effective and that it's imperative to look for ways to undermine the parasite classes.

Another reason why knowledge of history is important is that it helps immunize people against being lied to by the purveyors of fake news and fake history. Such knowledge really seems to help in assessing the verity, or lack thereof, of those who make excuses for bad behavior or try to downplay the seriousness of unacceptable and irresponsible behavior.

I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.

Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 14 June 1807

jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 11:40 am GMT
@Art

p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.

Mere theater, I suspect.

Can there be any doubt that the Senator, Diane Feinstein, merely pretends to oppose the bill?

Most of what the clowns say is meant to be laughed at, not believed, and almost all are clowns. Furthermore history shows that in that respect nothing's changed over the millennia.

RVBlake , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:09 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Cheney does.
jacques sheete , says: January 9, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt

Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.

My take is that it's the good cop, bad cop routine. It's just another version of The Shrub's promises of implementing compassionate conservatism and a humble foreign policy or O-bomb-a's hope and change

Trump says something that the ever hopeful Trumpettes want to hear, then does exactly as his bosses desire. This allows The Trumpster to appear like the good guy while maintaining hope and simultaneously enabling his supporters to claim that da devil would't let him do it. The Boltons of the world no doubt enjoy their roles as devils.

And I agree that The Cackling Hyena would have been exponentially worse, but that's small consolation and no denying that the masses are being played, again.

RVBlake , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
@jacques sheete This would explain Trump's heartening announcement of U.S. withdrawal from Syria, immediately followed by Pompeo and Bolton hustling and bustling amongst our valued Mid East allies, issuing consolations and moderations. Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S. now "coordinating" its withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original immediate withdrawal, then 4-month withdrawal.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT
@jacques sheete Hey Jacques!

Our Zio Media never tells us that John Bolton is a Neoconservative and is establishing presidential foreign policy geared to Israeli requirements and in fact against NATO ally, Turkey.

Israel likes the Kurds due to only an obsession to divide & conquer neighboring Islamic countries. As a ZUS-approved "good" terror state, the Kurds want territory spanning Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

A very shitty & transparent deception, please refer to article, below, Jacques? (Zigh)

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/01/08/585215/Erdogan-rebukes-Boltons-unacceptable-comment-on-Syrian-Kurdish-YPG-forces

Johnny Walker Read , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one world government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president, including Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one possible exception, Andrew Jackson.
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/un/do.htm

You be the judge

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT
@RVBlake RVBlake wrote: "Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S. now "coordinating" its withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original immediate withdrawal,"

Hey Blake!

Re above; a question.

Why doesn't our Zio Media report on how Bolton managed to overturn Trump's 2016 presidential election, and how he easily managed to tweak & assume the role as US Commander in Chief of the armed forces?

Thank you. Please let me know what you think?

RVBlake , says: January 9, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski The MSM is part of the narrative, the septic tank melange of Pentagon, neocons, liberal interventionists No way they're turning on one of their own. They most likely sneer at his past political associations, i. e. Bush/Cheney, but they publicly endorse him as less evil than Trump.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
@RVBlake Hey RVBlake,

About my major point, re; the Kurds, their leaders know they have ZUS and Israeli miliary support, and such stuff can end up causing a major war, and US troops who remain in Syria are most regrettably in danger of becoming ritualistic & unnecessary "sacrificial lambs."

Thanks.

Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
@Fed up Goy Hell Aviv, I like that ..and I will use it, lol.
Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:04 pm GMT
@Ahoy Flynn was a NEOCON stooge and rabid anti Iran war hawk.
Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
@renfro Good find 'renfro', thanks.
Z-man , says: January 9, 2019 at 3:21 pm GMT
@c matt

To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array of forces facing Trump.

Great line.
Yeah at least he can blow the whole thing up as he leaves.

ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT
Appears evident that Commander in Chief Trump is fighting to secure the US southern border (with Mexico), and his NSA Director Bolton has the job of securing Israeli expansion into Lebanon and Syria.
bjondo , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT
@anonymous Note to Erdogan:

invite bolton and pompeo
for tea and baklava.
arrest.
some amount of torture ok.
neither will hold out past 2 seconds.

America will bless you.

bjondo , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT
@Winston2 according to tea leaves,

mueller down and out before 90 days;

ruth ginsberg out before May ends;

bolton, pompeo gone before Dec.

THE WALL available for pics.

expansion by the yid toxic garbage dump is over.

death is waiting.

5ds

renfro , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one world government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president, including Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one possible exception, Andrew Jackson

Getting your information from gun owner rights nut case sites is not a good idea.

Public Law 87-297 had nothing to do with the 2nd ammendment. It was a reaction to the arms race with Russia , nuclear fears and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Basically a brain fart of the times but one that led to the eventual reduction of nuclear weapons in Russia.

Further, it was Eisenhower that was the biggest champion of the UN and international law after WWII.

Further you need to read Washington's Farewell Address if you think he was a 'globalist' -- he was the exact opposite.
Washington's Farewell Address 1796
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp

Fatima Manoubia , says: January 9, 2019 at 6:46 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Comrade ChuckOrloski, you are really very kind, and generous, to consider that anything I could write with my scarce command of English language could be anytime qualified as "poetic", but I am glad if, in any way, it served you, or any other person, as inspiration or, at least, to be moved a bit from the wide conformism in front of what we are witnessing and are being directed to.

I thank you for the reference to Dylan´s song ( which I am not worthy of being compared to..), which I did not know so far, since not so heard at my country, and even at my times, which became a bit more cynic, despaired and self-destructive than yours ( when the anti-war movement was at its full heights of plenitude and strenght .Although they managed to fully disintegrate it be it through generalized introduction of drugs amongst the youth and hopeful ..or directly cutting the tongues of the troubadours ..), but, still, we had our bards too .

In this vein, you remind me of the fact that perhaps the lack of inspiration of these times lays in part, apart from in the general alienation by electronic devices, in the lack of bards .To kill the bards has always been one of their priorities as ancient leyends tell us .

But we will prevail .and will return to the streets . again .

Enjoy!

roberthstiver , says: January 9, 2019 at 7:59 pm GMT
Great work as always, Phil -- with the exceptions that you should have devoted due attention to (i) the nefarious, always-lurking Zionist presence/influence of Sheldon Adelson on Trump and our body politic and (ii) the neocon/Zionist/Israel-first (near) unanimity of our legislative branch in affairs of the Middle East and beyond that makes a mockery of any use of the term "US national [security] interests." Other areas: the MIC, the MSM, Ziothinktankdom, the Palestinians' fading hopes of justice and liberation .

(I can't find time and energy to review the comments; I'm sure there are some great ones.)

Harold Smith , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Its not China's fault that the jews and their loyal puppets targeted the American middle class for destruction.

China is not an "enemy of the American people".

Harold Smith , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:18 pm GMT
@Wally Being that our jewish-supremacist masters apparently wanted the perfidious orange clown over clinton, I have to assume that the orange clown is even more evil than clinton.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 9, 2019 at 8:34 pm GMT
@Fatima Manoubia Fatima Manoubia wisely noted: "To kill the bards has always been one of their priorities as ancient legends tell us,"

Greetings from Scranton, Pa, Fatima!

Am in complete agreement with your insight above.

US social engineers have accomplished insidious modification of the great art of poetry. Shall brand the hostile takeover as Zionist Infirmity in Art.

You are too kind to me, and no doubt, U.R. commenters, for example RobinG, shall second my motion. Nonetheless, thanks & I dig your enthusiasm for noble non-conformism!

Loved Bowie's performance of "Life on Mars." Will share it with dear friends.

And, maybe you will like Peter Gabriel, linked below, and his performing a classical version of David Bowie's great "Heroes," live in Verona.

P.S.: A bit disappointed, am not expecting the great Peter Gabriel to produce other tribute-songs in memory of real national heroes, as he did the stirring one for Stephen Biko, martyr. And Jewish Bob Dylan, has-been radical? He's doing Tony Bennett covers.

Harold Smith , says: January 9, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@c matt

To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array of forces facing Trump.

To be even more fair, in order to succeed against the evil forces, orange clown would at least have to try to oppose them which means he would first have to stop being their willing agent.

Ace , says: January 9, 2019 at 10:19 pm GMT
@anon My lifelong ambition.

[Jan 09, 2019] Mattis One More General For The Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

Jan 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Mattis: One More General For The "Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone"

by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/09/2019 - 21:55 20 SHARES Authored by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos via The American Conservative,

Big brass and government executives play both sides of the military revolving door, including "the only adult in the room."

Before he became lionized as the "only adult in the room" capable of standing up to President Trump, General James Mattis was quite like any other brass scoping out a lucrative second career in the defense industry. And as with other military giants parlaying their four stars into a cushy boardroom chair or executive suite, he pushed and defended a sub-par product while on both sides of the revolving door. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that contract turned out to be an expensive fraud and a potential health hazard to the troops.

According to a recent report by the Project on Government Oversight, 25 generals, nine admirals, 43 lieutenant generals, and 23 vice admirals retired to become lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for the defense industry between 2008 and 2018. They are part of a much larger group of 380 high-ranking government officials and congressional staff who shifted into the industry in that time.

To get a sense of the demand, according to POGO, which had to compile all of this information through Freedom of Information requests, there were 625 instances in 2018 alone in which the top 20 defense contractors (think Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin) hired senior DoD officials for high-paying jobs -- 90 percent of which could be described as "influence peddling."

Back to Mattis. In 2012, while he was head of Central Command, the Marine General pressed the Army to procure and deploy blood testing equipment from a Silicon Valley company called Theranos. He communicated that he was having success with this effort directly to Theranos's chief executive officer. Even though an Army health unit tried to terminate the contract due to it's not meeting requirements, according to POGO, Mattis kept the pressure up. Luckily, it was never used on the battlefield.

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise but upon retirement in 2013, Mattis asked a DoD counsel about the ethics guiding future employment with Theranos. They advised against it. So Mattis went to serve on its board instead for a $100,000 salary. Two years after Mattis quit to serve as Trump's Pentagon chief in 2016, the two Theranos executives he worked with were indicted for "massive" fraud , perpetuating a "multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and patients," and misrepresenting their product entirely. It was a fake.

But assuming this was Mattis's only foray into the private sector would be naive. When he was tapped for defense secretary -- just three years after he left the military -- he was worth upwards of $10 million . In addition to his retirement pay, which was close to $15,000 a month at the time, he received $242,000 as a board member, plus as much as $1.2 million in stock options in General Dynamics, the Pentagon's fourth largest contractor. He also disclosed payments from other corporate boards, speech honorariums -- including $20,000 from defense heavyweight Northrop Grumman -- and a whopping $410,000 from Stanford University's public policy think tank the Hoover Institution for serving as a "distinguished visiting fellow."

Never for a moment think that Mattis won't land softly after he leaves Washington -- if he leaves at all. Given his past record, he will likely follow a very long line, as illustrated by POGO's explosive report, of DoD officials who have used their positions while inside the government to represent the biggest recipients of federal funding on the outside. They then join ex-congressional staffers and lawmakers on powerful committees who grease the skids on Capitol Hill. And then they go to work for the very companies they've helped, fleshing out a small army of executives, lobbyists, and board members with direct access to the power brokers with the purse strings back on the inside.

Welcome to the Swamp

"[Mattis's' career course] is emblematic of how systemic the problem is," said Mandy Smithberger, POGO's lead on the report and the director of its Center for Defense Information.

"Private companies know how to protect their interests. We just wish there were more protections for taxpayers."

When everything is engineered to get more business for the same select few, "when you have a Department of Defense who sees it as their job to promote arms sales does this really serve the interest of national security?"

That is something to chew on. If a system is so motivated by personal gain (civil servants always mindful of campaign contributions and private sector job prospects) on one hand, and big business profits on the other, is there room for merit or innovation? One need only look at Lockheed's F-35 joint strike fighter, the most expensive weapon system in history, which was relentlessly promoted over other programs by members of Congress and within the Pentagon despite years of test failures and cost overruns , to see what this gets you: planes that don't fly, weapons that don't work, and shortfalls in other parts of the budget that don't matter to contractors like pilot training and maintenance of existing systems.

"It comes down to two questions," Smithberger noted in an interview with TAC.

" Are we approving weapons systems that are safe or not? And are we putting [servicemembers'] lives on the line" to benefit the interests of industry?

All of this is legal, she points out. Sure, there are rules -- "cooling off" periods before government officials and members of Congress can lobby, consult, or work on contracts after they leave their federal positions, or when industry people come in through the other side to take positions in government. But Smithberger said they are "riddled with loopholes" and lack of enforcement.

Case in point: current acting DoD Secretary Patrick Shanahan spent 31 years working for Boeing , which gets about $24 billion a year as the Pentagon's second largest contractor. He was Boeing's senior vice president in 2016 just before he was confirmed as Trump's deputy secretary of defense in 2017. Last week he recused himself from all matters Boeing, but he wasn't always so hands off. At one point, he "prodded" for the purchase of 12 $1.2 billion Boeing F-15X fighter planes, according to Bloomberg.

But the revolving door is so much more pervasive and insidious than POGO could possibly catalogue. So says Franklin "Chuck" Spinney , who worked as a civilian and military officer in the Pentagon for 31 years, beginning in 1968. He calls the military industrial complex a "quasi-isolated political economy" that is in many ways independent from the larger domestic economy. It has its own rules, norms, and culture, and unlike the real world, it is self-sustaining -- not by healthy competition and efficiency, but by keeping the system on a permanent war footing, with money always pumping from Capitol Hill to the Pentagon to the private sector and then back again. Left out are basic laws of supply and demand, geopolitical realities, and the greater interest of society.

"That's why we call it a self-licking ice cream cone," Spinney explained to TAC.

" [This report] is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more subtle stuff going on. When you are in weapons development like I was at the beginning of my career, you learn about this on day one, that having cozy relationships with contractors is openly encouraged. And then you get desensitized. I was fortunate because I worked for people who did not like it and I caught on quickly."

While the culture has evolved, basic realities have persisted since the massive build-up of the military and weapons systems during the Cold War. The odds of young officers in the Pentagon making colonel or higher are slim. They typically retire out in their 40s. They know implicitly that their best chance for having a well-paid second career is in the only industry they know -- defense. Most take this calculation seriously, moderating their decisions on program work and procurement and communicating with members of Congress as a matter of course.

" Let's just say there's a problem [with a program]. Are you going to come down hard on a contractor and try to hold his feet to the fire? Are you going to risk getting blackballed when you are out there looking for a job ? Sometimes there is no word communicated, you just don't want to be unacceptable to anyone," said Spinney. It's ingrained, from the rank of lieutenant colonel all the way up to general.

So the top five and their subsidiaries continue to get the vast majority of work, usually in no-bid contracts ($100 billion worth in 2016 alone) , and with cost-plus structures that critics say encourage waste and never-ending timetables, like the $1.5 trillion F-35. "The whole system is wired to get money out the door," said Spinney. "That is where the revolving door is most pernicious. It's everywhere."

The real danger is that under this pressure, parties work to keep bad contracts alive even if they have to cook the books. "Essentially from the standpoint of Pentagon contracting you are not going to have people writing reports saying this product is a piece of shit," said Spinney. Worse, evaluations are designed to deflect criticism if not oversell success in order to keep the spigot open. The most infamous example of this was the rigged tests that kept the ill-fated "Star Wars" missile defense program going in the 1980s.

* * *

Everyone talks about generals like Mattis as though they're warrior-gods. But for decades, many of them have turned out to be different creatures altogether - creatures of a semi-independent ecosystem that operates outside of the normal rules and benefits only a powerful minority subset: the military elite, defense contractors, and Congress. More recently, the defense-funded think tank world has become part of this ecology, providing the ideological grist for more spending and serving as a way-station for operators moving in and out of government and industry.

Call it the Swamp, the Borg, or even the Blob, but attempting to measure or quantify the revolving door in the military-industrial complex can feel like a fool's errand. Groups like POGO have attempted to shine light on this dark planet for years. Unfortunately, there is little incentive in Capitol Hill or at the Pentagon to do the very least: pull the purse strings, close loopholes, encourage real competition, and end cost-plus practices.

"We generally need to see more (political) championing on this issue," Smithberger said. Until then, all outside efforts "can't result in any meaningful change."


Son of Captain Nemo , 4 minutes ago link

So tell me again how "Mad Pedo" evaded Obama's axing of all the non-compliant General(s) and Admiral(s) in charge of the U.S. strategic command?!!!

Answered my own question. He's like the rest of them since the Balkans that just does counter insurgencies!...

"SUCCESS" in every direction on the weather vane you look!!!

Or... Another way of saying it.

How to build your successful U.S. military career turning $8 trillion in unfunded liability debt into $200 trillion in unfunded liability debt in less than 20 years!

Who wants to line up for that 'self help book"?!!!

MusicIsYou , 9 minutes ago link

Mattis is just another self serving cockroach in a U.S uniform.

__name___3O4jF">Realname Wild tree , 31 minutes ago link

It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the blood of our nation.

It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations security. Follow the money.

As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry. Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he knew.......

Wild tree , 31 minutes ago link

It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the blood of our nation.

It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations security. Follow the money.

As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry. Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he knew.......

hotrod , 39 minutes ago link

All this corruption in so nauseating. Yet Americans do nothing

peippe , 39 minutes ago link

These generals have been in the military a long time.

Not long enough to remember winning a real war....

Mr. Kwikky , 25 minutes ago link

It was and is never about winning, but keeping the US in perpetual war state (report from iron moutain). Cui bono? the mic

[Jan 07, 2019] Our Man in Riyadh by Andrew J. Bacevich

Jan 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Monkhouse , says: November 27, 2018 at 9:55 pm GMT

Agreed that the House of Saud and the salafist jihadis are to blame for so much that has happened in the ME since long before 9/11. And that the Long War is always projected as "defense" against the nefarious "terrorists" who are objects of the GWOT. But, dude, all the terrorists in the world still don't have anything that amounts to a real army, navy, and – how ridiculous can it be? – an air force. The Long War has never really amounted to anything more than a cover story and a smoke screen.

That's because, as we have been informed of late, the real enemy is Russia. And China. And everything else that counts in the Long Great Game of four-dimensional chess must necessarily conform to the strategy that ultimately is about "containment" of those two competitors for global power. This is not just my own opinion. It has come down from on-high, in statements conveyed by the highest ranks of military authority. News flash: The "enemy" is no longer the "terrorists" – if it ever was. The plan's best advocate may have been Paul Wolfowitz, whose "doctrine" was "no peer competitors" – forever. That's the Long War for ya.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website January 7, 2019 at 5:40 am GMT

To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the USA, per the FBI:

From my blog:

Jul 17, 2016 – The 28 Pages

After years of controversy, the House Intelligence Committee declassified part of their December 2002 report on the 9-11 attacks, which shows direct Saudi involvement in supporting the 9-11 attackers. This major story has been ignored by most of our corporate media. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said: "This information does not change the assessment of the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi individuals funded al-Qaida." The BBC reported the story, but assures us it proves no high level links to the Saudi government.

The House Committee report states that Saudi Ambassador to the USA and a close friend of the Bush family, Prince Bandar, and his wife sent the 9-11 attackers thousands of dollars on several occasions; but I guess the BBC does not consider him high-level, or their reporters didn't bother to read the 28 pages. BBC readers will not know these facts because the BBC report failed to provide a link to the 28 pages.

____________________

My blog has a link to the us.gov hard evidence:

https://intelligence.house.gov/committee-report/intel-committee-publishes-declassified-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%9328-pages%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D

But I now see it has been scrubbed:

Bad Request – Invalid URL

HTTP Error 400. The request URL is invalid.

This can be found elsewhere on the internet. His wife wired them money directly, but not news in the USA.

Gene , says: January 7, 2019 at 8:18 am GMT

Bacevich should rewrite: After 9/11, the Israeli envoy made the most of those connections, deflecting attention away from the role The Israelis had played in the events of that day while fingering Saddam Hussein's Iraq as the true font of Islamist terrorism.

The hard evidence to substantiate the role played by Israel is overwhelming.

Wizard of Oz , says: January 7, 2019 at 8:22 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Unless you are saying that Prince Bandar may have been deliberatey involved in setting up the events of 9/11 you are just waffling to get attention. And if you are saying that you are spouting obvious BS.

onebornfree , says: Website January 7, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT

Andrew J. Bacevich says:

" .General, can you describe this Long War of ours? What is its nature? What is it all about?

Are we winning? How can we tell?

How much longer should Americans expect it to last?

What are we up against? ."

" ..What would be the criteria for removing our remaining troops from the Iraqi, Syrian, and more general Middle Eastern conflicts? Or, for that matter, from Afghanistan, where we have been trapped for more than 17 long years of still open-ended occupation?

If the answer to that question is that only when each of these countries is a healthy pro-American democracy, and Islamist terrorism has ceased to be an "enduring" threat to the West, then the answer, as the old Bob Mankoff joke has it, is "How about never -- is never good for you?" ":

See: " The Pentagon's "Never Ending War" Scam ":
http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/2019/01/onebornfrees-special-scam-alerts-no-82.html

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: January 7, 2019 at 11:29 am GMT

Recall that was a Saudi. So, too, were 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001.

Gimme a break.

When I saw Bacevich's name, I wasted no time reading. However, with that one statement, his credibility just dropped to zero. Just another unthinking garbage peddler, (I'm in a gnerous mood this AM), it seems.

jacques sheete , says: January 7, 2019 at 11:36 am GMT

To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the US.

While I have no hard evidence to either confirm or deny any of that, I commend you for the likely accurate use of the term,"patsies." I highly suspect that they were little more than actors in a false flag drama and think it would be more accurate to label them "alleged terrorists." No?

dimples , says: January 7, 2019 at 1:54 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

That is what Mr Meyer is saying. Bandar was deliberately involved in setting up the events of 911. Unless you are a follower of the absurd belief that 'Saudi Arabia did 911', then the most rational explanation is that he was doing it on behalf of the deep state US/Israeli plotters. The Saudis were effectively the handlers for the fake hijackers. Bandar blundered somewhat by not having enough cutouts to make US govt claims that he was innocent totally believable.

MLK , says: January 7, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMT

With MBS in charge, is Saudi Arabia part of the solution or part of the problem?

This is exactly the wrong question to ask. It's a testament to how thoroughly a Regime Change mindset has disastrously taken hold that even seeming critics like you are captured by it.

The Real Enemy . . . militant Salafism

Your use "enemy," let alone "The Real Enemy" is depressingly telling. Particularly for pissant jihadis who we've variously funded and armed over the years.

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a generational shift in its ruling factions.

How did our Regime Change Libya work out? Or Obama/Hillary's Morsi/MB gambit in Egypt?

The American foreign policy establishment is highly selective in who it deems beyond the pale (e.g. assassin in chief; perpetrator of atrocities).

What does President Trump's recent nomination of retired Army General John Abizaid to become the next U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia signify? That the President is focused on stabilizing the Middle East and our position in it. It means that the Saudis must reverse their military and strategic openings to Russia/China.

Anon [257] Disclaimer , says: January 7, 2019 at 4:58 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

Prince Bandar's wife did send several thousand dollars to the terrorists who arrived in Los Angeles airport, went directly to nearby Culver City and met s contact st the big Culver City mosque and then to San Diego where they stayed a while.

The Saudi's claimed that the money sent to the terrorists was just the standard diplomat's duty to help their nationals in foreign countries Most countries aren't that generous to their traveling nationals. But most countries don't have the money that Saudi does.

Her sending the money was widely reported at the time.

jilles dykstra , says: January 7, 2019 at 5:03 pm GMT
@wagelaborer

Harold L Ickes at the end of 1944 made Saudi Arabia a USA colony.
Saudi Arabia somehow resembles Israel, without USA support it cannot exist.
But there is, still is, a big difference, the Saudi kings are just USA puppets, jews still have enormous influence in the USA.
The other difference, Saudi Arabia has oil, Israel is just a nuisance.

[Jan 07, 2019] How the BBC Manufactured 'Hate' by Jack Krak

Notable quotes:
"... Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one of the most respected names in journalism. ..."
"... The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it just days later, dubbed in Polish. ..."
"... Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that within a week or so, every single person ..."
"... Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring racism in Poland, says the program was one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure it was outrageous. ..."
"... The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister complained. Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual step of publicly responding to criticism ..."
"... Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news. ..."
"... the BBC seems to have taken pains to get copies off the internet. ..."
"... Panorama ..."
"... Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC. ..."
"... The Grauniad is in the same business. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea ..."
Jan 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
JACK KRAK DECEMBER 28, 2018 4,500 WORDS

Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one of the most respected names in journalism.

In May of 2012, the BBC Panorama program broadcast a documentary about "racism" in the host countries of the 2012 European soccer championship: Poland and Ukraine. Those two countries were about to stage the second biggest event in the sport after the World Cup, and legions of journalists had arrived to cover it. The purpose of the BBC program -- aired strategically one week before the opening match -- was to argue that neither country was qualified to host the tournament because of their "hateful" soccer cultures. The message: All-white countries are hotbeds of violent racism, and non-white fans and players would be in danger.

I know a lot about the Panorama program because I helped produce it. I saw what is arguably the world's most famous and trusted media organization fabricate a false, sensationalist story. Through outright distortion -- and by using only those pieces that fit its predetermined views -- the BBC "documented" the vicious attitudes of people who live in countries that are not sufficiently "diverse." The program had a scripted conclusion before a single camera was turned on.

Panorama is the BBC's flagship investigative program. It is the longest-running such production in the world, having been on the air since 1953. The closest thing to it on American television is probably 60 Minutes . Panorama enjoys a reputation for hard-hitting and serious investigative journalism.

About three months before the tournament began, a BBC journalist got in touch with me through mutual media contacts and asked me to help with the part to be filmed in Poland. He said the program would be about aspects of the football culture -- hooliganism, trouble at stadiums, etc. -- that could cause problems for players and fans alike. This topic is something of a hobby of mine, and I have followed it carefully during my time in Poland. The BBC wanted me to be a "fixer" -- the person on the ground who arranges things in advance for the production team. That meant setting up interviews, scouting filming locations, getting press passes and access to events, arranging transport, and a hundred other odds and ends. I was also expected to contribute ideas based on my knowledge.

I suspected right from the start that they wanted things that make for good television rather than a true investigation -- conflict, tension, etc. -- but I was somewhat reassured because this was the BBC. Despite my reservations, I never thought they would make the television equivalent of sensationalist trashy tabloid headlines.

The producer and a cameraman made their first trip to Poland in March 2012. They had asked me to arrange an interview with Aviram Baruchian, an Israeli who played with Polonia Warsaw. They said the interview was supposed to be about "his experience as a football player in Poland," but the fact that they asked for him by name suggested they assumed he would have horror stories about being mistreated by fans because he is Jewish.

The press officer for Polonia was very accommodating, something I found again and again when dealing with officials from football clubs. People automatically trusted the BBC and went to extraordinary lengths to give them what they wanted.

I met the production crew for the first time the day after the interview. When I asked how it went, they joked about how useless it was. I was confused by their dismissive attitude and felt a bit responsible, but they told me not to worry. I learned later from the Polonia media spokesman that Mr. Baruchian had nothing but appreciative things to say about the fans and his experience in Warsaw -- which is exactly why he isn't in the final program.

There is a curious "Jewish" angle to Polish football that is easily misunderstood. Fans chant nasty things about Jews, but, strange as it may seem, it's not accurate to call it serious anti-Semitism.

Many of the older clubs originally had or are thought to have had Jewish financial backing. This is almost certainly true of the team in Lodz -- called Widzew Łódź -- since that city had a large Jewish population before the Second World War. These origins have become a source of cheap name calling for people who seize on any excuse to trade insults. When fans chant "death to the Jews," it sounds shocking -- and it certainly is brutish -- but this is mainly a way of attacking the other team rather than Jews.

There has been a similar situation with the London football club Tottenham Hotspur, which has had Jewish owners. Fans of rival clubs started chanting about the "Jewish" team. Tottenham supporters eventually embraced this and some even call themselves the " Yid Army ." The fans of one Polish club, Cracovia, were in the same position and did the same thing, now proudly calling themselves the "Jewish Sons of Bitches." When I told the BBC about that, they weren't interested.

Needless to say, there is a lot of anti-Jewish chanting in the final Panorama program, but it is presented without explanation. It falsely makes the fans look as though they want to send Jews to the ovens.

The Star of David is now used so much in soccer graffiti that a Polish teacher I met told me that the children in his class associate it with the sport. He also had a friend from Israel, so this seemed like gold for the BBC: a poignant combination of children, the star of David, racism, and a chance to talk to another Israeli and get what they missed from Aviram Baruchian.

I set up the interview, but it was another disaster. Both the teacher and his Israeli friend said that, yes, while there certainly are boorish people, just as there are in every country, most Poles are very nice etc. Again and again, the Israeli put a positive spin on things, even when asked melodramatic questions about the Second World War. It was another "useless" interview that didn't make the final cut. I remember that when we got back to the van everyone burst out laughing about what a complete waste of time it had been.

The first actual match we went to film was Legia Warsaw vs. Polonia Warsaw. This contest had an excellent chance of including all the things that make for great television, and it was before I understood what the real focus of the program was, so I was sure the BBC crew would not be disappointed. For about five hours, they filmed an army of police in full riot gear, flares and firecrackers being thrown around the stands and onto the field, an enormous banner unfurled by the home Legia fans declaring that Warsaw belonged to them, and a reply spelled out by the small but brave contingent of visiting Polonia supporters, who held up cards to form one big reply: "FUCK LEGIA." There was a hooligan with a bullhorn on an elevated platform and countless examples of a well-known hand gesture delivered straight into the camera. A section of the stadium was burned black by a flare that set fire to a banner.

The entire contingent of Polonia fans was still in that blackened section after the match, surrounded by hundreds of security guards who would escort them out of the stadium perhaps an hour or two later. This was to minimize the chance of contact with Legia hooligans who might be waiting for them. It was easy to capture the violent atmosphere of the game, and I was confident the production team was happy. As we made our way back to the van, I asked the assistant producer if he was pleased. He made a face that said "not really," and then out of nowhere asked, "Did you hear any racist or anti-Semitic chants?" He was visibly disappointed when I said I hadn't.

Boring

The lead producer said he was more or less satisfied with the "visuals" but was disappointed with the "substance." He asked again about something I had been unable to do: get one of the more committed hooligan types to go on camera. This time he explicitly said he wanted someone involved in "right-wing politics" as well as hooliganism.

I said it wasn't easy to get inside a violent crime syndicate. The higher-ups in any hooligan organization are wanted by the police, and anyone further down is too scared to speak to the media for fear of the "leaders." Believe me, anyone who goes on camera and says he's a hooligan is either a wannabe or gets a very personal lesson in media relations from his former friends. I did the best I could, striking up awkward and even dangerous conversations on dark streets, and I visited dodgy clubs in four different cities, but I never delivered. The closest I got was a conversation with the head of one club's "supporters organization," who demanded a "fee" for "security." To its credit, the BBC refused to pay.

Time to get serious

The team went back to London, and I continued to look into leads. I began to realize that what they wanted was bananas thrown at black players, Nazi salutes from the stands, and maybe some brutal beatings to add color.

In a phone conversation with the assistant producer at the end of March, I detected a note of urgency and in April, I got an e-mail message from him that said, "Our Executive Producer, Karen Wightman [who was in charge of the entire Panorama series], wants us to film black players and their experience of racism in Poland as a priority."

The BBC had dropped all pretense about what they were after -- at least with me -- though they kept up the charade of a neutral investigation with others.

The crew decided to come see a match in the city of Łódź between ŁKS Łódź and Widzew Łódź. Like the previous game in Warsaw, this was a derby, that is to say, a contest between two clubs in the same city. Derbies typically have the most intense atmosphere, and thus an elevated chance of the kind of incident the BBC was looking for.

Widzew had two Nigerian players, Princewill Okachi and Ugo Ukah, and the BBC wanted first-hand accounts of mistreatment. Mr. Ukah was of particular interest because he had played for Queens Park Rangers in London and could compare his treatment in diverse, tolerant, multicultural England with that of all-white, wicked Poland. Also, there would be two black men on the visiting team in a contest famous for its wild fans. Everything was lined up perfectly to provide the missing "substance."

I asked the BBC specifically what they wanted me to tell the press officer of Widzew and they told me to say we were interested in Poland's preparation for the Euro 2012 tournament. Someone else on the production team, who had also been in contact with Widzew by e-mail, sent me this note:

They don't know at this stage we want to specifically talk about racism in Polish football and their [the black players'] own personal experiences of abuse, so be prepared to schmuz [sic] and impress.

"At this stage" was after the club had agreed to make the players available -- on Easter Sunday, no less, to fit our tight schedule. We were supposed to "schmuz and impress" rather than be forthright about the reason for the interview. I remember wondering how often the BBC gets access and interviews under false pretenses. To my shame, I was helping set the trap.

Łódź was the BBC's last chance to find anti-black "racism." The broadcast date for the final program was already booked and Panorama was fully committed to a headline-grabbing account of the dark, racist side of what was soon to be Europe's biggest sporting stage. But they had no racism.

It was in Łódź that the host, Chris Rogers , finally parachuted into his own program. He was the one who had sold the BBC on the idea months earlier, and the entire Panorama episode is presented as "his" investigation. Mr. Rogers made something of a name for himself in 2007 with an undercover investigation of Romania's orphanages, and he has been dining out on it ever since.

He flew in to interview the two Nigerian players and to do PTC's (pieces to camera) the following day at the match to add to footage shot in Warsaw without him. He came across as a typical media type who was good at fake sincerity and spent a little too much time on his hair.

We went to the Widzew Łódź office to interview Mr. Okachi and Mr. Ukah. Mr. Rogers started with softball questions, such as how long the players had been in Poland, where else they had played professionally, etc. He turned things up a notch by asking about the reception they had received in Poland. Both players gave positive answers. Time and again Rogers dangled the carrot and time and again no one reached for it. Suddenly Rogers put on his best journalist Serious Face, turned to Mr. Ukah, and said "Why has Polish football been hijacked by racism?"

There was nothing in the interview up to that point to justify that question. It was so unexpected that Mr. Ukah was taken aback for a moment before he was finally able to give a suitably noncommittal answer. The next few minutes consisted of both Mr. Ukah and Mr. Okachi repeatedly stating that though they had heard of things happening to other people, they had never heard or seen anything that could be interpreted as racist abuse in Poland.

This went on for a few more minutes until both players had run out of nice ways to say "no" to the same question. Mr. Rogers had no choice but to wrap it up.

"For the hundredth time: No."

The players left quickly to enjoy what was left of Easter. I distinctly remember Mr. Rogers and the producer agreeing that they had "material to work with."

If you watch the final version of the program , you will see how they "worked" with it. They made it sound as though the players were talking about horrible things that happened to them . I was in the room the whole time, paying careful attention, and those bits were taken from rambling answers they gave about things they had heard happened to others . I was amazed at how editing and voice-overs transformed the interview into something I couldn't recognize. Needless to say, those were the only parts of the interview that were used.

I heard it. Trust me. Let's go.

The next day was the match. After filming the police using water cannons on fans, we went inside the stadium. We set up a camera behind one of the goals and a microphone at midfield in front the home fans. Mr. Rogers instructed me to be on the lookout for "anything good," and by then I knew what he meant. He also told me to keep an eye on the Nigerian players and look for any nastiness from the crowd. He constantly disappeared to sneak cigarettes and text his friends in England. He wasn't even there for the kickoff. When he finally reappeared he asked if I had seen or heard anything useful. When I said I hadn't, he disappeared again.

About 30 minutes in to the first half, we were still waiting for "something good," and Mr. Rogers was visibly anxious. He paced back and forth, checking his phone more than he watched the crowd or the match. Once, just to break the silence between us as we stood on the sidelines or maybe to vent his frustration, he actually said out loud "Come on! Sing some Jewish songs!"

At halftime, the five of us who were there got together to trade notes and suggestions, and we decided to switch places to maybe improve our "luck." I was with the producer and one cameraman; the other cameraman was high above the crowd on the opposite stand. Chris Rogers was . . . somewhere.

The second half kicked off and we went back to work. There was plenty of thuggishness in the stands -- you see a lot of it in the final version -- but still not what they wanted. There was a palpable feeling of frustration and hopelessness as another 30 or so minutes passed.

That's when Chris Rogers walked up and said he had heard monkey sounds coming from the crowd. No one knew quite what to say, but this certainly wasn't greeted with the kind of relief and interest you would have expected. For a moment it seemed as though we were just waiting for someone to say "Um . . . really?" but we just waited for Mr. Rogers to tell us exactly what happened. All he said was that the microphone at midfield had probably picked it up, and he told the producer to get ready to do a PTC about it. Thirty second later he was in Serious Face mode, intoning that he had just heard monkey sounds directed at a black player. I kept waiting for him to tell our cameramen what part of the stands the sounds came from so they could zoom in on it. Surely he wanted to watch those fans in the hopes that they would do it again, this time on camera?

No. Chris Rogers made no effort to get visual material for what was to be a key moment in a television program. And it wasn't as if we were in a massive stadium with 60,000 people, where it would be hard to pinpoint where sounds came from. The photo below is of the stadium, and the picture captures about 80 percent of the length of the stand from which the monkey sounds allegedly came. The banner says "This is how we have fun in Łódź." Not one of the BBC crew said, "OK, Chris, where should we look?"

The recording from the microphone is in the final version of the program, and I challenge anyone to detect what Chris Rogers claims to have heard. You might be at a loss to describe exactly what the noise is, but "monkey sounds" is way, way down on the list of possibilities.

In the broadcast version, this part of the recording is played over a shot they had taken earlier in the match of Ugo Ukah attacking the ball. However, the audio is from a microphone planted at the edge of the field. When they went back and "found" those sounds, they had no idea what was going on in the match at that moment. But in the program, the sounds start the moment Mr. Ukah is on the ball. The BBC took the audio from one moment and played it over a video from another moment. I would expect that from the North Korean press, not the BBC.

When we packed up to leave, we had to walk through the part of the stadium where the post-match press conference was to be held. It hadn't started, but print and video journalists were waiting. The BBC producer saw this, and asked Mr. Rogers if we should stop and ask about what he had heard at the match. What more perfect, made-for-television scene could there be? He could have walked into the after-match press conference and announced dramatically, "I'm Chris Rogers from the BBC and I want to know how it's possible that a black player was racially abused in a country that will be hosting the European Championships." That would be the dramatic moment they were looking for. But no, Mr. Rogers said we needn't waste the time. He wanted to go back to the hotel for dinner. He did not speak with Ugo Ukah after the match or the following day while we were still in Lodz.

Mr. Ukah never said anything about hearing monkey noises. No player from either team ever did. Nor did any of the many journalists from the Polish media, nor did a German television crew that was there.

I cannot say what Chris Rogers did or did not hear. However, I do know that in a stadium of around 5,000 people the only person who claims to have heard monkey sounds was the one person who flew to Poland for three days with the sole purpose of finding "racism."

The final version of the program stretches the truth in other ways. For example, Mr. Rogers says he has spent months on location studying local football culture, whereas he spent just a few days in the country. There is also a scene in which a British "anti-racist" named Nick Lowles is shown scanning the crowd with binoculars, looking for "hate." The voiceover says that "he has flown out to see what British fans can expect in Poland," and he obligingly gives an interview. The program makes it look as though the camera crew just stumbled onto him in the stands. In fact, the BBC flew him in just for that scene.

The team certainly didn't mind spending money. I was with the producer when he got a message from London telling him that they were well over budget. He said they had spent around £150,000 pounds (about $230,000). They stayed in expensive hotels and never thought about costs. I was amazed by how much they spent in restaurants and hotel bars. Remember: This is the BBC, to which mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a television set in Britain. It is a criminal offense not to pay.

The results

Just days before the broadcast, the BBC showed some of the footage to Sol Campbell, son of Jamaican immigrants and former captain of the English national football team. They happily filmed him claiming -- predictably -- to be shocked. He said it was enough to convince him not to go to the tournament and to warn other non-whites not to go.

This was brilliant publicity for Panorama . Polish and Ukrainian media picked up Mr. Campbell's comments, which pushed "racism" to the forefront of any British discussion of the tournament. The program cast a pall over the tournament before the first match was even played, and put a small army of journalists on alert, scanning the stands for "hate."

I watched the show when it first aired at the end of May. I had been dreading it, but my dread turned to shock when I heard what the episode was called: "Stadiums of Hate ." They had come up with a suitably provocative title for their contrived, deliberately misleading fairy tale about a football culture permeated with vile racism.

The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it just days later, dubbed in Polish.

Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that within a week or so, every single person who appeared on camera in the Polish part of the program claimed publicly to have been misrepresented. This includes Jonathan Ornstein, the director of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow. I was present for the interview with him, and he gave thoughtful answers to all of Chris Rogers' questions, always emphasizing that ugly graffiti and idiots making trouble at stadiums do not represent larger Polish attitudes. In the program, however, he seems to be leading the charge against horrible, hateful, anti-Semitic Poland. Mr. Ornstein told me personally how disgusted he was by how his interview was cut apart and stitched back together.

Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring racism in Poland, says the program was one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure it was outrageous.

The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister complained. Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual step of publicly responding to criticism .

Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news.

Today, criticism of the "Stadiums of Hate" episode takes up more space on the Wikipedia page for Panorama than any other episode in its history. As the doubts and questions mounted, the BBC seems to have taken pains to get copies off the internet. There are any number of other full episodes of Panorama on YouTube , but not this one.

I was the least important man on the production crew and had no editorial influence, but I still felt responsible the episode that millions of people ultimately watched. At the height of the furor I got in touch with the Polish and foreign press. Their reaction was always the same: intense initial interest that quickly faded after a better understanding of what was involved. The explanation I heard over and over was that attacking a program that attacked racism looks like you're defending racism.

One editor of a major UK newspaper told me it was hard to attack Panorama without a smoking gun. When I asked for an example, he said one would be someone who admitted he was paid by the BBC to pretend to be a "racist" hooligan. The man seemed jaded and not at all surprised by what I told him; he also said he simply could not risk coming across as defending "racism."

As time goes by, doubts about the program's credibility fade. All anyone will remember is that the great Chris Rogers exposed horrible racists in Poland and Ukraine. You will have to dig pretty deep to get the real story. That is the power of the biggest name in news.

Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC.


Tyrion 2 , says: January 7, 2019 at 8:08 am GMT

The documentary was called Stadiums of Hate. I think the quote below, by itself, is enough to rename it a Documentary of Hate.

Ornstein:

As an American-born Jew living happily and safely in Poland and working diligently to build Jewish life in that country, I am furious at the way the BBC has exploited me as a source. The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda; in doing so, the BBC has insulted all Polish people and done a disservice to the growing, thriving Jewish community of Poland.

I have reason to believe the BBC similarly misrepresented the black African football players it used as sources in the same programme.

Moreover, the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience – the British people – by concocting a false horror story about Poland. In doing so, the BBC has spread fear, ignorance, prejudice and hatred.

I would urge the BBC to become more aware of its own negative stereotyping of Poles, before it goes pointing the finger of judgment.

Philip Smeeton , says: January 7, 2019 at 9:32 am GMT

Only causing physical harm to someone that you hate could be termed a hate crime. Hating someone or something and saying so is not a crime. Hate is a natural emotion and reaction to something that is unacceptable. Islam and what it teaches is unacceptable, therefore I hate Islam and I hate the followers of Islam that commit hate-crimes.

Simon Tugmutton , says: January 7, 2019 at 9:33 am GMT

The same dishonesty taints nearly everything the BBC puts out. Even drama is hijacked to carry the globalist message. Whatever is devoid of politics is mindless pap about baking or dance, etc., to keep the proletariat in a state of goodthink docility.

The author errs when he says

mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a television set in Britain

You need only buy a TV 'licence' if you watch TV as it is broadcast , on any equipment belonging to you. Licences are issued to households; a 'household' may also comprise a student's room or a communal area such as is found in retirement homes. The BBC, through agents, maintains a spotty database of every address in the UK. Any unlicensed address is targeted with letters threatening criminal prosecution. It is legal to own a set if you just use it for watching DVDs or videos from the net.

There are plenty of ways to thwart the BBC's bagmen, the simplest, healthiest and most time-efficient being to stop watching television of any description. I did this in 2005. Since then I have withheld from them the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about £2,000, plus interest, been blessed with many hours of more interesting, lucrative and enjoyable pursuits, and saved myself innumerable episodes of anger and disgust. Moreover I have no idea who any of these 'celebrities' are who grace the tabloids, and have been spared the pontifications of the assorted arseholes and big-heads whose cretinous and toxic opinions the BBC daily spews on the British public and, indeed, on the hapless citizens of the rest of the globe via a propaganda outlet called the BBC World Service.

I commend going TV-free to all. It does wonders for the capacity to think clearly, not to mention the blood-pressure.

jilles dykstra , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:23 am GMT

BBC's neutrality ended when the BBC exposed Tony B-liar's lies about Saddam's 45 minutes WMD's.
The director was fired, replaced by a jew.

As to Polish antisemitism, it existed, still existed around 1967 when Polish jews were given the opportunity to leave. And of course, since Israel tries to make Poland responsible for a part of the holocaust, the gas chamber camps were on Polish territory, Poland responds, they have no desire whatsoever to be the next victim of the holocaust industry.

As to the why of Polish anti-Semitism, suppose it was in Poland more or less the same as in Lithuania in the thirties, Jews controlling the economy. Of course also Polish Catholicism may have played a role. Jews responsible for the death of the son of god.

Descriptions of Polish antisemitism one finds in

Jan T. Gross, 'Neighbours, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, 1941', 2003, London
Bogdan Musial, ´Sowjetische Partisanen 1941 – 1944, Mythos und Wirklichkeit', Paderborn 2009

The book describes antisemitism among all E European resistance fighters. Jews were not or hardly allowed among these resistance fighters.

The novel

André Schwartz-Bart, 'Le Dernier des Justes', 1959, 1980 Paris seems to have been to some extent autobiographical, with as country of origin Poland.
Described is on the one hand how jews resisted assimilation, wanted to remain jews, even, or especially, in clothing, on the other hand how non jews did not accept jews, even trying to prevent they visited the synagogue, or jewish children being insulted in schools.

As nearly always, one wonders why the antagonism., no explanation.

Stan d Mute , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:45 am GMT

The program had a scripted conclusion before a single camera was turned on.

This seems self-evident and yet it's rarely or never said. Cameras and word processors don't operate autonomously. Somebody begins with a story, a narrative, they wish to convey. They then point their camera at things they choose, or cherrypick, to illustrate their narrative. Afterwards, they carefully edit, or censor, what they've recorded making sure that only that most sympathetic to their narrative is shown. It is ALL propaganda. And it is ubiquitous.

It is up to the viewer or reader to filter the information presented, to sift through it for specks of unbiased Truth that may have somehow survived their unlikely journey past the narrative writer, his editors, their advertisers and lawyers, to the end product. Thus we see a "News Report" about "a fight that broke out among a group of youths" where the amateur video shows us a pack of feral young negroes, without provocation, attacks a lone white and after knocking him unconscious rifles through his pockets removing his phone and wallet before running off in jubilation.

And yet, despite this being shown to us time and again, incessantly, most people still trust their "News" sources!

And, as Ron Unz has so often shown us on this very site, History is nothing more than yesterday's "News."

The open question, really, is whether or not it is even possible to obtain information assembled and presented by an organization that does not fit the paradigm described above. And, considering the amount of time and cognition required for one to even attempt to find Truth in media, what are the chances that an average viewer or reader (bear in mind illiteracy rates) of average intelligence (bear in mind the left side of the bell curve) can obtain anything resembling a sense of Reality on which he may inform his opinions and beliefs? How often do we hear older people say things like, "I remember when you used to be able to get straight News from Walter Cronkite.." oblivious to the Truth above?

forgottenpseudonym , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:54 am GMT

The BBC twists the truth!? Having also worked in the UK tv industry, the only proper response is "do bears etc?" But thank you, Mr Krak, for having recorded your experiences.

Heros , says: January 7, 2019 at 10:56 am GMT

The truth is that the Cultural Marxism movement was about the take over of all institutions of white european culture and turning them against white europeans.

Professional sports was subverted almost a century ago. The racist anti-German propaganda of WWI and WWII was already strongly "semitic". The ascendence of Hollywood really marks the heeb takeover of American entertainment industry and the beach head for the conquest of the entire culture.

So as we enter 2019, I cannot think of one aspect of western European culture that is not heavily influenced by heebs, under their control or outright under their ownership. Even the alt-right "nazi's" are really just a bunch of jew cut-outs like Breitbard, Savage and Shapiro. Then there are all the crypto jews like Alex Jones or even Jordan Peterson. Many white Europeans are talmudists without having even a drop of jewish blood.

The BBC has been a Tavistock propaganda organ since its inception. After the Armistice and Versailles in 1919, the masonic-zionist propaganda war against the planet never stopped. Every new technology was first weaponized for use in mind control before release to the general population. Even the internet itself was also conceived at Darpa as a mind control tool and is closely linked to the trans-humanist and cultural marxist agenda.

So if you want to successfully attack the BBC, you also have to attack MI5, MI6, CIA, NSA, MIC, the entire 5 eyes spy network, the Queen of England, the Catholic Church, the US deep state, Israel, and ultimately their jewish god who in reality is Satan.

So to me it seems that obsessing about football hooligans is rather pointless, any movement to try to deal with any of the symptoms of our take over will quickly be subsumed. Like the occupy movement. Or the alt-right. Or the yellow-vests.

To kill this snake you will have to cut off its head.

Bill Jones , says: January 7, 2019 at 11:03 am GMT

The Grauniad is in the same business. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea

[Jan 04, 2019] There is no political left in US. There are only 2 right wing parties and it's only a matter of degree

Jan 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: January 4, 2019 at 7:22 am GMT

There is no political left in US. There are only 2 right wing parties and it's only a matter of degrees. Policies define a party, not what they call themselves. You can call yourself whatever you want. It's not like it's against the Geneva convention or something.

Examples of mismatch between the official name and reality are: North Korea calling itself DPRK – where D stands for democracy and yet they have never had elections, not that it matters, the whole thing about "democracy" is a sham anyway. Also East Germany used to call themselves DDR – which of course stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republikische (I couldn't ressist making fun of the German language). Anyway, they called themselves"Democratic" with no elections ever taking place there.

Same thing with the Democratic party in US. Calling yourself Democratic doesn't make you a left wing automatically. After all, the Nazis used to call themselves "Socialists", which would imply leftist orientation, yet they were as far right as you can get.

In order for a party to qualify as left wing, they have to look after the interests of the working class. US has no such party, they probably never did. So, both Democrats and Republicans are right wing, but not as far right as the Nazis used to be. Yet, the Nazis were way smarter because they saw foreigners as the main threat to their country. Both domestic born and foreign born foreigners.

The 2 right wing US parties see their native born population as their main threat. Their "instincts" tell them that even after decades long propaganda, they haven't succeeded in completely lobotomizing the native born citizens, and that there is still some "revolutionary" potential left in them, who might one day reach for their pockets.

That's where the degeneracy of the elites comes into clear focus. Seeing the working class as a potential threat to them and their pockets. When it's actually the opposite. The degenerate elites are a threat to the working class (and frankly to themselves, but they are too degenerate to see that). They are threat because they off-shored millions of jobs of the working class, and if that wasn't enough, they imported millions of third world individuals to fill in jobs that are not even there anymore.

Who is a threat to whom? Multiculturalism is not a left wing policy. It's a fascist policy. The only difference is that the intended victims are domestic, rather than foreign. It's inward oriented fascism. The only hope for US is that under Trump, the republicans are starting to flip-flop between seeing the Americans and foreigners as a threat. Where the other right wing party – the "Democrats" are firm in their belief that the Americans are the threat.

I guess it's just a matter of perspective – who is Nazi to whom. The democrats think that the deplorables are potential Nazis towards the foreigners, while actually it's them – the Democrats that are currently Nazis towards the "deplorables".

[Jan 04, 2019] The unified command responsible for the United States' nuclear strike capabilities drew attention on Monday when it tweeted a message and video that threatened the possibility of dropping a bomb

Jan 04, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , December 31, 2018 at 08:42 PM

(Previous comments from me that Pentagon officers
are not *necessarily* militarists not withstanding...)

Military Deletes New Year's Eve Tweet Saying It's
'Ready to Drop Something' https://nyti.ms/2RvcZwi
NYT - Matt Stevens and Thomas Gibbons-Neff - Dec. 31, 2018

The unified command responsible for the United States' nuclear strike capabilities drew attention on Monday when it tweeted a message and video that threatened the possibility of dropping a bomb.

In the tweet, which was posted as Americans prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve and was deleted about three hours later, the United States Strategic Command said the nation was "ready to drop something." A video that was part of the tweet showed a B-2 stealth bomber soaring across the sky before releasing two GPS-guided bombs that exploded into a giant ball of fire after hitting the ground below.

In the video, which was viewed more than 120,000 times, pulsing music beats in the background as the words "STEALTH," "READY" and "LETHAL" flash across the screen in white block letters.

"#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger," the tweet said, adding the hashtags: "#Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession." ...

A spokeswoman for the Strategic Command said the post "was part of our Year in Review series meant to feature our command priorities: strategic deterrence, decisive response and combat-ready force."

"It was a repost from earlier in the year, dropping a pair of conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrators at a test range in the United States," she said in a statement that did not elaborate.

About 30 minutes after the statement was issued, Stratcom apologized on Twitter, saying that its "previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values."

"We are dedicated to the security of America & allies," the new tweet added. ...


ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , January 02, 2019 at 01:30 PM
Test run on twitter sort of likely it will not be run during the super bowl.

Why not brag: the B-2 cost $2B, and is broke 56% of the time. Somewhere around $300K per flying hour.

The clip shows it dropping bombs that cost about $3M a piece, and are so complex they fail often.

Clip tweeted was an ad for the B-21 which will look just like B-2 and cost 70% more.

"Dedicated" to the security of the trough!

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to ilsm... , January 03, 2019 at 06:39 AM
The new Boeing 'flying fortress'
should be called the B-2.1, but
I guess they don't do that, eh?
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... , January 03, 2019 at 06:42 AM
Anyway, the Boeing B-2.1 is
actually from Northrup-Grumman.

[Jan 04, 2019] Trump Fought For His Withdrawal For a Year by Willy B

Notable quotes:
"... Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. ..."
"... Trump had lunch with Lindsay Graham who has allegedly said that Trump is "reconsidering ". The Neocons haven't given up.. ..."
Jan 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Gareth Porter, in an article published in the American Conservative, definitively shows that Trump's Dec. 19 announcement of the US withdrawal from Syria was, in fact, the end of a fight of at least a year, between Trump on the one side and his national security team, lead by Mattis and Dunford on the other. Published accounts of the policy process over the past year "show that senior national security officials and self-interested institutions have been playing a complicated political game for months aimed at keeping Trump from wavering on our indefinite presence on the ground in Syria ," Porter writes. "The entire episode thus represents a new variant of a familiar pattern dating back to Vietnam in which national security advisors put pressure on reluctant presidents to go along with existing or proposed military deployments in a war zone . The difference here is that Trump, by publicly choosing a different policy, has blown up their transparent schemes and offered the country a new course, one that does not involve a permanent war state."

Porter cites an April 2018 Associated Press account of an NSC meeting at which Trump's impatience with his national security team boiled over. At that meeting, Trump ordered them unequivocally to accept a fundamentally different Syria deployment policy. Instead, they framed the options as a binary choice -- either an immediate pullout or an indefinite presence in order to ensure the complete and permanent defeat of Islamic State. Mattis and Dunford, Porter continues, were consciously exploiting Trump's own defensiveness about a timeline–he had attacked Obama during the 2016 campaign for imposing a timeline in Afghanistan–"to press ahead with their own strategy unless and until Trump publicly called them on it."

"The Syria withdrawal affair is a dramatic illustration of the fundamental quandary of the Trump presidency in regard to ending the state of permanent war that previous administrations created. Although a solid majority of Americans want to rein in U.S. military deployments in the Middle East and Africa, Trump's national security team is committed to doing the opposite, " Porter concludes. "Trump is now well aware that it is virtually impossible to carry out the foreign policy that he wants without advisors who are committed to the same objective. That means that he must find people who have remained outside the system during the permanent war years while being highly critical of its whole ideology and culture. If he can fill key positions with truly dissident figures, the last two years of this term in office could decisively clip the wings of the bureaucrats and generals who have created the permanent war state we find ourselves in today."

Trump has called the bluff of the permanent warfare crowd and now has his decision, but the possibility of sabotage by that crowd's assets inside the Pentagon cannot yet be discounted. This is indicated by an exclusive Reuters report claiming that planners at the Pentagon are proposing that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with, though Reuters' sources stress that the planning is still at an early stage and nothing's been decided yet. And yet, there must be a reason why this is being reported now. It obviously would throw a monkey wrench in the arrangements that Trump is trying to make with Erdogan to keep eastern Syria stable in the wake of the US withdrawal. It would also represent a back down from US promises made earlier to the Turks to retrieve the weapons and Erdogan would throw a fit. Certainly, the idea that the U.S. military can retrieve all of the weapons that it handed over is a dubious one, at best , and there are legitimate questions about whether or not Turkish troops could really operate in the Middle Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border, hundreds of kilometers from the Turkish border.

But the key to the proposal is this: The recommendation "is a rejection of Trump's policy to withdraw from Syria," a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters. So, really, it is an attempt at sabotage.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-scores-breaks-generals-50-year-war-record-syria-mattis-dunford/

https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-commanders-recommend-letting-kurdish-fighters-syria-233235271.html


Barbara Ann , 6 days ago

Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. The Syrian war that matters is clearly now being fought within the USG and Trump has won the latest battle. As Porter says, this war will only be won if Trump can successfully replace key Borg positions with people of his own.

If the pullout can be completed without being sabotaged, Russia ought to be able to seamlessly step in guarantor of peace - and the SAG and Iraq between then can finish IS. The permanent war crowd with then just have to vent their frustrations elsewhere. A good outcome for all.

Pat Lang Mod -> Barbara Ann , 6 days ago
He was IMO suckered into taking a lot of these people because he didn't know anyone in government. His problem will be to find people not already working for the other side.
Walrus , 5 days ago
Trump had lunch with Lindsay Graham who has allegedly said that Trump is "reconsidering ". The Neocons haven't given up..
John Waddell , 5 days ago
"that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with"

I would love to find out what those "heavy weapons" were exactly. I have been putting up comments all over the place saying that as far as I have been able to find out the US has not supplied anything with a barrel bigger than an 80mm mortar or a vehicle heavier than a MRAP. Up to now no-one has contradicted me. The reason the US did this was precisely this situation, not to upset the Turks if gear was left behind.

Am I wrong? Is this equipment now regarded as "heavy weapons"?

Taras77 , 5 days ago
I have looked as to where I might post my comment on this important site; this article seems to be the best fit for my comment on another site about the retirement of Gen Kelly and a link to an interview with Gen Kelly (I hope Col Lang will be lenient in allowing a secondary posting of my comment from another site):

__________________________________________________________

My original comment follows:

On the subject of trump this AM, zerohedge has a summary of an interview with Gen Kelly which occurred just prior to his departure-to say that it was "bone crushing hard" probably is a long way from describing the difficulty of that Chief of Staff job in a chaotic white house working for a chaotic individual.

I have just a ton of respect for Gen Kelly-even in this totally mucked up country with all of its unending flustercucks, there are individuals still willing to step up and try, emphasis on try, to restore some sanity to the situations. God speed, Gen Kelly!!

https://www.zerohedge.com/n...

English Outsider -> Taras77 , 3 days ago
Should he not have resigned earlier, or even not taken the job, if he was so opposed to his boss's policy?
Stumpy , 6 days ago
Two factors not mentioned are the SAA and support from Russia. Turkey may be somewhat off the hook for a deep thrust if Syrian forces move in and convince the YPG to stand down, by force or otherwise. As Col. Lang points out, starving the YPG of ammunition is a practical approach. If the PMU links up with Syrian forces to secure the eastern border areas, the Kurdish interests should be balanced out. My point being that the so-called vacuum left for Iran to fill is an overplayed shadow puppet.

[Jan 04, 2019] Veteran NBC-MSNBC Journalist Blasts Network in Resignation

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war. ..."
"... Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people. ..."
"... That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. ..."
"... Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid. ..."
"... We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs! ..."
"... Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. ..."
"... But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,.... ..."
"... We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." ..."
"... The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy). ..."
"... It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html ..."
"... Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished. ..."
"... Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla. ..."
"... Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. ..."
"... And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna. ..."
"... What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word ..."
"... Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal." ..."
"... Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations. ..."
"... . . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. ..."
"... This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. ..."
"... Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. ..."
"... Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl. ..."
"... It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist' ..."
"... I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics ..."
"... State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War. ..."
Jan 04, 2019 | theintercept.com

Veteran NBC/MSNBC Journalist Blasts the Network for Being Captive to the National Security State and Reflexively Pro-War to Stop Trump

A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism.

As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."

The NBC/MSNBC reporter, William Arkin, is a longtime prominent war and military reporter, perhaps best known for his groundbreaking, three-part Washington Post series in 2010, co-reported with two-time Pulitzer winner Dana Priest, on how sprawling, unaccountable, and omnipotent the national security state has become in the post-9/11 era. When that three-part investigative series, titled "Top Secret America," was published, I hailed it as one of the most important pieces of reporting of the war on terror, because while "we chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization."

Arkin has worked with NBC and MSNBC over the years and continuously since 2016. But yesterday, he announced that he was leaving the network in a long, emphatic email denouncing the networks for their superficial and reactionary coverage of national security, for becoming fixated on trivial Trump outbursts of the day to chase profit and ratings, and -- most incriminating of all -- for becoming the central propaganda arm of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI in the name of #Resistance, thus inculcating an entire new generation of liberals, paying attention to politics for the first time in the Trump era, to "lionize" those agencies and their policies of imperialism and militarism.

That MSNBC and NBC have become Security State Central has been obvious for quite some time. The network consists of little more than former CIA, NSA, and Pentagon officials as news "analysts"; ex-Bush-Cheney national security and communications officials as hosts and commentators; and the most extremists pro-war neocons constantly bashing Trump (and critics of Democrats generally) from the right, using the Cheney-Rove playbook on which they built their careers to accuse Democratic Party critics and enemies of being insufficiently patriotic, traitors for America's official enemies , and abandoning America's hegemonic role in the world.

MSNBC's star national security reporter Ken Dilanian was widely mocked by media outlets for years for being an uncritical CIA stenographer before he became a beloved NBC/MSNBC reporter (where his mindless servitude to his CIA masters has produced some of the network's most humiliating debacles ). The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization, but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors .

Some of the most beloved and frequently featured MSNBC commentators are the most bloodthirsty pro-war militarists from the war on terror: David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, Ralph Peters, and Bill Kristol (who was just giddily and affectionately celebrated with a playful nickname bestowed on him: "Lil Bill"). In early 2018, NBC hired former CIA chief John Brennan to serve as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst," where the rendition and torture advocate joined -- as Politico's Jack Shafer noted -- a long litany of former security state officials at the network, including "Chuck Rosenberg, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBI counterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush."

As Shafer noted, filling your news and analyst slots with former security state officials as MSNBC and NBC have done is tantamount to becoming state TV, since "their first loyalty -- and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail." As he put it: "Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate the current peculiarities."

All of this led Arkin to publish a remarkable denunciation of NBC and MSNBC in the form of an email he sent to various outlets, including The Intercept. Its key passages are scathing and unflinching in their depiction of those networks as pro-war propaganda outlets that exist to do little more than amplify and serve the security state agencies most devoted to opposing Trump, including their mindless opposition to Trump's attempts (with whatever motives) to roll back some of the excesses of imperialism, aggression, and U.S. involvement in endless war, as well as to sacrifice all journalistic standards and skepticism about generals and the U.S war machine if doing so advances their monomaniacal mission of denouncing Trump. As Arkin wrote (emphasis added):

My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus.

To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested . Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.

Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play.

I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars.

In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.

For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?

That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-patriotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. These toxins will endure far beyond Trump, particularly given the now full-scale unity between the Democratic establishment and neocons .


photosymbiosis1 hour ago

Just remembered something about Arkin. This book: Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World January 25, 2005 by William M. Arkin https://books.google.com/books/about/Code_Names.html?id=KXLfAAAAMAAJ In particular there was this one exercise called Vigilant Guardian, run by NORAD, simulating terrorist attacks by hijackers which, curiously enough, happened to be in operation on the very day the Saudi hijackers were actually conducting such attacks:

NORAD's next Vigilant Guardian exercise, in 2001, will actually be several days underway on 9/11 (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). It will include a number of scenarios based around plane hijackings, with the fictitious hijackers targeting New York in at least one of those scenarios (see September 6, 2001, September 9, 2001, September 10, 2001, and (9:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 2004; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006]

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=vigilant_guardian However, what's interesting from Arkin's book, as I recall, is that this operation name was then reused in Afghanistan (a very rare practice, apparently, to reuse an operation name, but perhaps if you wanted to hide the original program, etc...), in 2003 or so - here's a NYT article about Vigilant Guardian in Afghanistan: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/magazine/where-the-enemy-is-everywhere-and-nowhere.html It's just one of many stories that makes one wonder exactly how much pre-warning the Bush Administration had about the 9/11 attacks, and whether there was a deliberate decision to allow the hijackers to seize control of the planes without any interference. It did save the Bush presidency, it did open the door to the Iraq invasion, and the Saudi intelligence services were involved with helping the hijackers. All very suspicious, really. Point being, Arkin's book is one of the few sources that lay out all those covert/overt program names, and is a real treasure for anyone interested in the history of that era.

bobhope1: 2 hours ago

This has been clearly obvious for several years. Goebbels would be proud.

Dysnomia 3 hours ago

If there were some kind of political realignment (similar to the realignment that took place in the 60s and 70s where racist white Democrats became racist white Republicans) where neoconservatives and warmongers become Democrats, and the Republican Party becomes the party of, surely not peace, but at least moderation in foreign military intervention, that might not be too bad, or at least not too much worse than the earlier post-9/11 status quo.

But I'm afraid this shift in discourse heralds something worse than that. So-called "liberal" media's embrace of neoconservatism and imperialism is likely to have the effect of narrowing the Overton window on issues of war and peace, making genuine anti-war positions even more unthinkable and beyond the pale. There will increasingly be no place for public anti-war discourse.

The single greatest threat to human freedom in the world today is the U.S. national security state. Inculcating public reverence for the state is perhaps the most dangerous thing that a media organization could do.

open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago

Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war.

... ... ...

Tom_Collins 2 hours ago ( Edited )

...America as the single biggest threat to world peace, right? https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/07/polls-us-greatest-threat-to-peace-world-today.html

AtheistInChief 3 hours ago

Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people.

Lawrence_Hill 4 hours ago ( Edited )

Do we remember way back in the 80's/Reagan admin war involvement in the El Salvador civil war when NBC anchor Tom Brokaw openly questioned the US's support for death squad leader D' Auboissan's terror regime on the air? Shocking! A Walter Cronkite-Vietnam War moment Brokaw supposed, maybe?

I remember that in all the hullabaloo that followed one of our ruling class commented that Brokaw was being $5 million a year not to say such subversive things. Lesson learned, Brokaw nor any other gainfully employed MSM tool has made the same mistake again, and now Brokaw has emeritus status in the NBC "News" hierarchy.

That comment opened my eyes for the first time to the reality of American MSM...

Michael_Wilk 4 hours ago
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing.

I have to take issue with your use of the word 'formerly' in describing Cold War values. They are still very much right-wing. They never stopped being right-wing, nor did the current and former government and security state apparatchiks polluting the airwaves with their lies.

TimN 5 hours ago

The neo-con and neo-lib argument against this unfortunate reveal of things present, and things to come: "But Trump! Trump!" I didn't think I'd see things unravel so quickly, but Goddamn. Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid.

haugeneder 6 hours ago

Great piece. America is on the precipice and there are few who care -- very few. Time for an great economic depression -- not recession -- to shift the ground or open it to swallow us whole.

Tlaloc 7 hours ago

Interesting that we might be seeing a shift on both parties, the republicans finally embracing their libertarian side (long being a part of the republican party) and the neocons trying to find a new home on the democratic party. I wonder where the progressive side of the DNC will go, they might be the ones pushed out of any national party :(

Art 6 hours ago
[...] the progressive side of the DNC [...] might be the ones pushed out of any national party

Fuck that! They're headed for permanent electoral failure on every occasion they put forward neocons on any ballot. We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs!

Dysnomia 3 hours ago

Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that we'll see a shift only on the Democratic side. Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. The narrowing of the Overton window we're seeing will make such resistance increasingly beyond the pale.

But I don't think the Republican Party, in terms of leadership or rank and file, will become more "libertarian" (in the American sense of that word) or less pro-war. I think there's likely to be greater consensus among the political class in favor of U.S. imperialism generally, and Trump, to the extent he occasionally makes moves in the opposite direction, is a convenient foil to bring that about.

johnanderson 7 hours ago ( Edited )

There is no "means test" for the empire military spending supports energy supplies supports international banking supports global corporatism but the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing, and social security cutbacks because they are playing the same elite economic game against the majority true the democratic leadership has a better stance on abortion and a generally more rainbow-flavored social agenda. Because they want this stuff for their own social class however economic policy will be at our expense ... just watch Pelosi and Company

open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago
But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,....

Those costs rise for one reason...

Mona 7 hours ago

...And here's Joe Biden: ""Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code, what was the first thing we have to go after, Social Security and Medicare. Now we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare. It's the only way to find room to pay for it." Biden is after means testing and other "adjustments" slashing SS, as endorsed by his pal. Paul Ryan. (This is called Republican Lite.)

And then there's Nancy Pelosi with her neoliberal austerity economics; her budget rules that would preemptively block a #GreenNewDeal & #MedicareForAll : https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/nancy-pelosi-pay-go-rule/

trailgrub 7 hours ago ( Edited )

Thanks for publishing this story, Glenn, and putting your perspective on it. We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." Before Comcast purchased them, General Electric owned these networks for many years. The public's interests are the last thing on their minds when they do "news reporting."

Have you watched when MSNBC's "prime time" talk shows are doing live sports-like camera angles, moves, and shots in their studio, trying to make it look all-the-more sensational on your TV screen? I mean, they're doing these intricate camera shots, rapid switching between cameras, zooming, panning, trying to make it look like a high-production-value shoot, and it looks like they've hired some live sports producers and technical directors to make this pathetic illusion on the air. All this shit for talking heads. Rotf-lmao.

What's next? Slow-motion HDTV instant replays of Rachel Maddow, utilizing zoomed-in camera shots of her mouth, when she's spraying spittle into her guests' faces? That's what happens when she launches into her infamous hissy fits.

The round table MSNBC uses in their cheap studio is only 4 feet in diameter. In other words, they're shooting these live action shots of people talking around an itty-bitty little table, and they're doing all this intricate camera work with approximately 8 cameras to make it look 'sensational', action-packed, and thrilling. Instead, it's extremely ugly, stupid, idiotic, disgusting, and ridiculous. It's not sensational. It's a disgusting cocktail of vomit, puss, and diarrhea.

I need reliable sources of news and weather so I can live my life sustainably with dignity while I maintain my values. My pride and dignity are invaluable to me. All these a-holes are doing for me is raising my blood pressure and pissing me off. That's why I read The Intercept. I'd like to have the option to just sit back and watch TI's reporting on a news channel someday SOON, if possible.

Again, what's our msm network news alternatives, besides Fox news, and why are they so pathetic? CBS news: Les Moonves in particular has cheered the Trump phenomenon, telling investors in 2016 that the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." -- https://theintercept.com/2017/02/24/cbs-fcc-trump/ -- Moonves got fired and lost his pension -- The longtime chairman-CEO was forced out Sept. 9, 2018 amid a cascade of sexual assault and misconduct allegations. "The CBS board of directors has denied former chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves any of the $120 million severance he was due under his employment contract after conducting a five-month internal probe of his conduct and the corporate culture at CBS Corp." -- https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-ent-les-moonves-denied-severance-20181217-story.html ABC news: Who owns ABC? Walt Disney bought ABC 22 years ago. Exactly, we're in Disneyland.

photosymbiosis 8 hours ago ( Edited )

Some basic facts:

The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy).

It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html
"CENTRAL THESIS, BASED ON BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO EARLY PROSPECT OF BREAKING OIL CARTEL, IS THAT WE SHOULD SEEK EARLY DIALOGUE WITH PRODUCERS TO WORK OUT ARRANGEMENTS WITH ALL OR SOME OF THEM TO (A) INDEX PRICE OF OIL AND (B) BRING THEM INTO RECYCLING MECHANISM IN ORDER TO SHARE THE RISK. SECOND PAPER LARGELY DUPLICATES FIRST, THOUGH IT DOES ADD SOME STRESS ON LONGER RANGE PROBLEM OF MASSIVE SURPLUS OF OPEC COUNTRIES, ESTIMATED AT $400 BILLION BY 1980, FOR WHICH NO SOLUTION IS PROPOSED OTHER THAN NEW INTERNATIONAL RECYCLING AGENCY PROPOSED IN BOTH PAPERS."

One key point is that the proponents of this scheme in the United States, be they Democrats or Republicans, have zero interest in replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar and battery storage. That would sour the whole deal; nobody would buy Saudi oil. Of course the Russkies, the stated enemy, don't want to see Europe go 100% renewable either, any more than the Clinton-Bush-Obama-Trump Administrations did. The Russia-US conflict is mostly over who gets to sell gas to Europe, and neither dealer wants the addict to kick the habit, right?

This is a very consistent policy, year-to-year.

Now, why can't the corporate media honestly discuss this? Because they are the corporate establishment's propaganda monkeys, little more, regardless of whether they work at MSNBC or at FOX.

Oh, and this is why #Resist Trump is so nonsensical, when those supporting that them want to install a Joe Biden or Kamela Harris, who would continue right on with this status quo, i.e. blocking the development of renewable energy and continuing the idiotic military entanglements in the Middle East.

Fred_Cowan 8 hours ago

Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished.

Mona 8 hours ago

@Tom Collins & Art

"Yeah one wonders if [Snowden's] cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks"

No need to wonder! Snowden made clear -- explicitly stated-- he wanted Greenwald and Poitras, and not Wikileaks. He deeply desired journalists to exercise judgment over what should be released to the public and did not want a data dump.

Further, he insisted on outing himself , and did so several days after the first document was published. At his behest, Poitras videotaped a 20-minute video of him taking responsibility, which was then posted at The Guardian. He did this, among other reasons, to spare his co-workers from suspicion and investigation.

Mona 1 hour ago

Citizen 4 won the Oscar for best documentary in 2013 or '14. It's all Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, and other real players.

DC_Reade 8 hours ago

If the only way someone can manage to frame any of these issues is as "Fox vs. MSNBC" or "Trump Corruption vs. Washington Establishment Defenders of Democracy", they've assented to a two-valued action-reaction Pavlovian conditioned response loop.

No way should that be confused with a process of independent thought.

Unsurprisingly, I don't read one mention in the above post to any of the specifics of the content in Glenn Greenwald's remarks, or to any of the observations made by Arkin in his email resignation.

You're too busy fitting everyone with Team Jerseys tailored to your preconceived ideas.

Mona 6 hours ago

"This article does not inform."

Oh, it does lots of informing, you just don't like what it informs us of, to wit, the first paragraph:

A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism . As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."

Any substantive response, Milton?

MiltonWiltmellow 6 hours ago ( Edited )
Any substantive response, Milton?

As always, Mr. Greenwald's description is hyperbolic and bordering on unhinged. As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. You should too. It seemed more like a Montaigne Essaiy or a reflective note for posterity than a thundering repudiation of MSNBC.

Mr. Greenwald turns it into a typical Greenwald crie du guerre™ against the evil Deep State (a term which he appears to have mercifully discarded. Too Foxy I suppose.) Here's his problem. Crying "wolf" only works for awhile. Eventually it becomes part of the information flood drowning everyone. Any bit of flotsam is as good as another.

Tom_Collins 5 hours ago

What's your point again? Do you even know?

DC_Reade 4 hours ago ( Edited )

Excerpts from Arkin's email:

"Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs. the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn't close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult. We have contributed to turning the world of national security into this sort of political story. I find it disheartening that we do not report the failures of the generals and national security leaders. I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum reporting..."

"...I argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years, doing the daily blah, blah, blah in Secaucus, but also poking at the conventional wisdom of everyone from Matthews to Hockenberry. And yet I feel like I've failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system..."

"...For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?..."

https://medium.com/@ggreenwald/full-email-from-william-arkin-leaving-nbc-and-msnbc-1fb0d1dc692b

Yes, William Arkin does go on to be gracious and complimentary of some of his (former) colleagues at NBC. Arkin mantains his professional composure. His critique of the focus and practices of NBC/MSNBC News is tempered and reasoned. But the critique is scathing, nonetheless.

Tom_Collins 4 hours ago ( Edited )

You are missing Milton's point altogether. Like "Craig Summers", MW expects that his word alone is enough to dismiss the editorial/investigative/analytical work put in by Greenwald, Arkin or anyone else on the topics considered most important by the U.S. State Department.

When MW or CS weigh in on these things to dismiss or diminish these stories/opinions/facts with the wave of a hand or incorrect reading (and absolutely nothing of substance), we are supposed to defer to them respectfully and re-consider the respect we have developed for the professionalism, dedication and personal/career risks taken on by the people who bring us these stories that are inconvenient to the establishment government and media actors.

Mona 3 hours ago

"As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. "

Cool, Milton, and what are your substantive comments on this part:

My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous. Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play. I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars. In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
OftenWrongSeldomInDoubt 9 hours ago

This is SO validating to read! Surely no other ruler in history with a cute butt and polite voice ordered killings in 56 countries in one year. I want someone to discuss this without accusing me of being pro-Rump. I guess, the Rachel Maddows of the world cannot criticize Hillary/Obama for expanding every awful thing for which the good people of the world hated Bush.

There are two giant problems in the world today-
1. the scale of people who lost their homes and countries because of the good guy's wars and
2. climate change which the good guy's 27,600 odd bombs of 2016 might or might not have exacerbated. After all, each bomb costs upward of $10,000,000. Who is measuring the greenhouse gases released by them?

The media needs to be equally adversarial to 'liberal' governments as they are to 'conservative' ones, so that majority parties cannot take credit for granting me bathroom and bedroom permissions that are surely my personal domain! The media must shed light on whether it is bad to tell 'aliens' not to cross a border or it is bad to win a Nobel Peace prize before raining bombs on brown people in other countries, never separating children from families, when blowing up ten civilians for every 'target' we extra-judicially decided to label as militant.

So thank you for this article!!

bluecurl3 9 hours ago

Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla.

Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. Now, lots of Americans have skin in the game, as long as the lobbyists, politicians, government and the military can provide a pipeline of endless wars and conflicts. Of course, in order to provide and maintain the patina of morality and righteousness, a subservient and corporate controlled media is vital.

And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna.

Xavi 8 hours ago

Orwellian times.

firstpersoninfinite 9 hours ago

No, it's not rocket science. Otherwise you couldn't have proven Greenwald's point with your own views about "supporting" the security state so easily. You missed the entire point of the article, which is that the neocons and the neoliberals support the same cast of nefarious personalities that got us into the Middle East, over and over again. Why is NBC/MSNBC normalizing right-wing radicalism? Because they've joined hands with neocons and neoliberals to support the military/industrial complex. Your argument is akin to someone claiming that their Communion wafer is more holy than anyone else's because it has the Pope's imprint on it.

firstpersoninfinite 8 hours ago

Neocons, like Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol's father, were leftists in the 1930's. It's not a difficult term to come to terms with, historically. I don't wonder why anyone questions what Trump is doing. I never said such a thing.

What Trump has done during his first two years in office has not been questioned by the mainstream press at all. Only the imbecile tweets and the gaffes are of any interest to the citizens of such a redoubtable empire as our own. A friend of mine who fights anti-wolf and anti-bear laws in Montana, laws sent down by the Trump administration, says that these are the same laws they fought during 8 years of Obama. The mainstream of both parties are the two sides of the same coin. So I agree with the "role reversal."

Dysnomia 2 hours ago

I think the problem is not that supporting the "deep state" is becoming a convenient excuse to oppose Trump, but that opposing Trump is becoming a convenient excuse to support the deep state.

DC_Reade 10 hours ago

Bravo, William Arkin. I only wish that you could have found some way for you to resign on the air in the middle of a broadcast. (I've been wishing such a scenario for decades. Preferably featuring one or more news anchors.)

Incredible that the USA has spent trillions of dollars in a game of whack-a-mole that's been extended over the entire globe with no time limitations, occasionally interspersed with declarations of surprise that the nation faces more emergent terror threats than ever. We spend more money on the military and warfare than we spent during the Cold War. And all that was required to trigger this spiral into perpetual militarism was a single special operation carried out 17 years ago by a small team of not-particularly-elite commandos who hijacked four airliners, thereby obtaining the one-time ability to repurpose three of them into cruise missiles.

By now, it should be no surprise that other large nations have taken notice of the American assumption of entitlement to police the world and begun their own rearmament campaigns. Also worth noting that the focus on the Terror Threat has served as the rationale for massive investment in a level of surveillance technology that's unknown in human history. As for the norms and values that international law was supposedly intended to provide for governments everywhere, all of that went out the window in 2003, with the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the Benevolent Hegemon Hyperpower. American scolding of other nations for their armed territorial incursions and imperial designs has rung awfully hollow, ever since.

The emphasis on massive military escalation to deal with terrorism outbreaks is reminiscent of the War on Drugs- which, it should be noted, also remains largely in effect, notwithstanding occasional feints toward de-escalation. And we all know what the War on Drugs did in terms of empowering the criminal elite that it was supposed to eliminate.

What's that all about? The leaders of this country- and for that matter, the supposed leaders of the rest of the world- aren't leading. To me, almost all of them look like they're running from something: they're running from fossil fuels addiction and its toxic blowback, looming climate catastrophe, natural resource depletion, maldistribution of wealth and neglect of the commons.

photosymbiosis 11 hours ago

What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word:

Comcast, a large cable operator, completed its purchase of a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric in January 2011. The cable giant bought the rest of NBCUniversal in February 2013. NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC, as well as NBC, Bravo, USA and other channels.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-asks-who-owns-msnbc_us_572e3d0fe4b0bc9cb0471df1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CMCSA/holders/

Comcast major holders, $US:

  • Vanguard Group, Inc. 10,965,964,846
  • Blackrock Inc. 10,179,872,652
  • State Street Corporation 5,785,488,229
  • Capital World Investors 5,427,547,692
  • Massachusetts Financial Services Co. 4,787,803,825

Lockheed Martin major holders, $US:

  • State Street Corporation 13,394,660,471 Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 6,210,096,924
  • Capital World Investors 5,098,130,465
  • Blackrock Inc. 5,084,573,828
  • Bank of America Corporation 2,826,426,091

ExxonMobil major holders, $US:

  • Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 26,661,034,588
  • Blackrock Inc. 21,669,998,686
  • State Street Corporation 16,964,902,104
  • Northern Trust Corporation 4,566,789,988
  • Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation 4,420,622,076

It pretty obvious once you look at the value of an outfit like Blackrock's investments in media, arms, and oil - they don't want any stories told on MSNBC that would threaten the profit margins of Exxon, Lockheed or Comcast.

The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legisation which would require the likes of Comcast, TimeWarner(CNN) and NewsCorp(FOX) to divest their media holdings, creating dozens of independently owned outfits not beholden to some corporate master who won't let them discuss important topics like, say NAFTA....

Benito_Mussolini 10 hours ago
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legislation

Hopefully, MSNBC will be smart enough to provide a friendly platform for ex-government officials. It means a great deal to government officials to know their influence, public visibility (and associated appearance fees) will continue into their retirement. I don't watch MSNBC, so I don't know if they have implemented this strategy, but the pictures in the article seem encouraging.

johnnyred 11 hours ago

War is touted exclusively by those who've never experienced it. Get rid of the generals, put in some infantry casualties, those who've lost a limb or two.
Then we can have some informed comment.

Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours ago

Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, "In these critical times..." their "editorial independence" is in sincere need of your donation. They're just 80K away from their million dollar goal! Pardon me while I retch. Julian Assange is still being robbed of his freedom. In these critical times indeed. Thank you Glenn.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

The Guardian can get its funding from the organizations for whom they carry water. Not a damn cent from me. After they caved in on the Snowden files, I was done with them for good.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/04/surreal-moment-guardian-destroyed-snowden-files

Yeah one wonders if his cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks, but I think they were onto him anyway. Ultimately the information got out, and media orgs like The Guardian were exposed for their fealty to the national security state(s).

Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours ago

Speaking of leaks, whenever I hear "water carrier," this inevitably comes to mind https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JGfXiIXTpE0

Orville 6 hours ago

Cryptome wouldn't have censored the releases, as WikiLeaks has. Still WikiLeaks continues to be one of the world's premier journalistic outlets.

MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago

Was anyone else surprised by how long it took them to get to a million? I've seen Kickstarters for video games that got to a million faster. The slow pace of the fundraising seemed like a rebuke. I was hoping they'd never hit a million.

And I say all of that as someone who has recurring donations set up for about a dozen podcasts and blogs. The nonprofit/fundraiser model is the way to go, but I also think that publicly owned media outlets, or privately owned but public-interest-minded news organizations, while editorially independent, can't be totally contemptuous of their reader/donors.

I would never donate to the Guardian for a million reasons, but to pick just one: they have played the lead role in smearing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as dangerous radicals and anti-Semites.

And I would never donate to The Intercept, for instance, because of the crucial role it has played in promoting Russiagate and amplifying voices like Mattathias Schwartz's. (I'll never stop reminding people that Schwartz non-jokingly advocated here for what would essentially be a coup -- Obama "putting a hold on the transfer of power" -- after the most recent presidential election. The Intercept published that. Amazing.) And the face of the Intercept, arguably, is no longer Greenwald but Mehdi Hasan, who publishes rank propaganda smearing peace activists as "Bashar al-Assad Apologists" who revere human rights abusers as "heroes." (Again: the Intercept published that. Amazing.)

My favorite line from that Arkin email is the one about the tension between worship of "officialdom" and respect for "public yearnings." To political elites and reporters (including the experts at the Intercept who spent a week running PR for Nancy Pelosi's speaker bid, and who constantly write off the 2016 election as a consequence either of sinister foreign interference or of the squalid bigotry, stupidity and ugliness of non-coastal Americans), officialdom always wins, and "public yearnings" are just the bleatings of deplorables.

If Glenn's excellent reporting was removed from this site, The Intercept would be as deserving of Arkin's critique as NBC and the Guardian are.

tigertiger 8 hours ago

They didn't hit their million, which they wanted before the end of the year, but they're still begging. Not for lack of trying, that 'give us money!' pop up has to be about the loudest, most intrusive of it's kind I've ever seen.

And yes, TI is only marginally less repulsive (thanks to Glenn, Lee Fang, and Jon Schwartz). It amazes me that an outlet owned by a bajillionaire constantly begs for money. I guess they think it makes them more 'populist' or something- 'look, the peons are sacrificing their pennies to help us!'.

TravisTea 11 hours ago

As an American author (and journalist) once wrote:

"Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the 'universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth."

-- Mark Twain, Man's Place in the Animal World (1896)

P.S. As always, thank you very much, Mr. Greenwald (and thank you, Mr. Arkin).

Carlaly 11 hours ago

Just vindicates what you have been saying all along. Although I expect the denialists will dismiss Arkin as some anti-American, anti-troop stooge of Putin.

Mona 11 hours ago

"The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization, but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors."

She's just coming home. Liberals have long been dominated by hawks (after all, Vietnam was a Democrats' war, albeit Nixon/Kissinger took the war crimes up to 11.)

Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal."

Which leads to yet another element of Ms. Maddow's portfolio: the daughter of an Air Force captain who served stateside during the Vietnam War, she is an admitted defense-policy wonk. "I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's meant to sound absurd," she said. "I'm all about counterterrorism. I'm all about the G.I. Bill."

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/arts/television/17madd.html

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

Madcow would like nothing more than to see open war with Russia.

brer_rabbit 11 hours ago ( Edited )

maddcow . . my laugh of the day.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

It's a common refrain in far-right reaches of the Internet. I almost felt bad for saying it, but that's what she's become on the topic of Russia.

brer_rabbit 11 hours ago

Yes, whenever is see her, or Anderson Cooper, or any of these guys for that matter (which is rare . . usually for a few minutes to catch a glimpse of the latest environmental disaster, mass shooting, or whatever) my first thought always goes to question the kind of upbringing that could have produced such vapid people, who enthusiastically shame themselves on a daily basis for money. What must they think of their audience?

open_hearted_jade 11 hours ago

Maddow is less respected by an awakening public -- therefore she must be a conservative right winger. Didn't you learn anything after 1945?

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

You've made made totally missing the point into a trolling form of art. Bravo.

endlesswar 11 hours ago

Attacking an extreme right wing president from the right, while lauding unrepentant war criminals like Bush and McCain. Just about sums up what it means to be a liberal in this day and age.

PatrickShaw 6 hours ago

MSNBC and their national security contributors do not speak for liberals. They never invite liberal voices on who are anti-war/pro diplomacy.

xochtl 12 hours ago
Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations.

perfect summary

brer_rabbit 12 hours ago ( Edited )
. . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.

bingo

clawhammerjake 13 hours ago

War is a business decision.

Steeeve 13 hours ago ( Edited )

I've been consistently surprised that anyone is still watching these things. Personally, I've already divested from special-interest funded media outlets and the DNC for that matter. It's always interesting when I run across someone parrotting their viewpoints though.

TheManj 13 hours ago ( Edited )

The greatest scam of the millennium, after cruptocurrency, was the use of Trump Derangement Syndrome to pervert "progressives" into acolytes of the security establishment.

pedinska2 13 hours ago

Actually, TDS wasn't used in the original perversion so much as it was used as the cement to keep it firmly in place.

I lay blame for much of the greatest scam of the millenium on Obama with his drone policies, expansion of our involvement in the ME, retention of the same Smartest Guys in the Room who tanked our economy and wholesale conversion of liberals into acceptance of further erosion of our Constitutional rights with his warm embrace of the same criminals running the security state when torture became de rigueur. He was just so darn pretty and eloquent they had no choice but to believe all the lies dripping from those sexy lips. And have you seen Michelle's arms???!? /s

Benito_Mussolini 13 hours ago

To herd people, it's more effective to use both the carrot (Obama) and the stick (TDS). The fact that progressives needed to be herded is a testament to their numbers and success.

Erelis 13 hours ago

This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. Every day, step by step, brick by brick, they are laying the foundation for the justification of war--in fact, for needing and demanding war, almost any war, but more particularly with Russia. Let's remember that when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, 72% of Americans supported it to according to Gallup. That didn't happen overnight with some big propaganda event.

bluecurl3 4 hours ago

Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. I'm all for pulling our troops out of Syria, but mark my word, Bibi and his zionist war-hawks will seize the opportunity to bomb the hell out of Syria, and use it as a pretext to launch attacks against Iran.

Mike5000 13 hours ago

Maddow is not really pro-war or anti-war. She is just pro whatever Clinton and Pelosi happen to be pushing this week. It's a shame. She's a good presenter but hopelessly biased.

PresumptuousInsect 13 hours ago

I think she is more enthralled to the people who are paying her.

Erelis 13 hours ago

Maddows rhetoric and reporting is pro-war regardless of her motivations. She uses the language of aggression and conspiracy and accusation in describing the Russians and other Americans such as Jill Stein. She without exception imputes malevolent motives on "the enemy" which is Russia leading to a truly a bizarre clip telling Americans in somber and concerned tones that Russia and N. Korea share a border. The conspiracy has been exposed.

Bill_Owen 10 hours ago

What is it, exactly, about Hillary Clinton that enthralls Rachel Maddow so much that she now pretty much spends her days building a case (in-the-sky) for war on Russia? Seems pathological somehow.

MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago

Look at how her ratings and salary have been affected by her transformation. She's gone from "cable news anchor" to "superstar." The Russiagate scam has also given dozens of mediocrities like Seth Abramson a chance to be noticed and to feel important. Even the writers on the Intercept's "intelligence" beat have been doing some sort of Tom Clancy cosplay for the last two years. It's profitable and fun to be one of these people, as long as you don't have a nagging sense of shame.

William 13 hours ago

Indeed, none of this is new. I read Norman Solomon's and Martin Lee's UNRELIABLE SOURCES: A GUIDE TO DETECTING BIAS IN NEWS MEDIA back when I was in college in the late 80s and they cite General Electric's ownership of NBC (before there was an "MSNBC") uncritically:

General Electric's Influence on NBC GE is by no means a hands off owner of NBC. Lee and Solomon in their book Unreliable Sources have detailed how GE insisted on the removal of references to itself in an NBC programme on substandard products. They also point out that NBC journalists have not been particularly keen to expose GE's environmental record and that TV commercials by a group called INFACT, urging a boycott of GE products, were banned by NBC as well as other television stations. NBC did however briefly report GE's indictment for cheating the Department of Defense which was reported more extensively in other media outlets. (Lee and Solomon 1990, pp. 77-81) Former NBC News Chief, Lawrence Grossman, claims that the head of GE, Jack Welch made it clear to him that he worked for GE and told him not to use terms such as 'Black Monday' to describe the stock market crash in 1987 because it depressed share prices such as GE's (Cited in Naureckas 1995). Todd Putnam, editor of National Boycott News, tells of how he was approached by the NBC's Today Show to do an interview about consumer boycotts. Their biggest boycott at the time was against General Electric and its nuclear defense contracts but the show wouldn't let him talk about that and was reluctant to have him mention boycotts against any large corporation preferring him to talk about "a boycott that was 'small,' 'local' and 'sexy'." (1991) Mark Gunther writing in American Journalism Review claims that references to General Electric's use of the bolts in an NBC Today Show on defective bolts in planes, bridges and nuclear plants, were edited out and only mentioned in a follow-up segment after criticism of the omission (1995, p. 40). In 1990 NBC Nightly News ran 14 minutes of coverage over three days of a breast cancer detection machine produced by GE, without mentioning that it was made by NBC's owners. The other two major television networks didn't bother to cover it at all. (FAIR 1991) Helen Caldicott who had been featured on the Today Show previously found that when she wrote her book If You Love This Planet, which used GE as a case study of an environmentally damaging company, her scheduled appearance was mysteriously cancelled (Anon. 1992). In 1987, one year after GE took over NBC, NBC broadcast a special documentary promoting nuclear power using France as a model. The promotion for the programme proclaimed that "French townspeople welcome each new reactor with open arms". The documentary won a Westinghouse sponsored prize for science journalism. (Westinghouse Electric Company also builds nuclear power stations.) Shortly after the documentary was screened, when there were a couple of accidents at French power stations and there was significant opposition to nuclear power amongst the French population (polls showed about one third opposed it), NBC did not report the story although some US newspapers did. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 78) Karl Grossman documents in Extra! (1993) how the programme What Happened? broadcast on NBC in 1993 gave a one sided account of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and its aftermath. It showed local resident Debbie Baker saying that she was not as afraid of the nuclear plant as she used to be. However, according to Grossman, Baker, whose son was born with Down's syndrome 9 months after the accident and who has received $1.1 million in a settlement arising from the accident, was shocked at how the programme had been edited to imply her acceptance of the plant. She said she was still extremely uncomfortable with the plant and that what she had said was she felt safer since her groups set up a network of radiation monitors around the plant. Neither Baker's settlement nor the 200 or so others "made to families who have suffered injury, birth defects and death because of the 1979 accident" were mentioned. Instead a nuclear power industry expert was featured who said the plant's back-up safety systems worked successfully. When EXTRA! pointed out that no scientists critical of nuclear power appeared in the program, Jaffe [executive producer of the show] responded, 'That is correct. Maybe there is some misunderstanding. That show is not a journalistic show but an entertainment show to look into and to find out the reason and cause of various accidents and incidents.' (Grossman 1993, p. 6) NBC has not been alone in putting a positive spin on the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. On the tenth anniversary of the accident, the New York Times ran an anniversary article opposite the editorial page headlined "Three Mile Island: The Good News" which argued that the accident had been good for the nuclear power industry prompting better management and emergency planning. The paper did not report the fact that 2000 residents living near the plant had filed claims for cancer and other health problems they blamed on the accident, nor the 280 personal-injury settlements paid out to such claimants, nor the unusual clusters of leukemia, birth defects and hypothyroidism around the plant. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 210) This was not the first time Times reporting had fitted with General Electric's views. In 1986 the Times reported on the use of humans as subjects in tritium absorption experiments. Tritium is routinely handled by nuclear power plant workers. An early edition of the paper said: "The tritium study was financed by the Atomic Energy Commission and conducted by the General Electric Company at Richland, which abuts the Hanford [nuclear weapons] reservation." In the late edition the sentence ended after Commission and no longer named General Electric. (Tenenbaum 1990)

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

Sure, but the question then becomes: Why didn't the corporate networks and newspapers with whom NBC competed point these things out?

Art 11 hours ago

That's what my father always said about media - that it was self-correcting. But he was wrong. They're all influenced by the same thing, namely the ultra-rich and their money.

Tom_Collins 11 hours ago

But wouldn't another network stand to gain more clout from the ultra-rich, corporations, and their money from NBC's losing viewers/ratings due to exposure for their corrupt unwillingness to report negatively on their parent corporation's actions?

Art 11 hours ago

They share a huge fraction of investors, that's the problem.

Midwest 14 hours ago

Nothing has changed except that there is an outsider independent president. NBC was just as bad 20 years ago.

TheManj 13 hours ago

Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl.

Phil 14 hours ago

William Arkin is right on point with his email to MSNBC, especially when he says:

"And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. "

In that same vein I have problems with MSNBC et al also covering the farewell speeches of outgoing Senators and Representatives which are full of warnings as to how the current system is "broken" [Paul Ryan, ClaireMcCaskill, Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, among many] and not calling them out.

It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist's.

Orrin Hatch was a Senator for 42 years but last week he woke up one morning to find the Senate needs fixing? Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House and fiercely defended Trump but now as he leaves he's suddenly discovers that things aren't right in Washington? And what about all those who are still in office now – where are their warnings and concern? The answer is it's difficult to talk while you're in office stuffing your mouths at the trough.

Sadly, MSNBC and the media carry these farewell speeches with no comment except that they are all great public servants and their viewers soak it all up because to do otherwise would be unpatriotic. And the march of the lemmings to the voting booths continues.

PresumptuousInsect 14 hours ago

I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics, and "support the troops!"--however hypocritical that slogan might be--has been a rallying cry as well as an accusation of treason/unAmericanism/communism, etc., for those who have had doubts. But finally we are starting to see signs of dissatisfaction with the status quo among the political class, and even antiwar bullet points listed on some platforms. There are even calls for diplomacy, a word that seemed to have been deleted from all U.S. dictionaries. I hope that Arkin's outcry serves to move this agitation forward.

shenebraskan 14 hours ago

Dunno if you noticed (I did because I watch State Department briefings), but when Brett McGurk resigned as Syria envoy, in a similar huff to McMaster, he bemoaned the loss of his colleagues at State and Pentagon. State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War.

[Jan 03, 2019] There is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries

Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Cyrano , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT

... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries. After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity – basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west, the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.

Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.

Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this business with the yellow wests in France is going.

If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method – thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among ourselves, which is where it really counts.

[Jan 03, 2019] Is EU sustainable in its current form

Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

jilles dykstra , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:56 am GMT

I miss two things.

First, in just three EU member states referenda were held in 2005 on what was called European constitution. All three two thirds negative, with, especially compared with elections now, a high % of voting. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Lisbon was signed unanimously, a treaty in essence the same as the rejected 'consitution'.
According to Farrage it was said in EP 'they do not know what they're doing'.
And so the disappearance of the nation states continued, elections in the member states, hogwash, what still is called government is no more than errand boys of Brussels.

Second capitalism. It is a great pity that this word now is used to hide what the problem is, the disappearance of the nation state. Capitalism is as old as the world, as is global trading. Thousands of years BCE traders from what is now Indonesia sailed yearly to E Africa for trade, on regulated markets, regulated informally, even without any verbal communication. What is called capitalism now, the evil capitalism, has as only cause that nation states gave their sovereignty away.

As to the ideological basis of the EU, mainly the fairy tale of the evil Germans, two world wars and the holocaust.
I must admit that until say fifteen years ago I also believed these fairy tales.
One does not expect to be lied to consistently by nearly anyone and anything.
If spreading these fairy tales was lying, can even be discussed.
I'm inclined to see just concious lying as lying.

Anyhow, these fairy tales prevented common sense to understand that culturally there is no such thing as Europe.
Culturally, thus also not economically and socially.
The Brussels love of mass immigration, forcing member states to accept in fact any migrant, is caused, I fear, by the realisation that the European Reich can only exist if the 28 or so different cultures have been destroyed, even the probablity of civil war seems acceptable to Brussels, I fear.

[Jan 03, 2019] Why France's Yellow Vest protests have been ignored by "The Resistance" in the U.S. by Max Parry

US "resistance" is as fake as it can be. It consists mainly of Clinton wing of DemoRats (in pocket of Wall Street) and neoliberal presstitutes in MSM.
Macron is seen as a former Rothschild banker who had the idea that he could 'modernise' France in the neoliberal Brussels way. According to the latest poll 61% of the French reject Macron's policies.
Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

In less than two months, the yellow vests (" gilets jaunes " ) movement in France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week, demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium and the Netherlands. Just as el uture EU designer was fortunate enough to have friends in high places. Schuman's clemency was granted by none other than General Charles de Gaulle himself, the leader of the resistance during the war and future French President. Instantly, Schuman's turncoat reputation was rehabilitated and his wartime activity whitewashed. Even though he had knowingly voted full authority to Pétain, the retention of his post in the Vichy government was veneered to have occurred somehow without his knowledge or consent.

... ... ...

Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His work has appeared in Counterpunch, Global Research, Dissident Voice, Greanville Post, OffGuardian, and more. Max may be reached at [email protected]


JLK , says: January 2, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT

Thierry Meyssan is reporting that Macron is more of a stooge for Henry Kravis (of the KKR corporate raider firm) than for the Rothschilds. He also alleges that Kravis has been funding ISIS/Daesh.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article204303.html

Rothschild made a comment the other day about the Italian government debt problem. French banks have heavy exposure. France has troops in Syria; has the French army been leveraged into a mercenary force for wealthy Zionists?

OMG , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:44 am GMT

Not a bad article 'though I have read more profound philosophical discussions about the underlying historical underpinnings to this movement. [see eg. http://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-ghost-of-1789-looms-over-france-and-europe/ .

The article by Angela Nagle which is linked to is, however, absolutely excellent and I thoroughly recommend reading it as a very powerful argument against unfettered immigration.

Justsaying , says: January 2, 2019 at 10:54 am GMT

Very perceptive to place "Resistance" between quotes. Resistance is non-existent in the US. True resistance requires an educated working class; instead the US has a amassed one of the most stupefied and brainwashed workers on the planet.

Alfred Barnes , says: January 2, 2019 at 11:17 am GMT

The Yellow Jackets movement isn't lost in the US, nor among those who support DJT. In fact, until the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement, both grass roots organized, recognize they have a common enemy in the status quo, they will continue to conquered by it.

The merge of fiscal and social responsibility is something the NWO wants to avoid at all costs while they implement their global currency and totalitarian rule. Globalists want to replace God with the state.

Paul C. , says: January 2, 2019 at 12:28 pm GMT
@Jeff Stryker

France and the US, like most nations, are controlled by the parasitical zionist central bankers and their deep state apparatchiks. They continue to squeeze the native populations into poverty and servitude, while destroying their culture with open borders, facilitating 3rd world immigration. The zionist controlled MSM won't cover the Yellow Vest movement in hopes to keep awareness low. Many would like to see it gain a foothold in the US. Unfortunately, Americans have been subject to fluoridation of their water supply, unlike France, and thus are docile. The pharmaceuticals and vaccines have rendered them zombies.

[Jan 02, 2019] IOW time is running out for the neo-cons, and they're only going to get Iran destroyed and hold onto power in the US through an outright Bolshevik style coup against the public (some kind of fabricated National Emergency)

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:28 pm GMT

@Miro23

IOW time is running out for the neo-cons, and they're only going to get Iran destroyed and hold onto power in the US through an outright Bolshevik style coup against the public (some kind of fabricated National Emergency).

Well, we already had one "fabricated national emergency" -- the 9/11 false flag. Do you think there'll be yet another? I mean something big, not like the Skripal thing.

[Jan 02, 2019] T>he NY Times exposes how aligned the globalist leftist elite is with the NEOCON globalist elite.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Danielson , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:17 am GMT

As usual Philip Giraldi out writes the NYT hacks. Stephens and his cohorts at the Times are constantly kvetching about Israel then they scream anti-Semitism if it's pointed out. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted with neocons.
wayfarer , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:46 am GMT

Trotskyism : the political, economic, and social principles advocated by Trotsky especially the theory and practice of communism developed by or associated with Trotsky and usually including adherence to the concept of worldwide revolution as opposed to socialism in one country.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism

Wally , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:54 am GMT
Excellent timing as I just found this at http://www.antiwar.com

!! American Legion Joins VFW in Calling for Congressional Investigation of Israel's Attack on USS Liberty !!

Contains significant text, images, &videos:
ex.:

https://hubpages.com/politics/American-Legion-Joins-VFW-in-Calling-for-Congressional-USS-Liberty-Investigation

Paul , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:40 am GMT
Pro-Zionist liberals such as those at the New York Times have the dilemma of how to oppose President Trump, who pursues pro-Zionist policies. A solution seems to be to argue that Trump is not really that pro-Zionist.
Low Voltage , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:52 am GMT

American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and out-and-out lies.

When was it ever any different?

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website January 1, 2019 at 10:35 am GMT
Israel Is Bad for America

Inspired by the Scofield Bible, it is, regrettably, a fundamental belief of millions of voters that Israel is good for America. In John Hagee's words , '50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel.'

The linked article concludes: 'Not least among the many victims of the Scofield Bible are 5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by America's Zionized Christians. Thanks to their indoctrination by Scofield's unholy book, they believe that Palestine belongs not to the Palestinians -- many of whom are fellow Christians -- but exclusively to "God's chosen people".'

Mark James , says: January 1, 2019 at 11:05 am GMT
I'm pleased to say I was not for moving the embassy and as for the Iran deal it was better than the alternative, with the potential for further talks down the road. Stephens didn't approve but both aspects of US foreign policy were good for the US. So why would we expect him to?

Where the clash is going to come is the Democratic party is not going to put up with this rubbish anymore. Yes there will be some holdovers (Schumer, Cardin et al.) but blanket support is not going to play with the next congress. They will lose donor support as well as media acceptance –from the Times– but Christian Zionism isn't a factor for Dem's and constituents see that a brutal Israeli government that is focusing on attaching itself to kindred spirit states led by strongman types, doesn't deserve support.

Franz , says: January 1, 2019 at 11:10 am GMT
Try "bad for the world."

"Israel is the sputtering fuse of World War III"

– Wilmot Robertson, December, 1981, The Dispossessed Majority

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
Johnny Walker Read , says: January 1, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
Does anyone else remember when liberal's were anti-war and despised the military?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=170&v=gv1KEF8Uw2k

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
JC , says: January 1, 2019 at 1:41 pm GMT
when we here about israel as the problem it is really not israel the country but israel the people. they are spread out over many countries but all still believe in their cult of israel i have read many times how the majority of them are not even ancestors of israel but are instead converts form centuries ago there are lawsutis in the US against the government aid to israel which vilotlates US law on providing aid to an undeclares nuke power,,,and against aipac for not registering FARA,,,they have gone nowhere In my opinion, their whole power comes from media control when the media goes on and on about bogus Russian influence and says nothing of israel influence you know you have a problem
Hamed Ghashghavi , says: Website January 1, 2019 at 1:55 pm GMT
The World will never be free and peaceful until we can liberate AMERICAN & European politcal, economic, military, intelligentsia, educational & cultural DECISION MAKING CENTERS from destructive & inhuman ZIONIST lobby. As Stephen Walt & John Mearsheimr wrote in their unique & worldwide known "US FOREIGN POLICY AND ISRAEL LOBBY" not only these lobbying organizations are anti US interests but they are as well against the long term interests of ISRAEL itself.

Briefly we should free mind of American people before all to have a ideal and productive world.

Hamed from Tehran

AkumalJack , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand, there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid "ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
AkumalJack , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand, there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid "ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
Z-man , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:25 pm GMT
This is what I said on Pat Buchanan's page about a comment, very apropos to this article, also from the NY Times "That comment from the NY Times exposes how aligned the globalist leftist elite is with the NEOCON globalist elite. There's 'no daylight' between characters like 'Linda' Graham and 'Up Chuck' Schumer when it comes to globalist hegemony. Thank God for Donald and keep America First!" The comment that Pat made his point on was this: 'In Monday's editorial celebrating major figures of foreign policy in the past half-century, The New York Times wrote', "As these leaders pass from the scene, it will be left to a new generation to find a way forward from the wreckage Mr. Trump has already created." This is what Pat attacked in his column.

Correct me if I'm wrong but America still has NO formal alliance treaty with the Jewish State, no?

And finally 'Bret Stephens'; How clever they are with their names.

Z-man , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@Hamed Ghashghavi The problem 'Hamed from Tehran' is that the Main Stream Media and the political class in the USA is almost completely owned by the rich 'Zionist Lobby'.
bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@anon It is a lot more than 4 billion a year.

For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.

Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.

Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if not billion.

Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.

Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.

Carroll Price , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
I wish the hell Trump was "bad for Israel", but unfortunately, he's not.
ChuckOrloski , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
@Mark James New Year greetings, Mark James.

I predict proactive Jewish Lobby Stink-Think Tanks have engineered plans to dramatically influence Democrat Congress & presidential candidate elections, and which are underway now.

Elections come and go but the Zio stump-song remains the same.

First, and as you should well understand Mark, particular campaigns for US Senate cost $millions simply to get a candidate's mere "name" in front of ever longing & frustrated American voters.

Of course, such efforts are enhanced by manifold "special interests" and billionaire campaign contributions.

Regrettably, U.S. election campaign "donor support" (uh, speech?) trumps the will of the paltry amount of Americans who indulge voting, and our Zionist Corporate Media obliges the biggest beneficiary winner$, and can finagle ideologically blind & typically GOP-Christian Zionist's to bloc vote for, i.e., brand-name & repackaged Zio Democrats, Pocahontas, Bloomberg, Biden, Bob Casey, etcetera.

In short, Mark, the "brutal Israeli government" expertly followed Protocols of Zion by neutering U.S. Congressional & Presidential democratic elections, and the Zionist Corporate Media entertainingly promotes the THEATER.

National rejection of the great "rubbish" work of, for one little example, NYT's Bret Stephens, is a giant step toward how America could become gallant/noble again, and afterward repent & focus upon strivation to "greatness."

Thanks, M.J., uh, not Jordan sneaker Nikes!

bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.

A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining Palestinians.

This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: January 1, 2019 at 6:36 pm GMT
Just what US interests in Syria justify the risk of war with Russia? Absolutely none! Bret is an israel Firster thru and thru.
bike-anarkist , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
"I still say that US and Russia should come to Israels help in hour of need.
But Israel also should stop behaving like rotten spoiled child."

Russia can provide the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (already exists), and the U$A can provide the means to move them there. Of course the FORMER Israel will have to pay for everything.

JLK , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:21 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

I support Great Britain and France, that does not mean I approve of colonial behavior or trouncing British or French identity. I can certainly support the existence of Is areal and chagrin their attacks and encroachments onto Palestine uninvited and without compensation or shooting protectors for the matter.

I tend to agree with you on this. No matter what one thinks of the morality of the events of 1948, most of today's Israeli Jews were born on the land and have a right to live there. They're no more responsible for the sins of their grandfathers than a modern German, except to the extent that they help perpetuate continued injustice.

With that said, what frightens me is the extent to which some of them have been emboldened by a combination of unchecked ethnocentrism and a sense of immunity from scrutiny and criticism. Particularly in the realm of ethnic bioweapons. Most of the leading DNA analysis companies seem to be Jewish-owned. It seems to be an area of emphasis with them. It was reported 20 years ago that Israel has an anti-Arab virus. Who else might be a target?

Israeli participation in spyware and their access to raw NSA data is also concerning. How do we know that the data isn't be used to intimidate Americans from speaking out, or to siphon money from ordinary investors by insider trading?

[Jan 02, 2019] Israel is hardly a normal country. It is an Apartheid Colony

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Ron T , says: January 1, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT

@polistra Israel is hardly a normal country. It is an Apartheid Colony. That's why it needs American support and will need it for the foreseeable future. It uses its co-religionists in the US to maintain an iron grip on US mideast policy, making sure that it is at the heart of it and that almost no dissenting voices can ever be elected in the US or get any mainstream media access. If that sounds like a normal country to you, I have a bridge for sale.

[Jan 02, 2019] Israel is not interested in fighting this fight alone. It has dragged others into it, including the US.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [119] Disclaimer , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:44 pm GMT

Bret Stephens and all his fellow Israel loving Zionists are foreign agents who should be stripped of their US citizenship.
geokat62 , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Adir

but as far your critisisms of Israel policy and 'undemocratic' and 'illiberal' stances and actions.
well guess what

You're missing the thrust of Giraldi's position. Israel can do whatever it likes as long as it doesn't entangle the US in their fight. But, as you well know, Israel is not interested in fighting this fight alone. It has dragged others into it, including the US. As long as the American taxpayer is forced to pay an annual tribute of ~$4B, they have every right to condemn Israeli policies that clearly don't align with their values. So, get used to it.

DESERT FOX , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMT
Israel is no friend of America , never was , never has been and never will be, and just a few examples, JFK was shot and killed in full view of Americans for his executive order 11110 which would have restored America to constitutional money bypassing the FED, who benefits?

The USS Liberty was attacked by Israel killing 34 and wounding 174 in an attempt to blame the attack on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the war against Egypt and of course Israel lied about the attack and got away with it!

... ... ...

Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
The Alarmist , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:51 pm GMT
You have to hand it to the Israelis for conquering like Romans.

As for the US in Syria, it has always had the potential for handing us a "Charge of the Light Brigade" moment where, like in the Crimean War, we manage to keep the Russians and the Iranians checked in the region for a few years, but at a cost where even the dulled senses of the US voter can't escape the toll taken to achieve this fleeting "strategic objective."

ChuckOrloski , says: January 1, 2019 at 4:10 pm GMT
@bucky Aware, Bucky said: "This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran."

Appreciate your posting of the wise sentences, above, bucky. Thanks.

Israel will never allow their territory expansion/M.E. hegemon goals to get interrupted by mere U.S. elections.

The will and desires of American voters are easily manageable, manipulated, & another major & fear-provoking "Homeland" False Flag attack, and voila, it's Fire & Fury upon Syria and Iran.

Esaka , says: January 1, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@polistra

Well, Israel itself isn't bad for us. Israel is a normal country defending its own interests fiercely. Every country SHOULD defend its own interests fiercely

But it is HOW they defend those interests that is problematic. Hungary has insisted that they will never tolerate a large number of migrants in their country. Hungary will be for Hungarians. They do not wage wars, they do not commit ethnic cleansing in other people's lands. They have merely closed their borders and that is a peaceful way in which they fiercely protect their interests. The same goes for Japan. Despite a stagnating economy caused by plummeting birth rates, the Japanese insist on a strict no immigrant policy. That is a peaceful way of fiercely protecting their interests.

Israel on the other hand is anything but peaceful. They engage in ethnic cleansing and drag the US (and whoever else they can con) into their conflicts. If we are looking for a foreign example to emulate, there's no question about it – we should emulate Japan and not Israel. Japan is a civilized nation where the people genuinely love their country. Israel is a thuggish and fascist state that justly deserves all the opprobrium they shamelessly whine about.

[Jan 02, 2019] The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire

The level of alienation of Palestians probably reached that stage at which reconciliation is impossible.
Notable quotes:
"... This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT

The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.

A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining Palestinians.

This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created.

Israel is Bad for America

bucky , says: January 1, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT

@anon It is a lot more than 4 billion a year.

For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.

Z-man , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
@bucky It's more that that, specifically to Izruel . If you include 'Non Governmental Agencies', the 'Charaties' and hedge funds funneling unknown amounts of ZOG bucks to the land of Zion plus other underhanded methods of getting money to their Zionist bretheren, it's in the tens of billions .
Carroll Price , says: January 1, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT
@anon

Other than brain-dead Christian fundamentalist, it come's as no surprise that Jews who wrote the Old and New Testament, granted themselves special permission to violate virtually every moral law and restriction known to mankind, including the right to steal land and resources belonging to others. While, at the same time, giving themselves the right to condemn anyone daring to point-out their lying and deceptive ways.

Realist, January 1, 2019 at 7:44 pm GMT

@bucky

Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.

Middle East involvement costs trillions of dollars.

[Jan 02, 2019] In these times, the real political debate is centered around the issues of migration and national identity. It's what Brexit was all about.

Jan 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

geokat62 , says: January 1, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT

@wayfarer

How the Globalists Stole Our Home

Great video. I especially enjoyed these remarks:

In these times, the real political debate is centered around the issues of migration and national identity. It's what Brexit was all about. It's the reason the one thing all Trump supporters really want him to do, is to build the wall. It would be an international symbol of our longing for and right to nationhood a billion dollar monument to nationalism and a trigger for nationalist revival.

This is why the forces of globalism will throw everything at stopping it's construction. If Trump leaves office and that wall is not built, his presidency will have been for naught.

[Jan 01, 2019] Israel is Bad for America by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Donald Trump is Bad for Israel ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Jan 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and out-and-out lies. The public, though poorly informed on most issues as a result, has generally figured out that it is being hoodwinked and trust in the Fourth Estate has plummeted over the past twenty years. The skepticism about what is being reported has enabled President Donald Trump and other politicians to evade serious questions about policy by claiming that what is being reported is little more than "fake news."

No news is more fake than the reporting in the U.S. media that relates to the state of Israel. Former Illinois congressman Paul Findley in his seminal book They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby observed that nearly all the foreign press correspondents working out of Israel are Jewish while most of the editors that they report to at news desks are also Jews, guaranteeing that the articles that eventually surface in the newspapers will be carefully constructed to minimize any criticism of the Jewish state. The same goes for television news, particularly on cable news stations like CNN.

A particularly galling aspect of the sanitization of news reports regarding Israel is the underlying assumption that Israelis share American values and interests, to include freedom and democracy. This leads to the perception that Israelis are just like Americans with Israel's enemies being America's enemies. Given that, it is natural to believe that the United States and Israel are permanent allies and friends and that it is in the U.S. interest to do whatever is necessary to support Israel, including providing billions of dollars in aid to a country that is already wealthy as well as unlimited political cover in international bodies like the United Nations.

That bogus but nevertheless seemingly eternal bond is essentially the point from which a December 26 th op-ed in The New York Times departs. The piece is by one of the Times' resident opinion writers Bret Stephens and is entitled Donald Trump is Bad for Israel .

Stephens gets to the point rather quickly, claiming that "The president has abruptly undermined Israel's security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever. I write this as someone who supported Trump moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous and correct . I also would have opposed the president's decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds, maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on the Levant."

The beauty of Stephens overwrought prose is that the careful reader might realize from the git-go that the argument being promoted makes no sense. Bret has a big heart for the Kurds but the Palestinians are invisible in his piece while his knowledge of other developments in the Middle East is superficial. First of all, the phone call with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had nothing to do with "undermining Israel's security." It concerned the northern border of Syria, which Turkey shares, and arrangements for working with the Kurds, which is a vital interest for both Ankara and Washington. And it might be added that from a U.S. national security point of view Turkey is an essential partner for the United States in the region while Israel is not, no matter what it pretends to be.

Stephens then goes on to demonstrate what he claims to be a libel, that for him and other neocons Israel always comes first, an odd assertion given the fact that he spends 80% of his article discussing what is or isn't good for Israel. He supports the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem, the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which were applauded in Israel but which are extremely damaging to American interests. He attacks the planned withdrawal from Syria because it is a "core interest" for the U.S., which is complete nonsense.

Contrary to Stephens' no evidence assertion, Russia and Iran have neither the resources nor the desire to "consolidate[e] their grip on the Levant" while it is the United States has no right and no real interest to "maintain leverage" on Syria by invading and occupying the country. But, of course, invading and occupying are practices that Israel is good at, so Stephens' brain fart on the issue can perhaps be attributed to confusion over whose bad policies he was defending. Stephens also demonstrate confusion over his insistence that the U.S. must "resist foreign aggressors the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade," suggesting that he is unaware that both nations are providing assistance at the request of the legitimate government in Damascus. It is the U.S. and Israel that are the aggressors in Syria.

Stephens then looks at the situation from the "Israeli standpoint," which is presumably is easy for him to do as that is how he looks at everything given the fact that he is far more concerned about Israel's interests than those of the United States. Indeed, all of his opinions are based on the assumption that U.S. policy should be supportive of a rightwing Israeli government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has recently been indicted for corruption and has called for an early election to subvert the process.

Bret finally comes to the point, writing that "What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a president."

Stephens then expands on what it means to be liberal-international: "It means we should oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order."

Bret also throws America's two most recent presidents under the bus in his jeremiad, saying "During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel -- the hectoring , the incompetent diplomatic interventions , the moral equivocations , the Iran deal , the backstabbing at the U.N. -- couldn't get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his predecessors look good." He then asks "Is any of this good for Israel?" and he answers "no."

Bret Stephens in his complaining reveals himself to be undeniably all about Israel, but consider what he is actually saying. He claims to be against "militant religious fundamentalism," but isn't that what Israeli Zionism is all about, with more than a dash of racism and fanaticism thrown in for good measure? One Israeli Chief Rabbi has called black people "monkeys" while another has declared that gentiles cannot live in Israel. Right-wing religious fundamentalist parties currently are in power with Netanyahu and are policy making for the Israeli Government: Shas, Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism. None of them could be regarded as a moderating influence on their thuggish serial financial lawbreaker Prime Minister.

And isn't Israel's record on human rights and civil liberties among the worst in the world? Here is the Human Rights Watch's assessment of Israel :

"Israel maintains entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally. Its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force, and prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial for hundreds. It builds and supports illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly impossible for them to build in much of the West Bank without risking demolition. Israel's decade-long closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact."

Israel, if one is considering the entire population under its rule, is among the most undemocratic states that chooses to call itself democratic. Much of the population living in lands that Israel claims cannot vote, they have no freedom of movement in their homeland, and they have no right of return to homes that they were forced to abandon. Israeli army snipers blithely shoot unarmed demonstrators while Netanyahu's government kills, beats and imprisons children. And the Jewish state does not even operate very democratically even inside Israel itself, with special rights for Jewish citizens and areas and whole towns where Muslims or Christians are not allowed to buy property or reside.

It is time for American Jews like Bret Stephens to come to the realization that not everything that is good for Israel is good for the U.S. The strategic interests of the two countries, if they were openly discussed in either the media or in congress, would be seen to be often in direct conflict. Somehow in Stephens' twisted mind the 1948 theft of Palestinian lands and the imposition of an apartheid system to control the people is in some way representative of a liberal world order.

If one were to suggest that Stephens should move to Israel since his primary loyalty clearly lies there, there would be accusations of anti-Semitism, but in a sense, it is far better to have him stick around blathering from the pulpit of The New York Times . When he writes so ineptly about how Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel the real message that comes through loud and clear is how bad Israel is for America.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Continued

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